You don't have a right to not be offended. Period. That's okay. I don't either. No one does. And, in America, that's the law of the land:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." -First Amendment of US Constitution
If you had a right to not be offended, freedom of speech wouldn't be protected under the law, would immediately become nonexistent. But, thankfully, it clearly is protected. (This blog attests to this.) Black and white, plane and simple.
That's not to say someone has a right to verbally harass, intimidate or threaten you. Far from it. That wouldn't be in keeping in the "the pursuit of happiness" spirit. But you can be offended by someone else exercising their freedoms. Likewise, you have have every right to exercise your freedoms even if it offends someone who finds what you do repugnant. If we had the right to not be offended, that all ceases to exist.
Does that mean every utterance is morally covered by this constitutional guarantee? Absolutely not. Should we go out of our way to offend our fellow man for the sake of offending them? Not a chance.
I'd argue the people in Arizona hosting a "Draw Mohammed" rally are committing an immoral act. Hundreds of thousands of Muslim Americans and well over a billion other Muslims globally find any physical depiction of the Prophet Mohammed idolatrous and blasphemous. In other words, billions find it deeply offensive.
I'm sure those two Muslim men who went to a Draw Mohammed rally in Texas to gun the artists and patrons down were also deeply offended. (Thankfully, they were mortally wounded before they could kill anyone.) But -- for all that is rational and good -- how does being offended justify attempting to take someone's life? There are seven or so b-b-b-billion people out there. We're never all going to agree on everything, but we're all pretty much in lock step that killing in cold blood is reprehensible.
You think Christians are fans of shows like South Park and Family Guy parading, openly flaunting their disgust and amusement at God and Christianity? You think they leap for joy at unflattering portrayals of their Lord and Savior? Not a chance. They too are deeply offended. Just as I'm sure those shows' creators finds aspects of Christianity and other religions offensive. Far more often than not, Christians don't kill over it just because others don't see life the same way. To be fair, most Muslim aren't driving around shooting up conventions either.
There's plenty of room for all of us.
The point is we all need to practice tolerance. No one is forcing anyone to like something they object to. Society is making you accept and tolerate it though -- so long as it doesn't take away from their legal, inalienable, self-evident rights.
You want to punish people for deeply offending you? Do it by taking the moral high road. Don't stoop to their level by being equally offensive or, worse yet, harming them, even if they are bigoted, racist thugs. Taking up arms against anyone, however driven by ignorance and hate, who took up the pen makes you the villain by default. Just strengthen the bonds of this global family and let bitter cartoonists doodle in obscurity while the rest of us enjoy our lives and each others company, even if we don't always like how the other lives.
I'm offended every day -- and I wouldn't want it any other way.
Looks like my October trip to Italy just got delayed until November instead. Why? So my buddy and I can see the mighty, mighty Foo Fighters twice while in Italy! Seeing our favorite band and in the country I most want to visit seems like the fulfillment of a dream I didn't even know I had!
I'm too allergy riddled to think or write clearly today. So here's an awesome interview with my favorite artist and entertainer ever: Dave Grohl. Unlike me, he always brings the goods.
The FIFA Congress, by a wide, convincing margin, reelected Sepp Blatter to another term as president of FIFA. All those who voted for Blatt in the wake of the US arresting nine FIFA officials on bribery and corruption cast their vote for plutocrats, not meritocracy.
What a blatant admission of guilt, of being fundamentally corrupt, all the while flaunting how much they simply couldn't possibly care less. If the US making sweeping arrests of its high-ranking officials isn't enough to convince the premier governing body of international soccer to reform, what possibly could?
It's not that as if this is the first concrete sign of FIFA's penchant for nefarious deeds. Russia and its (let's be honest) dictator Vladimir Putin unilaterally redrawing the world map through the country Georgia, later Ukraine, winning the 2018 World Cup bid was sketchy enough. But Qatar being awarded the 2022 World Cup?! That's as astonishingly corrupt as it is stupid.
Qatar has only one truly large city, Doha, with a population of just 1.5 million, where a whopping 90% of Qatari citizens reside. Next closest is Al Rayyan at 444,000 people. No other city even comes close to cracking the 100,000 mark.
Originally, they planned to actually host the game during the Cup's traditional summer block. Naturally, people howled with disapproval given that the average summer temperatures hover around 115 degrees Fahrenheit. I personally spent one miserable summer day on an airstrip in Qatar, temperatures pushing 130 degrees. It was far from pleasant. Something resembling common sense prevailed, and FIFA opted to shift the games towards more mild winter months. This upset many advertisers long-term commitment and plans.
Then there's the obvious stadium issue. Brazil's 2014 World Cup had 12 venues averaging 50,000 capacity. We're just seven years away from World Cup 2022 and Qatar still doesn't even have one stadium with that capacity, the closest being a lone 40,000 seater.
Qatar plans on expanding three of its current stadiums and build nine brand new ones. Nine. The 12 venues would combine for a total of 605,850 seats. If that seating is permanent, all those chairs would represent an almost laughable 28% of Qatar current total population. If they can't even fill their current 10k seaters, what will become of all those stadiums once World Cup patrons go home? Brazil is still having controversies with World Cup stadiums it built with a much larger population to help fill them. Qatar has no realistic long term plan for those stadiums. It also doesn't help that they have a non-existent soccer culture.
If it was just a matter of Qatari officials wasting the same petro dollars they used to bribe FIFA officials and letting the desert sands eat soon-to-be derelict stadiums, fine. They can probably more than afford it. It's the human cost that will keep people up at night.
Qatar is notorious for its human rights violations, practicing de facto slavery at the expense -- and lives -- of its migrant workers. Qatar has been hurriedly attempting to build up its inadequate infrastructure in preparation for the games. Migrant-worker death rates have spiked since the bid victory was announced in 2010. The International Trade Union Confederation estimates there have been 1,200 migrant deaths so far and that there will be a depressing, astonishing 4,000 more worker deaths by 2022. Deplorable. Disgusting.
When Qatar wins, Nepalese, Bangladeshis and Indians lose their lives by the thousands.
It would be awesome for an Arab, Middle East country to host a World Cup games, but it needs to go a country for its merit, not for its bribery and slave labor.
The reelection of Blatter shows just how low FIFA has gone and is yet willing to go. They went from rewarding South Africa in 2010 for its borderline miraculous conquering of Apartheid to Russian usurpers and Qatari slave holders. They don't care about overwhelming evidence or justice; they clearly only care about their financial, political interests, certainly not people and the sport.
