Tuesday, November 8, 2011

The Tragedy at Penn State

I'm sure I'm not the only one in America who is stunned by the recent events at a once proud University - Penn State. You expect to hear things about boosters giving players money or players getting free cars and tattoos but this? Outside of the abuse that Mr. Sandusky dished out to young boys there is the obvious complicity of their venerated coach Joe Paterno. Known as "JoPa" in Happy Valley he is nothing short of a living legend around the school. 

But as the story begins to come out it has become clearer and clearer that Mr. Paterno knew that something had gone on and that something was probably still going on and he did nothing about it. Any attempt on his part to feign ignorance will sound false and unbelievable at this point.

You simply cannot work that long with another person without picking up on certain clues. Sandusky took some of these kids on road games with him - no concerns here? So now you have all these clues laying around and then a graduate assistant and his father come into your office and tell you that he personally witnessed Sandusky having anal sex with a ten year old boy in the locker room showers. So even if Paterno had been obtuse enough to have missed the clues up until then, what's his excuse after this?

Reporting it to his boss? From everything I've heard Joe Paterno for all practical purposes IS the boss at Penn State. So it's probably more likely that he had a conference with "his boss" and the two of them decided to keep it all in the Penn State family. That is flat-out criminal negligence. 


Too bad that instead of being sent to jail for a few days he will probably be given honorary retirement. I hope he realizes that outside of his very tight football family he's not likely to be welcomed anywhere else. No more trips to the White House JoPa!

Monday, November 7th, 2011

IS IT JUST ME???????????

Now that the guilty verdict is in on Dr. Conrad Murray and we can all go on with our lives I would like to offer up these questions: What is wrong with all the people hanging around outside? Don't they know that there are bigger issues than this? Focus people.

Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me.........

It appears that the final nail in the coffin of Herman Cain might finally have been driven home. After days of bumbling denials in the face of irrefutable evidence a woman has put a face on his behavior. Aside from his crass and cynical attempt to score based on his ability to get this woman a job, his dismissal of all of the allegations reeks of Bill Clinton's "I did not have sex with that woman" and reflects poorly on him at best.

Serious Republicans are quietly ecstatic while Democrats are disappointed that the Herman Cain show might have been canceled. Privately Dems would LOVE to run against 9-9-9, Chinese nuclear capabilities, electric fences, moats, etc. But neither Republicans or Democrats should assume that Cain is dead yet.

You see a funny thing happened to the fork the experts were all getting ready to stick in Cain's ass. The tea party faithful have risen up to defend him, contribute to his campaign, and crop dust news and blogging sites with angry denials and talk of public lynchings. Pointing out to these non-reality planet dwellers (NRPD's) that it was Republicans, most probably one of his GOP primary competitors, who gave this information to Politico is completely lost on them. They are so focused on it being an attack by the non-existent "liberal media" that they can't see the forest through the trees.

And that, friends and neighbors, is the absolutely hilarious irony of the whole thing. The conservatives have done such a good job of indoctrinating their followers that all media is A. liberal and B. liberal that any report coming from them is clearly untrue. It's such a knee-jerk reaction for the tea partiers that they can't even stop themselves.

My guess is that even with the support of the NRPD's Cain won't get past this. But my letter to Santa this year will include a wish that conservatives "liberal media" tactics come back to bite them in the butt and the far-right Republican primary voters select Herman (Don't you want a job?) Cain to run against President Obama. Please, please, please............

Seahawks build a bonfire of slights to warm themselves before the Playoffs

I know that technically the NFL and politics aren't related but I've always been of the opinion that politics are one of the roughest sports out there (just ask Dino Rossi), so what the hell? I'm going to write about the Seahawks.

I've been enjoying this week as only a fan thrown an amazingly tasty bone right before imminent starvation can possibly imagine. Listening to sports radio, gleefully googling every local newspapers sports pages (if you haven't read Art Thiel then do so immediately, I'll wait), and scanning the national news for pebbles of information about the surprising Seahawks.

Locally we are a shining example of true blue fans. I have seen very few local sports fans on the air or over the internet that have had the cajones to say they weren't supporting the team because their overall record was so poor. I think you'd probably find a lot more of that from a more cynical fan base like New York (nothing personal) but here in Seattle the hope remains stunningly high. Some might say "borderline insane" high.

But digging around this week on the national level has been an exercise in self-flagellation. I mean it's really bad. We've even had some blowhards call for a change in the playoff system so that teams like the Seahawks could never make it to the dance.

Starting pregame people like Mike Ditka and Chris Berman were insulting us in a way they would never do the cheating, narcissistic Brett Favre. Some teams and or people are easy to kick around. Small market, who cares.

Since then it has bordered on the ridiculous. This is just some of what I've heard so far this week:

a. New Orleans should rest their starters during the game because they won't need them to beat the Seahawks.
b. The Seahawks are like a junior varsity team compared to New Orleans.
c. The Seahawks are just happy to be here.
d. The Seahawks have no defense.
e. The only reason the Seahawks won on Sunday was because the Rams lost.

The list could go on and on. It seems like nationally the bandwagon is "dissing" the Seahawks and everybody is getting on board. Now the only challenge is who can find the "catchiest" insult and how to say the same thing about the Seahawks every day until Saturday without sounding repetitious.

My only hope is that the Seahawks are using each one of those as kindling for the fire. Everyday they can bring another one in, this one labeled "junior varsity" and that one labeled "no defense," and add them to the growing pile. If the Seahawks are well-prepared, determined, and lucky then maybe that fire will burn hot enough to give them a whole other week of the same damned thing. Go Seahawks!

Get Ready for a whole lot of Nothing from GOP

I guess we don't need to wonder where KIRO 7's political loyalties lie since they preempted The Young and the Restless to cover the most non-newsworthy event since the last weather/media hysteria here in Seattle. Otherwise you would have to wonder why they thought that John Boehner being sworn in as Speaker of the House would be MUST WATCH television here in the liberal bastions of King County. I mean who besides Kemper (It's all about me, really) Freeman, Jr. wanted to watch that crap?

Perhaps as their phone lines, e-mails, tweets overloaded with highly agitated "Young, Restless, and Democrat" fans brought this unfortunate choice home to them. But my guess is they already were very well aware of the kick back they were going to get from their viewers and they just didn't care. Decisions made at the top based on political leanings and not on what is interesting or relevant. It is not as if those that couldn't miss the non-event couldn't have found it on a 24 hour news channel. So thanks for that KIRO.

And speaking of the new Crier of the House, you can expect a whole lot of nothing out of these corporate representatives. I love CNN yesterday doing this entire story about how having the Health Care bill overturned by these "we're all for the big guys" members of Congress because it was an absolutely pointless piece of journalism. The new members of the House of Representatives CANNOT overturn the Health Care bill because the American people left the Senate in the Democrats hands.

Boehner and his cohorts can scream all they want about what "the American people" ("the American people" translates from Republican to English as "the multinational corporations") voted for them to a.) lower taxes for the super-wealthy, b.) repeal the restraints on poor, poor Wall Street, c.) return all health care decisions back to the insurance companies, d.) chip away at Social Security and Medicare (lazy fucking old people), e.) and, impeach President Barack Obama. But scream is all that they can do because if that was true the real "American people" would have sent a bunch of asshole Republican to the Senate as well. It's not as if they didn't have a wonderful bouquet of candidates to choose from - Christine O'Donnell and Sharon Angle for instance. But they decided against it because sometimes you feel like a nut and sometimes you don't!

So, Republicans, stop shouting that this is what the American people want. It's not as if you care or even know what the average American wants anyway. Your agenda has been for the rich since the 1980's so why pretend.