I watched a lot of football yesterday, and every time someone on the defensive end made a stop, they celebrated. More often than not it was not a spontaneous, having fun celebration, it was a pre-choreographed 'routine' that the player obviously did every time he made a stop. So the guy's not really happy and celebrating with his teammates, he's making a concerted effort to show up the other guy and perhaps get a video of his "celebration" replayed over and over.
The same on the offensive side. When a guy gets a first down, even in the first quarter, more often than not he has to draw attention to himself by making the "first down signal" instead of just getting up and going back to his team.
But if he scores a touch down, once again - more often than not the player totally ignores his happy teammates attempting to congratulate him, he's got his pre-choreographed celebration routine to get through. Which means, again, it's not about his team, it's all about him showing off.
And kids being impressionable, as we know they are, they're going to learn that ignoring your teammates so you can show off to the fans is the way to go.
And that's why celebrations should be curtailed. It's not that the NFL should be the No Fun League, it should be the "fun" league, not the look at me as I gyrate around like I'm on the dance floor instead of the football field!
Monday, October 14, 2013
Saturday, October 12, 2013
The Media Has a Lot to Answer For
I've got another blog, Devolution Media, which I post in occasionally, in which I document the "devolution" of values - American or otherwise! - thanks to mass media.
I was just on my channel 2 - dont' know what the network is - but it was a commercial in between some kind of Spiderman cartoon.
It was an animated commercial, and shows a boy - of course - who "runs hard, plays hard" in his Skechers shoes. So he skateboards into the classroom, brushing past his teacher, jumps into his desk and places his feet on top of the desk, and immediately the girl sitting in front of him turns around, puts her hands under her chin and gazes at him adoring.
The message: Boys are athletic, and boys who are athletic get the girls and can be as rude as they want because that's cool.
I was just on my channel 2 - dont' know what the network is - but it was a commercial in between some kind of Spiderman cartoon.
It was an animated commercial, and shows a boy - of course - who "runs hard, plays hard" in his Skechers shoes. So he skateboards into the classroom, brushing past his teacher, jumps into his desk and places his feet on top of the desk, and immediately the girl sitting in front of him turns around, puts her hands under her chin and gazes at him adoring.
The message: Boys are athletic, and boys who are athletic get the girls and can be as rude as they want because that's cool.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Mike Lee's letter
Rush shared bits of it today - it makes interesting reading.
"Dear Fellow American,
The Obama Administration's behavior during the government shutdown has been the best argument against Obamacare anyone has ever made.
The American people do not want Obamacare, and they are demanding that Washington act to protect them from the harmful effects of this unaffordable and unfair law. The president's response has been to ignore them, allow the government to shut down, and then use his power to inflict as much pain as possible on the people by closing national parks and monuments, stopping payments to veterans, and cutting off cancer research."
And
all of that's true. The sequester did not create the result the
Democrats and Obama wanted. There wasn't enough pain. They want people
suffering when the precious government is somehow shut down or when
it's deprived of money. And they were hell-bent this time. There's a
shutdown, okay, then people are gonna suffer. We're gonna make sure.
This is the active strategy of the president of the United States. The
active strategy is to make sure that there is pain, personal pain, such
as 26 military families not being funded, getting benefits. Such as the
debacle involving illegal aliens and amnesty on the National Mall,
which is closed. Such as National Parks being shut down. Such as
cancer-stricken children not having access to the National Institutes of
Health.
These were things that need not happen. These were items chosen to be defunded after the shutdown by the president of the United States and his party, because together their purpose is to try to create a mind-set in as many people as possible that life is not worth living if there is no government in it. If the government is shut down, if the government has to do with a penny less next year than it got this year, then they want people to actually feel pain, because their objective is this government getting as big as possible, taking as much capital from the private sector as possible and transferring it to government for power and control.
They want people as dependent on government as they can make them, and that includes inflicting pain on them during a supposed shutdown. And Lee, in his letter to Americans, is pointing out that that very behavior ought to be sending up red flags to everybody. If we have a president and a party willing to inflict this kind of pain because they petulantly don't get their way in a shutdown, with this kind of power, we're gonna give 'em total control of the health care system?
The president's response has been to ignore people who oppose Obamacare. His response has been "to allow the government to shut down, and then use his power to inflict as much pain as possible on the people by closing national parks and monuments, stopping payments to veterans, and cutting off cancer research."
And then Lee writes, "The President's actions show exactly why we should not expand the government's power over our health care choices. What power the government has, it will use - and misuse - to advance its own interests, even if that means punishing the American people along the way."
And there can be no doubt that the regime has attempted to punish people it considers its political enemies. It has sought to inflict pain in the shutdown so as to create the impression that you and anyone else cannot possibly get by without government. Without more government, without bigger government, without more powerful government your life would be absolutely disastrous. That's the impression they want to convey. And of course their rabid supporters are right in there furthering that notion. Their rabid supporters who are gonna be among those really harmed by all this.
I'm talking about their voters, you know, the people that go to these websites and post comments at the blogs, just your average, ordinary derelict Democrat voter. They're all-in for this. They're all-in for you suffering. They're all-in for you having pain inflicted on you.
