Oh, That's Where I Left My Petard!

It's amusing to see the media go into hyper analysis mode over Jay Cutler now that we know he had a partially torn MCL that kept him from finishing Sunday's game. It's really much more simple than what people make it out to be. It really only has two facets.

The first one os the injury itself. Yes a partial tear of the MCL isn't good. Yet we've seen numerous QB's play with debilitating leg injuries. We've all seen Elway, Marino, Montana, Leftwich, etc. finish games where they could barely move. That's not figuratively either. Post Achilles injury, Marino literally could not move. All these guys just put on a brace that locked the knee into place, got in the shotgun and let er rip. Lovie Smith said that the instability of the knee was why they took him out. Unless the trainers forgot knee braces, that excuse just doesn't cut it.

The second issue is Jay Cutler's attitude. He is a surely, ego maniacal, Jeff George/Ryan Leaf hybrid. He seems to always be trying to convince everyone of how great he is, how stupid they are or pouting over some perceived slight. Pouting seemed to be what he was doing while injured. My informal poll as to what was really wrong with him showed that most people thought he had a concussion given his detachment from the team. Now we know it was a one man pity party. For him to cry because his peers aren't showing him enough respect? Are you kidding? How many media members and players have you made it your goal to make their life miserable? You just can't treat people like they are unworthy to be around you then ask surprised when they give you a flaming tire at the first chance.

The bottom line is simple. Cutler may have a great arm but he is a world class douchebag and he came up small where the greats came up big. All while trying to tell us that he belonged in that upper echelon of all time QB's. You made your bed now lie in. He just needs to suck it up and quit pouting. If he has any guts at all, he'll come back big whenever the next season is.

Close the Borders

I've frequently complained about the influx of Californians fleeing their ruined home state to come to our beautiful state (Colorado) so they can destroy it as well.

Usually my complaint is the nutty left wing politics they bring with them and try to get implemented. Sure, why wouldn't they? They worked so well in California.

Apparently, in addition to failed political policies, they've been bringing civil law enforcement procedures as well. I was unaware until today but apparently the Denver Police Department is getting a reputation for beating the living shit out of people on a regular basis.

To confirm this I googled "denver police brutality". My computer literally slapped me, then stuffed a bag of coke into my pocket.

Before the processor exploded though, I read this story about a poor guy who took an illegal left turn and ended up looking like Mickey Rourke on a really bad night.
Now I'm no PhD in public administration, maybe my theory that the LAPD's Rampart Division quietly infiltrated the DPD in an attempt to punish minorities in a different state is way off base, but even I know that a guy who gets pulled over for an illegal left and has enough sense to ask for a search warrant doesn't just blindly grab a cops gun.
I realize that it can be difficult for the police to differentiate between 19 year old community college students and MS-13 members but you'd think the police would show a tad bit more restraint after they got in trouble for beating the holy hell out of Michael DeHerrera.
Now, I realize John Hickenlooper didn't feel the need to do anything about this when he was Denver's mayor but maybe he'll feel like exerting some pressure now that he's our Governor. Somebody sure as hell as better because I don't really want our state to corrode any further. Colorado is one of the good places left in this country to live, where would I go if it turned in Cali East? Wyoming, Nebraska, New Mexico? I guess if the time comes when I have to flee incompetent government and abusive police I'll just flip a coin; heads and I'll go live the Mormons in Utah, tails and it's North Dakota and Canadians.

Life, Illuminated

Since the New Year began, I've been walking around at night wondering why things looked/felt odd. I assumed that it was simply a lingering hard cider hangover from New Year's eve. As the 13th day came and went and I still couldn't figure out what was wrong so I naturally assumed that I was suffering from some kind of palsy or the effects of a mild stroke.

Luckily, I went to check the mail before calling my doctor. Finally, I found out why the world was suddenly altered in my perceptions.

The street lights are back on!

For those not familiar with the local politics of Colorado Springs (why would you be), a quick recap. During the worst of the depression, the conservative city's conservative City Council decided to turn off 33% of the city's street lights in an effort to save money. This was the same measure that removed city funded park watering and trash removal.

The reaction from the liberal comrades in Denver, Boulder and CNN was predictable. They all laughed hysterically at our backwards ways, predicting massive spikes in rapes and other violent crimes, parks teeming with sewage and generally a city full of blight.