I love the World Cup. Even though I'm pushing the big 3-0, I still can barely sleep when the Cup is just two weeks away. I'm that excited for it. But what does it mean when the hosts are undeserving countries who oppress and kill people? What does it mean when FIFA officials themselves are so undeserving of being the prestiges stewards of the world's game?
I won't be watching the next two World Cups. I suggest you do the same, to steal FIFA's and further highlight their inexcusable hypocrisy, "For the Game. For the World."
Those on the far left of America's political spectrum may have found their champion and presidential candidate. Bernie Sanders, an Independent Senator and liberal firebrand from Vermont, officially announced his candidacy for president yesterday.
So what planks form the platform our nation's newest Democratic hopeful?
The independent now running for the Democratic Party's nomination has set his crosshairs on the top 1%, making income inequality perhaps the defining issue of his campaign. He even went so far as to declare that if redistributing the wealth to the lower and middle classes slows national GDP growth or outright lowers it, redistribution is still worth it because Americans will be better off fiscally and happier overall. He's Occupy Wall Street's dream come true.
The senator recently proposed legislation to make all public universities tuition free for under grads. Under his plan, federal government would pay 2/3 of the tuition costs with respective states funding the remaining 1/3. Whether you find this plan wise or even realistic, it has the potential to garner young supporters. After all, there's now more student-loan debt than there is credit card and auto loan debt in a materialistically driven society.
Environmentalists seem to have found a kindred spirit in Sanders. He's advocates that Climate Change is real and man made, wanting to tackle Global Warming and confront deniers head on.
The merits and pitfalls of his and other candidates will be debated adnauseum for the next 15 months. In the here and now let's ask ourselves this: What are Senator Sanders chances at winning the nominations?
About a snowball's chance in hell at best.
The man publicly stated he views himself as a "democratic-socialist." In a nation were socialism is largely viewed as a derogatory word and often equated with Communism, claiming to be a socialist in any form is the political equivalent of swallowing a cyanide capsule. It was simply suicide. If his far-left stances weren't already enough to scare off the electorate and his own base, that socialist quote will scuttle whatever meager chances he had at the nomination or White House.
That's not to say he won't be consequential.
For now, he's the closest candidate America has to the prevailing leaders European countries are electing. Many point to downtrodden Greece as why we should avoid a European model of governance like the plague. Others look to prospering Scandinavian countries as a blueprint for success, Wherever you stand, Sanders will add a European flavor to the national debate.
Don't be the least bit surprise if the most memorable barbs launched during the Democratic Primary debates from from Sanders, aimed primarily at former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. Clinton is posturing herself as something resembling a centrist, bringing plenty of baggage and is the clear frontrunner, making her Sanders' default target. His liberal firebrand might even force Clinton to move more to the left for the general election than she would like.
Unfortunately for Sanders, firing up the base only enough to make Hilary move left and not move him up to polls means defeat is inevitable. But hey, he'll have an endless supply of quality comfort food waiting for him back in Burlington, Vermont.
While Sanders will never get a foothold in the White House, he will make footnotes in history books.
I guess another late-night related TV post couldn't hurt.
A recent New York Times article revealed Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central's Daily Show, has been quietly operating a training program aimed at teaching veterans entertainment industry skills and helping them get employment within the field. Apparently, Stewart's just now making this veterans program widely known because of his pending Daily Showexit and to encourage other Hollywood big shots to start similar ventures.
In a word, awesome. This is just simply, purely awesome. While I personally have no Hollywood aspirations, I know plenty of qualified, talented people who are, and I'm sure the America as a whole stands to benefit by having war veterans as writers, directors, producers and on-air talent.
I spent nearly five years in the active-duty Army as a print journalist in addition to being a soldier. Naturally, I've met many quality writers, from all military branches, who are hilarious, witty and superb communicators. Us print journalists worked hand-in-hand with our military broadcast journalist counterparts. Those broadcasters wrote TV spots, filmed segments from the field, edited them back at base, stood behind the camera to film the newscast or were in front of the lens when the lights came on. Many did radio work also. Both fields of military journalists have already been honing many of the same skills Stewart's program imparts. These service members, unlike many recent college graduates, have utilized this knowledge in high-stress (to say the least), real-world settings.
It's been this way for decades, yet can any of us name a war veteran that has had an impact on pop culture? Outside of Netflix, I don't digest many TV shows, movies or pop culture in general. That being said, I watch enough to know veterans are lacking a voice in our national consciousness. We've been at war or something awfully close to it for almost 14 years now. Can you name one time a veteran in the entertainment industry ushered us into an indelible moment about the trials, triumphs or historic significance of two incomprehensible, convoluted wars through pop culture?
I simply can't. I suspect the same is true for you. That's a shame-- maybe even an unacceptable one.
Stewart's and similar programs will, or already have, stumbled upon a gold mine of talent. That's not to say veteran's wishing to be in the entertainment industry are inherently more talented than their civilian counterparts. Talent can be found everywhere. But most veterans have gone through more rigorous tests and trials than a 22-year-old out of film school, many with the ability to entertain and communicate.
Even if you take veterans' already running some of the toughest gauntlets life can throw at a person out of the equation, we're still left with an important, needed voice left out of entertainment. A wise friend of mine once observed, "Media is the way the world talks to itself." When the world hears its own voice, shouldn't veterans make up an integral part of that voice? The answer is obvious. Thank goodness the Iraq War's biggest critic is doing something to fix it.
Not all US military bases in Afghanistan are created equal. Troops in remote firebases often have to live in tough, primitive conditions, a far cry from the creature comforts and decadence of typical American lifestyle.
For coalition troops at Kandahar Airfield, it's quite a bit different. It's certainly not home sweet home, but it's not half bad either. There was a Burger King trailer, something resembling a super market and the Canadians naturally saw fit to install a street hockey rink. Instead of eating MREs, we ate in high school cafeteria style "chow halls." (The cooks who worked them insisted on us calling them "dining facilities.") In some ways we were living in an oasis of Western Civilization.
On a blistering hot late June day in the lowland desert of southern Afghanistan, I joined a Special Forces team in our camp's chow hall to escape the heat and fill our bellies. I loved these guys. I'd been out with several other Special Forces teams at their bases and/or in the field, but these guys, let's call the Team Viking were the cream of the crop. The team's second in command, Nick, was an Army hero of mine I had met two years prior during a first-of-its-kind training mission in Pakistan. Not only was he a mountain of a man, a bad ass, he embodied why Americans are the good guys.
