HOCKEY NEWS


This just in... hockey is a rough sport. After all the clean and artistic skating that went on in the Olympic Tournament, the press and in my mind, non-hockey fans, have been quick to jump on a couple of incidents in the NHL.


I have watched the Matt Cooke hit on Marc Savard several times and I don't know what was wrong with it. Sure, Matt hit Marc in the head. But it isn't against the official rules for Cooke to have made that play. And here is another news flash- if you skate across open ice with your head down, expect to get it knocked off. Period.


If they want to change the rules, then do it. But to suddenly act like 'you don't know', is crap. They have been playing hockey like that only for ever. Then you have the hit Alex Ovechikin put on Brian Campbell. Watching the sports talking heads, they tried to paint 'Ove' with a goon brush. 'He's too talented to play like that... he costs his teams when he is off the ice because of that kind of stuff...', other nonsensical blather.


Ovechikin is intense. He is big. He is highly skilled and he plays as if he was the next to last man cut on the hockey team. If more cats skated with that kind of intensity, I think hockey would have more fans and a greater penetration in the United States. I mean, they watch cars 'turn left' for hours... hockey has a lot more going for it than auto racing of any kind!


RIGHT WING PIGEONS


There are a LOT of those here in Virginia. I have tried to find a link to a story that I saw last night about a movement to allow for juveniles to receive life sentences for crimes, here. This is despite solid science that says that adolescent brains aren't as developed as adult brains and that children really DO think differently than adults.


What I wanted y'all to see and maybe comment on, is the scarcely concealed prejudice of the one lady, who was all for sending 'lil Jahmal' to jail for life with no chance at parole. They also profiled a young brother who car jacked someone, did his 9 YEARS and managed to get a degree from Maryland. He was an example of a young person who got the opportunity to turn his life around from what could have been a critical mistake.


Being a minority, even one as open minded as I imagine myself as being, I always hear a 'they' when people like that lady spoke. This is laughable as the odds that she would experience an criminal event that would draw the minority population and her family are long. As for her being able to identify with the rare family who was terrorized in their 'white bread' life ... I see a lot of calling people 'spics and coons' in her so-called polite company.


I don't know what is up with Virginia Thomas... I mean, I get that she has a right to her voice and all. Not only that, she has been politically active in her career, independent of her husband, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. For me, it is more that despite her political leanings, I'd have thought she was more conscious than to be a 'tea bagger'.


In my mind, I find the movement to be lacking in unbiased thinking. Intellectualism seems to be a rare commodity among them. In fact, the tea bags have a 'less is more' kind of thing working. If you are someone that they can identify with as 'self made', i.e. Sarah Palin, the more credibility you will have with them. The glaring gaps in your qualifications will be seen as a badge of honor. That is a lingering sentiment from the W. Bush presidency. It was okay to have 'gotten by' in the world of the bad liberals and their smug book learnin'.


The noise that the Texas Board of Education causes with their influence on school textbooks is another example of what can happen when people who achieve beyond their intellectual level, reach a position where they have influence over people. Right now they are having the folks who make textbooks de-emphasize the influence of a FOUNDING FATHER of the COUNTRY, Thomas Jefferson, in American history. They want John Calvin who is no where near as influential as I am in American history to be taught instead. Not to mention the clear wrongheadedness of folks like Phylis Schafly and Sen. Joe McCarthy, as well. The scary thing about that is that HISTORY has shown how much damage they are actually responsible for and that they were clearly on the wrong side of history.


Calling these far right folks 'fringe' is doing everyone a disservice. This isn't a 'fringe' movement in the sense that it speaks to a small number of radicals. Not only does the tea bag cause speak for a lot of people, it also allows for the dark parts of normally quite and uninspired people to vent their frustrations. The lack of color in the followers isn't necessarily intentional as it is a by product of who the true audience is. But anywho...


WONDERING WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE..?


It has always been difficult for me to find a person who was as willing to listen to me spout off as I sometimes do, like this entry here. Don't know who I'd credit for doing more than simply 'tolerating' my own personal madness. In mind is an exchange I had with a reader over the commercials for All State featuring Dennis Haysbert. Seeing things as I do also requires a degree of contextualizing and respecting of MY opinion.

In some ways I regretted my response. The opinion of the reader was their opinion and I feel that I was trying to impose a view that was mine alone, unto the reader. My insecurity of not being in with the crowd has almost always had me keep a lot of things to myself and not to share them with others. You wouldn't believe how I worry about unintentionally offending someone. As to folks who offend me either intentionally or no, it used to be an opportunity for me to demonstrate tolerance. But now with all that I have going on, I don't have as much tolerance as I once did, when it to open discussions.