This included nearly all of the lights on my street. After reading a few pages of the Denver Post, I went and bought myself a rifle, told my wife I loved her, then stood guard at my front door, waiting for my formerly civil neighbors to succumb to the dark and transform into a bunch a gang raping, covenant ignoring sociopaths. Anyone who wanted to drop me off a Christmas card past 3:00 P.M. was in serious trouble.

Then nothing happened. Of course.

Only the very stupid or elitist would honestly believe that our city would turn into a stage for Escape From New York because a few street lights were turned off. I assume the Big Panic industry in Denver and Boulder is chock full of both since I still haven't heard or read any analysis of our city's successful budget maneuvering. Apparently the Sky Is Falling Crowd is better at baseless accusations and fear mongering than dealing with actual facts. I bet if we had turned off those lights for a green initiative, we would've been praised from coast to coast.

Either way, the lights are back and I'm glad for that. Even if the crime didn't skyrocket in the dark, the city does look better illuminated. Now all the visitors to our city will be able to see both the beautiful natural scenery as well as the smug look on all our faces that we have from proving our noisy detractors wrong.

Day or night.

Arizona

Good to see the national media and Democratic Party aren't letting a tragedy go to waste.

It's been a couple days since that lunatic starting shooting up a meet and greet and liberals have continued to somehow try and paint this marijuana currency advocate, mind control believer, skull shrine worshipper as some kind of tea party nut. I don't recall Reagan or Milton Friedman pushing to give up the gold standard for the green standard.

This is of course absurd, this guy is just crazy, not partisan. Even if he was though, heated political debate doesn't drive people to kill. We know this because if hate speech caused killings then liberals would have instigated a genocide with all of their evil rhetoric about conservatives and President Bush for the last 10 years.

All of this blame has turned into the nanny staters trotting out all the gun statistics that show that the US has more gun related deaths than other countries. They must have pulled that from the Big Book of Obvious Stats. More people, more guns, close to Mexico = more gun deaths. I would point out that other parts of the world do far more killing without guns than we do with them. I'm pretty sure Rwanda killed a million people by hacking them to death with machetes.

All of that misses the point though. The only issue is whether or not we should give up more rights to the government in exchange for a sliver more security. The answer is no. Will this result in more deaths? Probably. I'm betting there aren't many gun related deaths in North Korea. At least that don't involve the government. Freedom is a risky proposition in some ways. The same freedom that sane people use to achieve the highest levels of excellence can also be exploited by nuts to kill innocent people. Unfortunately, you can't just restrict the freedom of the nuts, they often don't expose themselves until the shots are fired. Liberals can only restrict everyone in hopes that it'll catch the kooks. Nor can liberals claim this is some isolated case where the government needs to regulate something for the common good. Liberals advocate government regulation of everything. It's gun control now but rest assured, once they get that under wraps they'll find another freedom people enjoy and take that away too. It's just what they do.

By giving the people a wide array of freedoms you do run the risk of these types of incident but they are rare. When you give too much power to governments it always ends in disaster. Knowing, despite the best efforts of liberals, that you can't legislate away death, I say society should just take their chances with the public at large. I'd rather take my chances against a random loon than an institutionalized totalitarian state any day.

History Illuminated

I certainly hope that Colts coach Jim Caldwell is a student of history.

Not ancient history either, just recent history. As in the Oakland Raiders of the early 2000's. If he looks closely, he'll see a close image of his own team.

Not a good thing.

Those Raiders had been built into a title contender by John Gruden, mostly because Rich Gannon was playing at MVP level. Just like Tony Dungy built up a championship team with Peyton Manning.

The year following Gruden's departure, first year head coach Bill Callahan leads the Raiders to the Super Bowl and loses. Just like first year coach Caldwell led the Colts to a Super Bowl and lost in his first year.

In Callahan's second year, NFL MVP Gannon breaks his neck and ends his career. The aging team plummets to the bottom of the league and would remain there for a decade. Almost like the Colts. This years Colts team was really old and awful and only won the games it did because of Manning. Had Manning gotten hurt like Gannon did, there is no doubt that the Colts were a 2-14 team.

Most troubling for Caldwell is that after the Raiders plunged into craptitude, Al Davis realized that Callahan wasn't a good head coach and that he only got to the SB because Gruden left so much behind. Davis promptly fired him. I don't know what the Colts owner sees, or doesn't see, in Caldwell but Manning is nearing the end of his time as the dominant NFL QB, even if he didn't get hurt. Given the Colts rapidly closing window of contention, if Irsay gets it in his head that Caldwell is just riding on Dungy's fumes, then his tenure could follow the same two year arc that Callahan's did.