Nick alone would have been enough for anyone to pick the Vikings as their favorite Green Berets, but every soldier on the team down to the man was stellar, as warriors and citizens. They were what us younger guys aspired to be. Plus, we had the added benefit of having their small team on our battalion's camp. They were our heroes and neighbors.
Having been accepted by such high-caliber men and eating meals with them was always a joy and a feather in the cap for me. This was probably my dozenth lunch with them. I don't remember the specifics of the conversations, but it was basically us taking turns ragging on the other, all in good fun.
One member of the team, their youngest, John, always had a hard time lightening up. He was new to the Special Forces world, on his first combat deployment and probably felt like he had everything to prove to his more grizzled teammates. Because of this, he rarely smiled or laughed. His mind always fixated with a laser like focus on the next task. I had a rather high opinion of myself as a young adult and troop, but he was the only one near my age group that made me feel like I needed to step up my game and grow faster. In other words, I respected the hell out of him.
Naturally, I gave him the best ribbing I could, getting under his skin a little but trying to make him laugh above all else, to make him realize he was still young and could goof around too. It took a bit, but eventually the facade cracked just long enough to make him laugh. "Ahh, he can enjoy life after all," I thought to myself.
When there wasn't a trace crum to be found on any tray, we went about our separate business. The Vikings were meeting up with the Afghan Commandos they'd been tasked to train, mentor and take out on missions that deployment. They had invited me the day before to come out and join them for some Commando marksmanship training, but my Officer in Charge refused to let me sharpen my warriors skills "just in case" he needed me for some menial task.
I sat twiddling my thumbs for hours, waiting for my 12-hour minimum work day to end, cursing my OIC's name all the while for not letting me hang with those guys, when the atmosphere on our battalion's camp changed on a dime.
During a night operation, an IED struck a different Special Forces team's Humvee, claiming the life of one of our battalion's Green Berets.
It's part of the Soldier's Creed to "never leave a fallen comrade." It's nothing short of sacred to us.The honored task of gathering the remains fell to Team Viking. After receiving the Quick Reaction Force designation from command, the Vikings drove off in colossal up-armored vehicles known as MRAPs to retrieve their fallen comrade and augment the team that had already been dealt a brutal blow.
I knew having already been on one deployment that you are constantly finding out how much you take for granted being from a developed country like America. I never thought I would add structural engineer inspectors to the list.
As the convoy of Team Viking's MRAPs rumbled down a narrow dirt road to help their beleaguered comrades, the bottom fell out-- literally, I'm said to say. There are no codes or government standards on Afghan roads. They're often former goat paths vehicles have tried to transform into full fledge roads. This time though, the multiton up-armored MRAP was too heavy and the dirt road collapsed without warning, sending the vehicle and four troops, John, Randy, Simon and Chris, tumbling down a hill.
Fate was not on their side on this night. Their vehicle landed upside down in a frigid canal fed by snow melt still clinging to the surrounding mountain peaks. The water rushed in, shorting the electrical system and rendering the hydraulics necessary to open the bank vault, safe like door utterly useless.
Their multimillion dollar mobile battle shield had now become a watery tomb.
Little if anything is known of what exactly happened to Randy and Simon, both damn fine men. It appears likely they were killed when the transport rolled.
Chris was alive but fighting for his life. His seat belt likely had saved him, but heavy ammo canisters that had been dislodged and tossed around after the road collapsed had him entrapped, unable to reach and unbuckle himself. He was surely going to drown.
But then Chris felt a hand come down, unbuckle the seat belt and release his body armor. John was still alive doing everything he could to save Chris. Eventually, John was able to pull Chris up to an air pocket he discovered. John went back under water to see if he could find another, but that simply wasn't meant to be. John returned to Chris and they both waited in that air pocket for whatever fate awaited them.
Their Viking comrades all the while were outside the MRAP, hurriedly doing everything they could to rip the door open. Scores of us inside battalion's operations center watched the live predator drone feed of the rescue efforts playing out before our eyes, praying all the while.
After what seemed like an eternity, they were able to finagle the placement of a winch that pried the doors open. They quickly got all four men out began resuscitation efforts. One by one it became clear there friends were now corpses. But by some miracle, Chris, who had been shot the prior deployment, had an ounce of life left in him and their efforts slowly brought Chris back from the brink, confused, cold and delusional though he was.
The captain on scene ordered some of his men to scuttle their clothes and body armor as well as Chris's, using their body heat to ward off Chris's obvious hypothermia symptoms. Chris would live to fight another day and tell the tale.
Whether it was head trauma, oxygen deprivation, hypothermia or all the above, Chris went in and out of consciousness in that air pocket. He remembered John's life-saving rescue efforts, his vein search for more air and, lastly, John saying repeatedly, "I can't feel my legs."
John sacrificed his life to save Chris's. His youth and relative inexperience would never be called into question. He was the real deal, a true hero. We can now only hope he felt the validation of being the ultimate Brother in Arms. He was more than good enough.
Chris would continue on fighting that deployment. Months later though, while interrogating a suspected Taliban fighter, he saw prick squeeze his hand and heard a pop. Out of pure instinct, he kicked the insurgent knocking him and the chair he sat in over. The pop was the setting off the fuse of a suicide-bomber vest. Because Chris's boot had the terrorist's torso facing upwards and not outwards, most of the blast's force and shrapnel went into the ceiling. Chris survived being shot, drowned and would survive this too. That's not to say he didn't get banged up though.
On a field hospital's bed, he was awarded yet another purple heart and informed he was now solely to work desk duty. I think that, in that moment, bothered him more than what the blast did to his body. I'm sure his wife and family were more than thrilled though.
Years later, I went to Arlington cemetery to pay my respects to John and another man I knew who didn't make it back home from that deployment. Rodger.
I first visited Roger's grave, and even though we didn't spend nearly as much time around and with each other as I did John, I sobbed. Oh God did I sob.
How was I going to manage visiting the grave of someone I knew way better? How was I going to keep composure at the resting place of the one peer that pushed me to be more?