Lee continues. "The message behind the Administration's shutdown bullying is the same message sent by the IRS's abuses of power against the president's political opponents. This is the abusive, unaccountable bureaucracy that, under Obamacare, will soon be running America's health care system. President Obama is not just using the vast powers of his office as leverage against Republicans - he is abusing his powers as leverage against the American people."
And he is. There isn't any question. There's a reason his approval numbers are at 37%. There is a reason his approval numbers are falling. It's a reality that is not reported upon. It's a reality not commented upon practically anywhere inside the Beltway.
Now we have news, guess what? The claims for unemployment insurance last week or this week, I forget which story, somewhere in the Stack, are so high, this just shocked everybody. It's a California story. "Well, you know, it's because of the shutdown and because of the computer glitches and the California employment reporting system, and that's why the unreal and very unusual high number of people applying for unemployment."
No, it can't be that we're losing jobs left and right. How in the world can private sector unemployment go up or not based on a government shutdown? What are the things that are related? They aren't. Just because you've got a government shutdown doesn't automatically mean unemployment's going to skyrocket. Not in the private sector, but yet that's the impression that is being conveyed in this story on joblessness that is out there.
"Dear Fellow American,
The Obama Administration's behavior during the government shutdown has been the best argument against Obamacare anyone has ever made.
The American people do not want Obamacare, and they are demanding that Washington act to protect them from the harmful effects of this unaffordable and unfair law. The president's response has been to ignore them, allow the government to shut down, and then use his power to inflict as much pain as possible on the people by closing national parks and monuments, stopping payments to veterans, and cutting off cancer research."
And
all of that's true. The sequester did not create the result the
Democrats and Obama wanted. There wasn't enough pain. They want people
suffering when the precious government is somehow shut down or when
it's deprived of money. And they were hell-bent this time. There's a
shutdown, okay, then people are gonna suffer. We're gonna make sure.
This is the active strategy of the president of the United States. The
active strategy is to make sure that there is pain, personal pain, such
as 26 military families not being funded, getting benefits. Such as the
debacle involving illegal aliens and amnesty on the National Mall,
which is closed. Such as National Parks being shut down. Such as
cancer-stricken children not having access to the National Institutes of
Health.These were things that need not happen. These were items chosen to be defunded after the shutdown by the president of the United States and his party, because together their purpose is to try to create a mind-set in as many people as possible that life is not worth living if there is no government in it. If the government is shut down, if the government has to do with a penny less next year than it got this year, then they want people to actually feel pain, because their objective is this government getting as big as possible, taking as much capital from the private sector as possible and transferring it to government for power and control.
They want people as dependent on government as they can make them, and that includes inflicting pain on them during a supposed shutdown. And Lee, in his letter to Americans, is pointing out that that very behavior ought to be sending up red flags to everybody. If we have a president and a party willing to inflict this kind of pain because they petulantly don't get their way in a shutdown, with this kind of power, we're gonna give 'em total control of the health care system?
The president's response has been to ignore people who oppose Obamacare. His response has been "to allow the government to shut down, and then use his power to inflict as much pain as possible on the people by closing national parks and monuments, stopping payments to veterans, and cutting off cancer research."
And then Lee writes, "The President's actions show exactly why we should not expand the government's power over our health care choices. What power the government has, it will use - and misuse - to advance its own interests, even if that means punishing the American people along the way."
And there can be no doubt that the regime has attempted to punish people it considers its political enemies. It has sought to inflict pain in the shutdown so as to create the impression that you and anyone else cannot possibly get by without government. Without more government, without bigger government, without more powerful government your life would be absolutely disastrous. That's the impression they want to convey. And of course their rabid supporters are right in there furthering that notion. Their rabid supporters who are gonna be among those really harmed by all this.
I'm talking about their voters, you know, the people that go to these websites and post comments at the blogs, just your average, ordinary derelict Democrat voter. They're all-in for this. They're all-in for you suffering. They're all-in for you having pain inflicted on you.
Lee continues. "The message behind the Administration's shutdown bullying is the same message sent by the IRS's abuses of power against the president's political opponents. This is the abusive, unaccountable bureaucracy that, under Obamacare, will soon be running America's health care system. President Obama is not just using the vast powers of his office as leverage against Republicans - he is abusing his powers as leverage against the American people."
And he is. There isn't any question. There's a reason his approval numbers are at 37%. There is a reason his approval numbers are falling. It's a reality that is not reported upon. It's a reality not commented upon practically anywhere inside the Beltway.
Now we have news, guess what? The claims for unemployment insurance last week or this week, I forget which story, somewhere in the Stack, are so high, this just shocked everybody. It's a California story. "Well, you know, it's because of the shutdown and because of the computer glitches and the California employment reporting system, and that's why the unreal and very unusual high number of people applying for unemployment."
No, it can't be that we're losing jobs left and right. How in the world can private sector unemployment go up or not based on a government shutdown? What are the things that are related? They aren't. Just because you've got a government shutdown doesn't automatically mean unemployment's going to skyrocket. Not in the private sector, but yet that's the impression that is being conveyed in this story on joblessness that is out there.
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