A Curious Book Review

***contains spoilers for A Brave New World***

Having recently finished Aldous Huxley's classic A Brave New World, I find myself liking the book quite a bit but am bothered by one facet of the work that gnaws at my mind.

Upon reflection, I'm not sure that John the Savage was worthy as a character to carry the message of individual dignity and liberty in the face of The World State. To quickly summarize John, he was an 18 year old who was born on an Indian reservation in New Mexico after his mother, a World State resident, was stranded their on vacation and presumed dead. Discovered by the vacationing Bernard and Lenina, John and his mother are brought back to London and the World State.

Almost immediately John reacts negatively against the World State's lack of personal nobility, struggle, achievement and dignity. He correctly notes that by removing art, science, religion, curiosity, etc. from daily life, life itself has no real meaning. He himself yearns for the opportunity to overcome an obstacle, to prove himself worthy both to Lenina and to himself.

This is where the trouble lies for me. John, having been excluded from society when living with the Indians, hopes to be able to find self worth in London. After making some futile attempts to explain his way of thinking and the concept of liberty and dignity, John first tries to live like a hermit and punish himself in a deserted part of England, then, when he gets discovered flagellating himself, crowds of World Staters come to view and mock him in his ritual. One of these onlookers is Lenina, who despite the fact that she was sad and crying for John, whose presence sends John into a rage where he beats the living shit out of her which also triggers a blood orgy among the gathered crowd. The next day after John realizes what he did, he promptly kills himself. This causes two problems for me the reader.

PROBLEM ONE
John validates everything the World Staters think he is. He may talk eloquently about art, music, science, etc. and how they help man excel but when confronted with the scorn of the new world, John reacts with explosive emotion, beating Lenina on multiple occasions, antagonizing the more mindless of new world citizens and hiding in various places. The World Staters created their society to solve the very problems John was causing, i.e. explosive emotional reactions that lead to war and unhappiness. Rather than be the torchbearer of liberty, it's as if the character exists to prove the Controllers right.

PROBLEM TWO
John complains frequently about having a chance to be heroic, about having an obstacle to overcome. Yet, when confronted with the challenge of fighting the World State's lack of humanity, he chooses to kill himself after a relatively few setbacks. Being the student of Shakespeare he appears to be, he should realize how large a role perseverance and failure plays in ultimate success. Especially when you consider that he had already made some progress. Bernard and Helmholtz were already discovering the things John already knew. Lenina, in an infantile way, was feeling the same emotions (love) that he wanted her to feel, she just didn't know what to do with them. Finally, Mustapha Mond admitted to John that people who desire freedom and liberty are frequent occurrences in the World State and that they are simply removed from sight. There have been movements in real life that started with less foundation than that. It seems plausible that if John, not being banished to an island and still free to talk openly about his beliefs, was truly worthy of the hero status he sought, he could've at least fought in the face of all that adversity, especially with the child like love of Lenina so ready to be exploited. Instead, he killed himself, proving the Indians right in their assumptions that he wasn't worthy of their inclusions while simultaneously proving that the Controller's view that heroism only causes instability correct as well.

All together, the book is still a masterpiece of dystopian totalitarianism but the portrayal of John will always strike me as odd given how Huxley was trying to expose this communal/communistic lifestyle as a fraud. I'm sure more knowledgeable scholars than myself can try and find meaning in the subtext that explains John's failings. Perhaps his admission of failure and ultimate decision was the ultimate act of freedom in an oppressive world, I don't know. All I know is that if liberty, dignity and freedom are worthy enough that all people should be granted them unconditionally, then it seems that John should have been worthy enough to execute them as well.

Short Lived Euphoria

Hurricane Al sure knows how to dampen a good time.

Mere days after the Raiders completed a demolition of the AFC West and completed their first non-losing season since 2002, Kim Jong Davis decides to can the only coach who has found a way to success since Jon Gruden roamed the sidelines.

Why would Al do such a thing? Tough to say. There is some rumour out there that Al has it in his head that he can somehow lure prettiest-girl-at-the-party Jim Harbaugh to Oakland. This seems to be delusional since Miami is poised to offer the moon for Jim while Big Al usually offers about $27/hr. plus partial benefits to his coaches. OC Hue Jackson seems like the logical choice to replace Cable but he's not under contract, is interviewing with the 49ers and isn't a sure thing anyway. God only knows what Al saw in an untested OC that made him dump Cable.