When I approached the grave, the tears immediately stopped. I rendered the snappiest salute I could muster and just stood in awe of the young man, my superior in every way. With all do respect to all the wonderful things Roger was, you just don't cry in the presence of John's remains. No, there's too much work left to be done. I have too much growing yet to do. Perhaps it's just the memories of all that he was and represented to me, but I like to think I felt his spirit, whatever it is that made him so focused and driven, made him forgo his own chance of survival to give someone else just a prayer of a chance.
Even after all these year I find myself wishing I could have chow and laugh with all those guys just one more time in that oasis.
RIP John, Randy and Simon. You are missed.
(Due to not knowing how the families involved would feel about their fallen's names being made public, I have opted to change Green Berets' names. Recounting this event relied heavily on the memories of testimonies from those involved. Many years have passed, but I provided the most accurate retelling of that fateful day I possibly could without asking others to relive it. Thanks for reading.)
While Ireland is certainly not the first country to legalize same-sex marriage, their acknowledging of gay equality in the eyes of the law is nothing short of a monumental historic achievement.
For the first time in human history, same-sex marriage was legalized by popular vote. It wasn't decided by a few dozen representatives in a parliamentary chamber. It was made law of the land by people taking to the streets and making their voices heard at the ballot, passing the measure by a 62% to 38% margin, an overwhelming victory.
Another reason why this is so consequential is because Ireland is a country with much of its history and identity deeply rooted in Catholicism. How much this referendum passing is a reflection of an increasingly marginalized Catholic church or the evolution and reform it's undergoing can't be definitively said. My guess though, it's a lot of both.
If you would have asked me a year ago if Ireland would have legalized same-sex marriage through any means, I would have told you "definitely no." After all, Ireland recently made divorce legal by popular referendum by a narrow margin in the mid 90s. But change is, and has been, in the air for some time
And that change is far from being limited to just Europe. Since 2003, after Massachusetts became the first, 37 states have made same-sex marriage legal. If the prevailing winds continue to hold -- and all signs point to that being the case -- it seems inevitable that gay marriage will be federally legalized and recognized.
It's long overdue. I've heard about every argument under the sun for and against . The arguments against just don't hold up to logic, and, I would argue morality, itself.
Let's go with the logic side of the house first: If being gay was a choice (and why that factors into the equation anyways is beyond me), who would choose to be ostracized or completely disowned by the family they love? Worse yet, coming out in some countries and cultures equates to certain death, violent at that. Again I ask you, who would choose that?
Over a thousand species have been documented to exhibit homosexual behavior, including many of our closest ancestral cousins. The evidence is and has been overwhelming for some time. I mean, can a gay buffalo really be living in sin?
While it's certainly true that we choose our sexual behavior, we have no say in our biological sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, etc. For example, I grew up in the church and went to Protestant Christian schooling up until my junior year of high school. We were conditioned to treat abstinence like a badge of honor. Most of us, at least publicly, practiced what we were preached. Did us not having sex make us asexual? Nope. I assure you, my circle of friends and I were very much heterosexual. We just chose to behave like asexuals. See the difference?
So what government or society has any right whatsoever to tell two consenting adults how to behave sexually? It's not just their choice. It's their inherent right.
I'm very much on the far end of the heterosexual spectrum. I don't have fantasies about men. I don't have sexual dreams about them. I've never been aroused by them. There would be absolutely nothing wrong with that if I did experience those things, but the point is this: I had absolutely no say in my heterosexuality, at all, period.
I mean, did any person hit puberty go "Well, on one hand, we have penises. On the other, we have breasts. I better weigh these two on the proverbial scale and decide now, for forever and always, which one I'm attracted to"? I know I didn't. Breasts were just always fantastic. It was innate, hardwired into me. Since the heteros among us didn't choose to be straight, logic only dictates homosexuals, bisexuals, asexuals and transgendered had absolutely no say either.
Now for the morality side of the argument: Let's say you're a Protestant Christian man who has been partnered with a women for 20 years. You've built an entire life with this person, been to hell and back. She's your everything, your soul mate. Then one day on your way to work, you get broadsided by a pick-up truck. You're in the hospital, alive but in serious condition. All you want to do is see your partner.
The sad thing is, you can't. In this scenario, your partner you built a life with is Catholic and Protestant-Catholic marriages are illegal in your state/country. She is not "family" according to the law; she has no visitation rights.
How unspeakably cruel? Hey, you chose to be Protestant.
Why people try to stop same-sex couples from adopting children baffles me. For starters, a child raised by the state, in orphanages or foster homes their whole lives, tend to not fair as well as children raised by two devoted parents, regardless of the parents' sexual orientation. To cut same-sex couples off from such a noble undertaking not only deprives them of the right to pursue their happiness and life's fulfillment, it deprives those children of much, much more.
Doesn't seem to make sense, does it? Pure madness. But scenarios like this one have played out for same-sex couples countless times over the course of human history. It's time we put a stop to that.
Love is powerful and massive. Why societies continue to try to relegate it to narrow confines that don't exist in reality is nothing short of oppressive. The majority of Irish people have recognized that. Their gay population and people as a whole are now better off for it.
I just look forward to the day my friends in my home state of Ohio and across the nation I served and love with a passion can all marry the person they love. It's time for America to be become even more American. In the mean time, congratulations to the people of Ireland! You've done the world a great service.
As it turns out, usurping sovereign land from a peaceful people is a major turn off to its peaceful women. What a shocker, right?
Russia's unlawful annexation of Crimean Peninsula, an exceedingly strategically important swath of land, under the guise of protecting the ethnically Russian population living there has basically pissed off the rest of the world. While government bodies the world over threaten further sanctions against Putin and Moscow it's a movement by some Ukrainian women to make it all quiet on Russia's western front.
A Facebook group with over 5,000 Likes to date has launched a campaign titled Don't Give It to a Russian. Yep, many Ukrainian women are now pledging to withhold sex from all Russian men.
Some Russians have responded by calling the group a bunch of "prostitutes." This is curious seeing how one putting on a chastity belt and not having sex with someone makes them inherently not a prostitute. They're probably just lashing out because they know Russian troops will be feeling as blue as certain portions of their male anatomy are sure to become.
After all, who wouldn't want to have a night of passion with women who look like this?:
If that doesn't make the Ruskies want to use a little more diplomacy and tack in their international relations, especially with the girl next door, I don't know what will.
I happen to live in a mixed neighborhood comprised mainly of young African American families and retired Russians and Ukrainians. While most of the retirees are naturally up there in years, many of their grown children still live or often hang out at their townhouses. With all due respect to the Russian ladies, the Ukrainian women are bombshells, simply drop-dead gorgeous.
