America the Ignorant?

What's that?  You would like my far-reaching generalizations about America?  Well you're in luck.  I just so happen to have this blog post sitting around for you to nod your head/wag your finger at.

Here is my issue with America as a whole:  We are a country of willfully ignorant people.


I don't want to learn how to change my password because then it will be my responsibility to do it.  


I don't want to  learn a new skill so because then I'll have to get off welfare and get a job.  


I don't want to research the candidates.  Can't I just vote for the Republican?  Or the black one?  Or the one that takes her kids to hockey practice?

And the worst part?  We reward this kind of behavior.

When is the last time you heard of a person being denied their welfare check because they failed a drug test?  NEVER would be the answer for me personally.  Let me see if I can wrap my head around this:  A man has a job working 40 hours a week bringing home just barely enough money to feed his family.  On the weekends he meets up with his buddies to smoke a little weed.  One day he fails a drug test and gets fired.  Now he's on welfare and can collect money comparable to his former salary AND he can smoke anytime he wants to.  Why get another job?  There's absolutely zero advantage to it.

Somehow we have transformed into a country so caught up in its own hype that we can't see how we're destroying ourselves.  America is the "greatest country in the world".  I completely agree with this.  But we could do MUCH better.  

We give billions of dollars to other countries to help feed their homeless and give relatively nothing to our own.  We go on mission trips to Belize or some trendy Florida city to build/repair houses but our neighbor three streets over has a garbage bag for a living room window.  We adopt babies from Malawi but won't adopt babies from Milwaukee.  Was there anyone clamoring to help the New Orleans residents living in glorified shacks before the national news was covering a hurricane?  

There is such a malaise over the entire country that even the people who genuinely want to help are drowned out by PR firms pushing celebrity endorsed Twitter hash tags.  90% of politicians are nothing but a perpetual reelection machine (completely quantifiable and scientifically researched statistic, of course).  Don't make a scene by standing for something new or different or you won't be reelected.  

Then get out there and run for office yourself you may say.  But I'm not sure I could handle the game that would have to be played.  I don't have the connections, lineage, military experience, or wealth required to even get started.  Some may say that's a bullshit response.  Some of you are probably right.

But honestly, I can't decide whether I want to run for office, work my way into the government, and try to make the changes I crave, and the changes I think America needs, or whether I want to give away anything with a battery or a power cord and buy a farm in rural Wyoming.  My desire changes daily.  And for that reason, I cannot allow myself to get involved.  If you're going to do something as important as serving in our government then do it with 100% of your being.  If you can't give 100%, then get out of the way.  

I freely admit I'm a cynical bastard, but am I really?  Do I look for the worst in people or do I just rail against willful ignorance?

I used to pity the poor bastard who trudged through life, paycheck-to-paycheck, never paying attention to the world crumbling around him.  But the older I get the more I crave the simplicity of here and now.

NYC Mosque

Hot on the heels of my last post about Islam, today I'm talking about the proposed mosque near ground zero in New York City.  I have a simple question:

Are we a country that claims to have freedom of religion?  Yes?  Then what's the problem?

The argument about whether this mosque should be allowed is once again focused on the wrong issue.  The issue is not about whether it's a good idea to build this mosque. (It's probably not.  It would have a target on it that anti-Islamics could see half a world away.)  The argument is about whether it should be allowed to be built.  And the unequivocal answer to that question is Yes.  If the people who submitted the plans deem that the time isn't right or it's too risky to build right now, then that's their decision.

We can't have freedom for some whenever it's convenient.  We must have freedom for all, at all times.

It's the exact same problem when talking about any of the other hotbed issues; abortion, gay marriage, right-to-die, etc.  It's not about whether you agree with the specific opinion.  It's about whether you agree that each person has the right to make his/her own decisions about his/her own body.

The Qur'an Burning

I just saw another report about a bunch of idiots on Florida having a good old fashioned Qur'an burnin' in "honor" of September 11th.  Can someone please shoot these assholes before they cause more troops to die?  You don't think this might inflame the ENTIRE ISLAM NATION?  Stop for just one second and put yourself in their shoes.