If Putin doesn't order an immediate withdraw, I will threaten my Russian neighbors with encouraging the local Ukrainian girls to join their sisters across the Atlantic in solidarity. Even Mr. Insecurity himself, Vladimir Putin, has to have a soft spot for the cries of sexually deprived Russian men the world over. Poor, poor Ivan.
Hey, it might not seem like much, but the sooner the fine people of Ukraine no longer have to fear the specter of Russian aggression the better. If that includes keeping legs crossed so be it. If Ivan doesn't like it, tough. He can go Crimea river. (I'm not sorry. It had to be done.)
As I mentioned in my previous post, David Letterman inspired me and I'm a late-night TV junkie. Naturally, I watched with great interests as the icon ended a 33 year broadcasting career, five years longer than I've been alive.
Dave would be the first to tell you he never measured up to his idol and mentor, Johnny Carson, but his finale ran circles around Carson's send off.
The end began with most living former presidents and Obama declaring "Our long national nightmare is over." Quintessential, self-deprecating Dave through and through. Letterman ended the intro by approaching our president and asking if he was "being serious?" Must have been one hell of a victory lap for a boy from small town Indiana.
The legendary Hoosier's last monologue was hilarious and had the feel of a viking funeral. The man has rightly been criticized for obviously being often disinterested in his own the last decade or so. Him being so engaged and in the moment on this night provided a stark, refreshing contrast from curmudgeon Dave. For my money, he was better than the competition even when he was flying on autopilot, but when he was invested in a segment or show, his generation never came close to providing an equal.
The final Top Ten list was read not by Dave but by something resembling his top ten all-time favorite guests. Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tina Fey stole the bit, saying "Thanks for letting me take part in another hugely disappointing series finale" (Ha! That look on Jerry Seinfeld's face!) and "Thanks for finally proving men can be funny" respectively.
Several montages and retrospectives showed Dave at his best with kids, providing atrocious , though hilarious, customer service at a Taco Bell drive-thru window and others encapsulating Dave's irreverent charm.
Then came the long anticipated and dreaded farewell speech. He spent nearly 11 minutes deflecting praise of being the most influential comedian of his generation to everyone else who works on the show. His behind the scenes, day-in-the-life vignette showed that Dave's a talented broadcaster in front of the camera, but none of it gets done without the work of all of those behind the scenes.
While he was appreciative, one could sense he was a bit relieved, if not exhausted, by the three-decade long grind of making an episode almost every week night. He'll miss it, but he knows its time.
He became vivacious though as he thanked his wife and son. One could tell he was ready to be a full-time dad, one far older than most.
After all the thank yous and goodbyes, he ended his broadcast career by introducing the Foo Fighters and succinctly saying, "All right, that's pretty much all I've got. The only thing I have left to do, for the last time on a television program: Thank you and good night."
I'm told Letterman exploded into the American consciousness all those years ago. He was going out not with a whimper but a bang.
The Foo Fighters (my favorite band) ripped into an extended version of perhaps their most popular and best song, "Everlong". They once cancelled a South American tour date to fly up and perform it on Dave's first episode back after quadruple bypass surgery. His relationship with the band and the deep personal meaning the song carries with him was underscored by the barrage of still shots fired off in rapid succession, condensing an entire 30-year, 6,000-episode career into a mere five minutes, the Foo's performance thrashing in the background. Overwhelming and perfect.
As surely as the sun will rise at dawn, David Letterman would be there to make us laugh and tuck us in at every weeknight at 11:30 P.M. With that bang, in that instant, that certainty ceased to be. An era ended; an entire generation no longer has a standard bearer to carry the comedy torch.
Being a late-night junkie, I measure time and define eras by TV hosts who work the late shift more than most. For me personally, it was the last (non-animated) vestige of my youth no longer on TV. I always enjoyed when my Mom would let me stay up late to watch Leno or Letterman (or she just fell asleep before making me go to bed). I didn't always get the jokes, but they almost always made me laugh. Sadly, I'll never get to do that again.
But with every era that ends a new one is born. Maybe Letterman's replacement, Steven Colbert, or Jimmy Fallon will be to me what Leno and Letterman were to my parents in their 30s and 40s. Maybe the whole late-night talk show formula will be unrecognizable, catering to YouTube clips instead of an hour of television. Either way, it will be exciting to watch what transpires.
But for now, I'll feel just a tad melancholy that the only way Dave will make us laugh from now on is through his legacy and not his company.
Comedy may be humanity's salvation, at least on this earth.
If you're like me, you find a lot of your laughs on late-night talk shows. Some say the medium's too formulaic and dying, or completely changing, due to advent of the internet and streaming technology. I don't know how much of that is true, but I do know I'm something a late-night talk show junkie. I've spent a handful of days watching the previous night's episodes of every host's show. Yep, all of them. Why? Why not? What's life without laughter?
For a week (for anyone born before 1990 at least), we all knew exactly how empty that felt.
September 11, 2001 stunned America, and we didn't know what was right any more, what normalcy was or should be, if we would ever get back to it and what it would look and feel like. The late-night talk shows, Saturday Night Live and seemingly anything with a laugh track went completely dark for a week. It wasn't okay to laugh, not that anyone really wanted to -- but we surely needed to. My 15-year-old self was chief among them.
No one in entertainment or Hollywood seemed to know when it would be okay to laugh again, to just live life again. It's a president's job to lead and comfort a nation, but even a president is powerless when it comes to determining when it's okay to chuckle while there's a gaping void in your city blocks and your countrymen's hearts. Nope. Only the instincts and astute observation of a seasoned comedian, a court jester, one that had his finger on the American pulse every night for decades, could determine that. Maybe it had to be one who could see the still smoldering ruins of collapsed skyscrapers from his own place of work, his backyard.
After being in the dark for a week, Letterman turned the lights of his, and seemingly every other comedy show, back on. His 9/11 Monologue wasn't particularly funny, nor was his episode. It was thick with grief, anger and confusion with just bits of laughter sprinkled in. In other words, it was the perfect transition into a post-9/11 world, one where it was okay to laugh again.
Within that monologue he gave a quote that rocked me, one of those ten or so quotes that inspires and sustains you for life: "There's only one requirement of any of us, and that is to be courageous. Because courage, as you might know, defines all other human behavior. And, I believe -- because I've done a little of this myself -- pretending to be courageous is just as good as the real thing."
Picture courtesy of Adweek
It was 2008, and I was flying in the belly of a CH-47 Chinook Helicopter surrounded by Special Forces Green Berets fast approaching what would surely be my first combat experience. I was completely out of my league. These bad asses had infinitely more training than I, a mere regular Army, convention soldier kid. They had been through the most rigorous training in the world. Nearly all had been tested in the conflagration of combat dozens of times over. I was nothing short of a liability; I was the weak link. If something went terribly wrong, surely it would be my fault, warrior blood on my hands.
When that reality set in, I started shaking like a leaf. Luckily it was early morning and the back hatch of the Chinook was open, throwing in a constant stream of frigid wind eddies that chilled us to the bone. One SF Soldier noticed my shaking and gave me the thumbs up/down signal, asking if I was alright. I used the universally recognized "I'm freezing" gesture. He seemed to buy it. I didn't.
I don't know what came over me shortly after that wordless exchange. I started to hear Offspring's "Hammerhead" song playing in my brain. I got amped, pumped the fuck up and suddenly felt every bit of he Green Beret they were, though I so clearly was not. In other words, I played pretend and convinced myself that in that moment and for the duration of that mission that I was indeed courageous. I performed well; I wasn't a weak link.
During future combat missions, for the few I ever went on, I didn't have to fake courage anymore but only because I ever feigned courage in the first place.
That's what I look like when I'm "pretending to be courageous."
I'm not saying his poignant words crossed my mind in that arctic belly. They did not. They didn't have to. I had already internalized them. I felt them. I've been pretending to be courageous in every facet of my life off and on ever since. He's right; it's truly just as good as the real thing.
There's another point in his monologue that has never left me: "We're told that they were zealots fueled by religious fervor... religious fervor and if you live to be a thousand years old will that makes any sense to you? Will that many any goddamn sense?
David, I've only lived just shy of 30 years. But in those few dozen years that include 27 months of time spent in Afghanistan I can definitively say to you, no, it never will make any goddamn sense.
But your turning the lights back on September 2001 and ushering back in comedic entertainment and just showing it was okay to laugh among our friends and family made the world make a lot more sense again. That 15 year old in me will never forget it, it's a big reason I'm a late-night talk show junkie and it's a shame after tonight you'll never turn your show's lights back on.
I love hockey. Watching it, playing it on ice, playing it on street and playing it in a digital format, I live for it. The combination of speed, strength, hand-eye, toughness, reflexes and stamina needed at any level to play the sport always grab me. You have to be well rounded, athletic.
So, more often than not, I play in an adult rec ice hockey league, E-League to be precise. It's as low of a level as you think it is. I call it "Clowns-On-Stilts-On-Ice Hockey." Even so, it means the world to me.
The experience is not always fun, however. While the sport on any level is pure, the people playing it, particularly those running the team, aren't always so ideal. I've played on two teams. I left one due to personal conflicts with the captain and team "leadership" and another, called "36-Minutes 'Til... " (Don't ask) kicked me out. I asked to be a sub instead of a full-time player because my social life was on a big upswing and personal time is limited for someone who works second shift, like myself. Apparently that merited getting the boot. I never got a full answer on why, but moved on and lived and let live.
Fast forward about a year. Hadn't played ice hockey in a while and was experiencing my own form of withdraw. I needed it. I could meet some guys I like and joined a team, but did I really want to run the risk of dealing with another convoluted captain situation? I started thinking about all the things I'd expect and want out of a captain. Then it dawned on me, "Why don't I just start my own team and implement things my own way? How hard can it really be to keep people playing hockey happy?"
As it turns out, actually finding guys to play is the hardest part. Anyone who has started a team can attest to the droves of friends who want in at first, but the moment it's time to pay up your bros grow, to quote my father, "alligator arms" and suddenly can't reach their wallets. Only a few friends dove in and made the commitment.
Then I cast as wide of a net as possible. I begged the rec league's commissioner for anyone he knew was interested, I lobby people at the hockey equivalent of a public skate, hit Reddit and even sunk as low as to used often-sketchy Craigslist. I was praying I would get just 10 skaters and a goalie, barely enough to form a bare-bones roster. For a few weeks, it looked like the odds of me finding enough people and raising enough funds to pay the $2,800 team fee would fall woefully short. Even if I did find people I was likely to incur a personal $500 lost to play.
But all that time and focus paid off to the point I was having to turn people away right before the season started. Not only did I acquire enough warm bodies, many were (relatively) skilled. Most new teams lose their games by an average of about 6-2, but ours would at least be mediocre. Our team, the Crew Jackets, would earn a few Ws!
As fate would have it, my former team, 36-Minutes, was the second opponent of our inaugural season. Thanks to stellar goaltending from our netminder, Tim, the one truly talented player on our team, He stole a win for us in Game 1, but like me he was playing his old team. We both wanted the win in the worse way.
As if getting unceremoniously booted wasn't motivation enough, two weeks prior to the game a handful of players from 36 were at an open hockey skate and apparently took umbrage with me not asking to join up with them. They were rather, let's say, salty towards me. I was so befuddled how they could impossibly conclude they were somehow the wrong party I couldn't even form a response to their barbs.
Come game night, it was more of a the same. I heard chirps I couldn't care enough to hear and understand. I just responded with a smile and a wink to egg them on. I was going to be inside their heads, not the other way around. This was our game to win, not theirs.
The puck drop and the Crew Jackets first ever rivalry game was officially on.
The first period would prove to be a stalemate. Our inexperience but superior athleticism and their experience but lacking athleticism off set the other, leaving the scoreboard 0-0 after the first.
With only 3:12 left to go in the period, I found myself streaking into our offensive zone with my Left Wing linemate Lauren parallel next to me. As I approached the net with two defenders aiding their goalie, I gambled on them over committing in an attempt to stop me and leaving Lauren wide open. Between her and I, I definitely have the better scoring touch. I trusted my instincts. Both defenders chose to charge me. I fed Lauren a backhanded handed saucer pass, meaning I gave the puck a little lift to get over the defensemen's sticks. It landed on Lauren's stick in stride and she buried the puck in the net, I believe even going top shelf, a hallmark of quality accuracy. Maybe she had the better scoring touch after all. We now lead 1-0.
Just two minutes later though, the bottom would fall out.