You're a normal, everyday Muslim living life and trying to deal with the bastardization of your entire religion by twenty idiots with some airplanes.  And nine years (!!!) later some chuckleheads are burning your holy scriptures because they can't differentiate between coerced hatred and true religion.

Cut back to us.  Let's say a group of radical Christian terrorists (doesn't sound so evening news-friendly, does it?) fly over to Mecca and take down some buildings and a few thousand people.  Their surviving cult members release videos using scripture from the Bible to justify what they've done and call on all "true" Christians to take up the call and destroy the enemy.  Sound familiar? You think maybe if a group of Muslims got together on the ninth anniversary of that day to burn a whole slew of Bibles that normal, everyday Christians might get a little upset?

Islam ≠ Terrorism.  Correlation ≠ Causation.  All squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares.  But even that is a misnomer.  Just because these terrorists were Muslim does not mean every terrorist is a Muslim.  In fact, anyone with sense would argue these particular terrorists were not adhering to Islamic teachings when they chose to take another human's life.  Much like a man killing his family, saying God told him to do it, and then taking some obscure Bible reference out of context to support his claim.  This man may have been a "Christian" and he's using words from the Bible, but that doesn't mean Christianity supports his actions. 

Why can't people understand this?  

There's always another explanation:  Maybe this is just a publicity stunt.  That would put this man in a whole other category of evil.  

We already have enough scare tactics and cleverly designed stunts crafted by global conglomerates and politicians to tell us what we think.  Do we have to be subjected to the same schemes from our religious leaders now? 

Dream Sports Network

I the spirit of the return of football I thought I would have some sports talk.  I'll be honest; I can't stand the majority sports reporters.  They either try to sound too smart, or don't try to sound intelligent at all.  That said, I want to create a network with my fantasy team of sports analysts.  I'm not going to go into play-by-play or color commentary guys.  Too many to list for both the good and the bad.  But I will say that I, for one, enjoyed the Dennis Miller experiment on Monday Night Football.  I have never seen anywhere else where I can learn something about the Raiders' defensive line and 13th century existentialism at the same time.  And for that I thank you Dennis.

 I'm sure I will want to make changes to this in the future but here is my first draft.

These are my analysts:

NFL     - Chris Berman/Bill Simmons

MLB     - Bill Simmons/Chris Berman

NBA     - Bill Simmons/Dick Vitale

NHL     - Barry Melrose

CFB     - Chris Berman/Bill Simmons

CBB     - Dick Vitale/Bill Simmons

Chris Berman

This man can talk intelligently about ANY sport.  He almost makes me want to watch the CFL.  His calls are so iconic that my wife can quote them.  That's transcendence.  

Bill Simmons

Another guy who can make any sporting event intriguing.  I never miss a column from Bill.  His ability to mix knowledge with snarky comments is unparalleled.  He also never shies away from the truth.  If he made a bonehead prediction he will own up to it. 

Dick Vitale

Um...It's fucking Dick Vitale.  Seriously.  This guy could get me excited about defrosting my freezer. 

Barry Melrose

Possibly the only man to combine intelligence and a mullet since 1992.

I would also like to include Mike Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser.  On my station PTI would be an hour long, and Mike and Tony would be allowed to say whatever the hell they wanted to say.  I'm so tired of public figures being crucified for speaking their mind...particularly when they are paid to do just that.

And speaking of Kornheiser, Ron Jaworski only works on Monday Night Football with Kornheiser as his foil.  I love Jaws, but I love him in 45 second chunks with plenty of downtime afterward.  I feel like Jaws is the opposite of Ron Burgundy.  Burgundy will read anything verbatim from the teleprompter, right down to the punctuation.  Jaworski just inserts 17 exclamation points after every sentence.  It's tiring to listen to.  But it was tolerable with Kornheiser following up each outburst with understated sarcasm.  

These are the people I would like to hear from regarding the sporting world.  I'm sure I've left people out and I will add them as they are brought to my attention this year.  Feel free to let me know in the comments who I forgot.