Our third forward line is the least experienced, least skilled unit on our team. They'll be solid, but they're certainly not there yet. While they were on the ice, they couldn't manage to clear the puck out of their defensive zone. We languished in agony until the one semi-skilled skater on their team found the puck in a scrum in front of our net and scored. It was an unstoppable shot for any goalie the world over. It was now tied 1-1.
Just two minutes later, our top-flight first line committed a poor turnover in the offensive zone, leading to a one on one with an inexperienced skater, my buddy Ryan from high school. He lost his footing and gave the same adversary who scored the first goal against us a clear lane to the net. Tim makes those saves 99 times out of a hundred but it wasn't meant to be. With nine measly seconds left in the second period we were now down 1-2.
Forty seconds into the third period, Tim gathered the puck and cleared it off the side glass. A defender for the other team whiffed on keeping the puck in and fell to my stick. Not to pat myself on the back, but I made nifty little spin move to get the puck to my forehand and maintain my momentum, leaving would be defenders in the dust. I skated in on the goalie and fired when it felt right and knew I scored the goal without even seeing it go into the net. Tim earned a rare goalie assist, and we were now tied 2-2.
The rest of regulation reverted back to being a stalemate without much offense either way.
The three minutes of overtime wasn't enough to find a winner. We were going to a shootout. Given how we had the superior goalie, I liked out chances to pull out the big W.
I was the second shooter for my team and knew my goal would probably seal the deal. I skated in on their inexperienced goalie, faked back hand and went to my forehand to hit the corner. I thought I had the goalie faked out but he was hyper aggressive, charging out of his net, closing the distance and making a quality save to keep his team alive.
It made me half sick. He asked me how his robbery made me feel. With a smile I told him, "About as good as my assist and goal made you feel." Nope, not in my head.
Usually a shootout is a best-of-three affair. The goalies were having none of that, and we found ourselves on our sixth shooter. I was going to go with someone else to make the sixth attempt, but my other linemate, Robert, Lauren's boyfriend, already had one leg swung over the boards. I didn't think he was as skilled of a shooter as my first choice, but he demonstrated he wanted it, that he thought he could do it.
Robert slowly skated in on the goalie and fired a wrister that fluttered off the goalie's shoulder, nicked the post and trickled in. We won! I skated out on to congratulate my linemate, but both team benches let it be known that 36-Minutes had the second shot and we had indeed not won yet. Oops ...
But Tim doesn't let in three goals in one game and shut the gate on the hapless opponent. The Crew Jackets won their first rivalry game. I had done my part to get a little revenge. Good times.
Well, that was probably way too long, but I have to kill time at work somehow!
Hope you enjoyed. More hockey posts are on the way.
After a lot of tough breaks, planning, saving and waiting, it's finally become official I'm going to Italy this October! Booking the flight this weekend. Can't wait. It's been a dream of mine to go to Rome for ten years. Can't wait.
Full disclosure: I'm a liberal and caucus with the Democrats. I tend to side with Obama on most things and think his predecessor was inept, to put it mildly. That said, I'm not blind to the faults and failures of any politician and party.
Today, the smart money is on Former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton moving into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue come January 2017. She hands down comes with the most name recognition of any candidate. Love her or hate her, you know of her. If one puts a premium on experience, she's nearly impossible to beat. Yale Law School graduate, First Lady of Arkansas, First Lady of the United States, Senator, presidential candidate, Secretary of State and now a second run at the White House. Clearly, she's been around and intimately knows the game.
So by extension shouldn't she know the rules, the law?
The New York Times, who first broke the story, shows, "Under federal law, however, letters and emails written and received by
federal officials, such as the secretary of state, are considered
government records and are supposed to be retained so that congressional
committees, historians and members of the news media can find them."
For those of you who've been living in a cave the past few months, then Secretary Clinton exclusively used a private email account housed in a server kept in her private residence to conduct all official Department of State business. Once this became public knowledge, some 30,000 emails magically disappeared.
Please, again observe the above aforementioned law. Did she break it? Clearly.
She claims they were personal emails regarding planning her daughter's wedding and making funeral arrangements for her mother. That doesn't pass the bullshit test. No one's personal life is so robust they accumulate over 30,000 personal emails in four years. It's painfully obvious she deleted emails pertaining to her official business as Secretary of State.
Now America's clear front runner to occupy the White House plays by her own rules and explicitly breaks the law. If Vegas is to be believed -- and the house always wins, doesn't it? -- the person who will inevitably be in charge of executing the law flagrantly taunts us by not following it herself.
Hilary Clinton, our heir apparent. Charming.
But let's not forget than just eight short years ago Clinton was viewed by most as a shoe in the win the Democratic Party nomination and an inexperienced Senator armed with nothing more than a rousing speech from four years before came out of obscurity to claim the nomination and the presidency.
She didn't pass enough people's sniff test in 2008. Who's to say she'll get a free pass from her own party now?
It's unfortunate. I like the platform and planks Clinton claims to support. She says much that makes a lot of sense to me. But I just can't make myself like the person. She's corrupt x 30,000+ emails. My gut doesn't trust the person, and I'm hoping my party is wise enough to relegate her to another cabinet position again, this time forcing her to do the simple task of emailing within the parameters of the law.
We all have every right to do what we want to our bodies. If that involves you getting plastic surgery, hey, go for it. Good on ya.
But when you do it to the extent you no longer look like ... you, that's a problem. Getting hacked and slashed to the point you look more like a doll and less like a human, that's a problem.
Why would anyone do that to themselves? It's mind boggling. I've seen beautiful people, particularly females, get dozens of unnecessary "corrective surgeries" and forfeit not only their natural beauty but, I'd argue, beauty in general.
Maybe this doesn't mean much coming from me, a male. That's not to say us men don't have our own societal pressures and expectations four our bodies placed on us. A cursory glance at Men's Health Magazine will confirm that. But the plight of men's aesthetic worth pales in comparisons to what women have to deal with. That much I do get and readily admit.
But one going under the knife and borderline surrendering their humanity makes me profoundly sad.
In 2007 I was taking a solo road trip through the American West. One April day I was in Los Angeles cruising around Hollywood Boulevard. I came to an intersection to see none other than Paris Hilton herself crossing the road, her tiny vanity pet in tow and all. This was near her peak in fame. I couldn't believe I happened upon her, and I cursed my luck because I had zero respect for her as a... whatever they call talentless hacks who make millions off unjustifiable fame.
But upon closer inspection I realized something didn't add up. She had no entourage. Why would Paris Hilton be in a tourist Mecca all by herself? Then I noticed the gate of her walk. It was off, unbalanced, painful and awkward. Then it dawned on me that it wasn't Paris Hilton. It was some poor young women who had gone through every surgery imaginable to look from head to toe like the America's perpetually fleeting flavor of the week.
I saw faint lines of surgical cars on her legs.The sun's ray reflected, bounced unnaturally off her more silicon than flesh face. She had herself carved up to the point she no longer moved with the spryness and grace of a 20 something. She traded in youth and vitality to look like the human equivalent of a greyhound. How many tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars she blew to erase all trace vestiges of what was once her true physical self must be as astounding as it is depressing.
It was the first time I realized and recognized my Midwest sensibilities. It's just not right. I would never advocate to make such extensive plastic surgery illegal, but it's just not right, not wholesome.
So little girls growing up to be insecure women is fucked up. It's that simple. No one should have such lofty expectations of beauty forced upon them. No one should feel a compulsion to hack their faces and bodies to look like another person, or barely look like a person at all. More importantly though, men and especially women, have to work hard to find the self love to never mutilate themselves to the point of erasing their actual physical -- and perhaps emotional -- selves.
Am I going to be that guy who rants about his day-to-day life? Absolutely not. But today ... yes.
I have a general rule of thumb as it pertains to conversations: The person with less interesting subject matter always yields to the person with more dynamic story to tell. My life isn't always a Hollywood thriller. When someone else just experienced something that is, I yield the floor. It just makes sense.
Today, while the hairstylist plies her craft, it comes up I went on vacation to Maine. I wasn't actively searching to expound upon anyone all of the thrills and joys a week long New England camping/hiking trip entails, but when it was brought up, I would think the hairstylist or anyone would yield said floor.
Oh how wrong I was.
Me bringing up how I had just visited Maine gave her, in her mind, the green light to tell me about how her uncle grew up in coastal Maine-- for the next 20 minutes. She described the house, the placement of all four trees, the approximate acreage and it's proximity to the coast. She droned on and on about this for the entire duration of the cut. Did I mention how she had never actually been to this location? She was basing every minute detail off what she saw one time on a VHS tape.
Yup, her watching a brief clip on the video version of a the old rock and chisel trumps my actually being there. My Dad and I scaling a 500-ft cliff face or camping by a raging mountain river takes a back seat to an old home movie with footage of a site and state she'll never actually visit. I'm not sure she even stopped to inhale oxygen once. It was a constant deluge of boredom.
I felt like a hostage. Did I really want to tell the stylist who was half way done with my haircut she had the charisma and appeal of a school bus fire? Probably not in my best interest. When she was shaving my beard at my throat with the clippers, I pictured it as being a straight razor instead and prayed she might put me out of my misery.
It reminded me of one time talking to an ex-girlfriend of mine. Via Instant Messenger, I told her I had just gotten back from doing something really interesting, helping a lot of impoverished people during a non-combat mission in Afghanistan. Well, apparently her pastrami sandwich and seeing a squirrel in an area where only not seeing a squirrel would be note worthy took precedence going "outside the wire" in a war zone!
Guys aren't immune this conversational faux pas. (See? Not sexist.) Did you know Marine Corps boot camp stories takes precedence over combat missions? Yup, a dude doing push ups in front of a drill instructor takes precedence over the enemy fucking shooting at you in a war zone!
I digress. Point is, if you want to have something exciting to talk about, actually live an exciting life when you can and not do it vicariously through rapidly fading VHS tapes.
I wonder how many people like me have thought for a week or so about starting their own blog, post for just two weeks and then abandon ship. Maybe two weeks from now I'll wonder why I ever thought this was a good idea and my time would be better served watching Netflix.
So why am I not watching Netflix this very moment? (Always a valid question.) One, work frowns upon it-- and probably this. Two, I enjoy writing. Some go so far as to imply I might have a natural aptitude for it. In the event they're right, perhaps I owe it to them to hone my craft. To what end, I don't know. But saying you're honing your craft sounds impressive and ambitious. I'll claim it.
I also figure that if I tell all my friends and family about this, that family/peer pressure to keep producing content will force me to keep coming here and not be like that other Jerk Mike who already claimed the name and address to my intended blog title, Mike's Odyssey. Mike's Opus doesn't carry the same heft, but opus also starts with the letter O. It's a well rounded letter, and opus is far easier to spell. I ought to know, I initially tried to spell my intended title o-d-d-y-s-s-e-y. Incorrect. Maybe Jerk Mike is more deserving of it than I after all.
I don't have a set-in-stone vision for the theme and format of this blog. In the here and now, I want it to reflect life, specifically mine, but I hope every one can find a parallel between my life and their from time to time. Sometimes my life is dynamic and exciting. Sometimes it's a casualty of monotony, the daily grind. I suspect my posts will reflect that.
For those of you who already know me, I'm a political beast. I'm sure I'll touch on that here and there, but it won't dominate my blog. I like adventures. They're few and far between, but when I get to go on one, it will certainly be well documented here. I don't want this to be a diary in the traditional sense. Plus, I wouldn't share my deepest, most innermost thoughts in a public forum. Also I don't think I should type a post while in the shower, the epicenter of all deep thoughts.
Lastly, I enjoy music, so I'll probably post some songs by bands I enjoy when I'm too lazy to create something myself. I enjoy sports, so I'll rant about why the laundry I root for is better than yours. (Ironically, I hate Seinfeld.) I'll try to be creative sometimes. I could write a mean haiku in middle school. Whatever I post, I'll try to keep it a near daily occurrence to hone that craft.
Plug: Stay tuned as I recount an amazing camping trip I took in New England with my Dad.
Ever see that movie Mr. Holland's Opus? No?! Well, you should do that instead of reading the ramblings of a bored dude. Here's a sneak preview before you make better use of your time: It's about a man's overall body of work that spans the course of decades. I chose to have opus in my title because of Jerk Mike and as sarcastic nod to the statistical likelihood this blog's life will be short and fleeting.
But who's to say I won't buck the trend? Maybe myself, my family, friends and some bored kids in Zimbabwe will look back 20-30 years from now and see an opus that spans decades; maybe it's to become a body of work that opens doors, builds bridges and show the journey and growth of a man.