What exactly is plan C if both Harbaugh and Jackson head for greener pastures? Can't bring Cable back, that's for sure. Steve Sarkisian? Josh McDaniels? Perry Fewell? That's a frightening proposition. If that nightmare actually becomes reality, I say bring on the lockout.

Huxley Shrugged

History is bunk indeed.

For years, distopian writers have made the connection between controlling history as a means to help dictate the past. Even Plato's Republic was based on the Noble Lie, which created a false history to justify a segregated, oppressive utopia. Most, if not all, dictatorships and totalitarians construct some kind of mythology that elevates themselves to all knowing leader for the good of the people. Kim Jong Il is probably the best example of this today. The neat thing about this trick is if you can keep it going long enough, everyone who knows better will die or be executed. Then all your society has is the lie upon which tyranny flourishes.

The Political Correctness Police the United States is hard at work facilitating this process as we speak. NewSouth Books is planning on releasing an "updated" version of Mark Twain's classic Huckleberry Finn where the many instances of the word n****r have been replaced with slave.

This is an atrocity. Only the PC, leftist cowards that populate good portions of the western world could look at Twain's honest portrayal of Southern culture in the 1850's, then look at themselves and decide that the book is what needs changing.

From a literary standpoint the change is ridiculous enough as the two words are not interchangeable. Slave is a specific condition in which a person could be in. It isn't tied to any race in particular and has universal meaning. N****r on the other hand is a social word that goes to portray the attitudes of Southern whites, whites in general maybe, towards African Americans. The word has a deeply rooted and debated history that continues today and applies uniquely to the situations depicted in the book. Replacing it with the super generic "slave" removes the depth and understanding of the mentality of America at that time.

Some dim witted media members have compared this to editing movies for television. This goes to show just how out of touch some people are. Historical books are really the only way we can get a clear picture of where this country was in the past. We need these accurate portrayals so we can accurately analyze the present and future. If all of the pasts classic books, and documents get sanitized so that they don't offend some 4th graders sissy parents, eventually people in this country will have no real scope about the trials and tribulations that this country has experienced in it's development. Hero's of past struggles will fade away into the homogeneity of a whitewashed history. American exceptionalism will cease to have any meaning at all and the Constitution, far older than Huck Finn, will be a curious historical writing instead of the greatest political document ever conceived. People will have no idea just how special their freedom is.

And to all of you talking heads comparing this to movie editing. You're right and wrong. It's much like editing movies for content but that doesn't make it ok. We shouldn't be censoring and chopping up movies either to dumb down and soften the reality of life to make it more palatable for 5 & 10 o'clock. The only reason it isn't as big a deal is that we have tons of digital content since the advent of film and video that will preserve for future generations. What do we have from the 17 & 1800's? Some books, some political documents and few pictures. That's it. TV shouldn't be censored either. The rarity that we see true 9/11 footage anymore is a crime. People see the smoke and they see the towers come down but that doesn't do that day any justice. The true horror in that day was the sights and sounds of people jumping from burning buildings to their deaths; the carnage strewn about Ground Zero when the buildings came down.

You don't hide things like this, you show them more. The world is a complicated and sometimes extremely violent place both now and in the past and certainly in the future. These PC crybaby's who claim to be doing this to save the innocent children are doing them the greatest disservice of their lives by pretending that the world isn't complex and evolving ecosystem that contains truly ugly times and people. You sheltering from the world just stunts their growth intellectually so that they become shocked when thrust into the cold light of reality. We as a people should have for more respect for our past and ourselves to let this kind of asinine historical modification take place. We're big boys and girls, we can handle the truth.

Bay City Rollin

Week 17 of the NFL season was pretty much putrid in terms of quality of play. It's hard to fathom how New England and Pittsburgh managed to destroy their opponents while having absolutely no incentive to play the game. Lost in this sea of putrid viscera however, was the upbeat note the season ended on for four teams in proximity to the gentle waters, mostly but not entirely enclosed by land.

In Green Bay, near the aptly named Bay of Green Bay, the Packers did us all a national favor by beating the Bears. The possibility of both the horrible Giants and Seahawks in the playoffs would be too much to handle. As good a weekend as the Pack had, they are still an enigma. They could well be the best team in the NFC but they managed a win with a performance reminiscent of their loss to the Lions not the demolition of the Giants. They could also lose to the Eagles by 50, you never know with this team. Even still, for one Sunday, the Mettwurst was sliced freely by joyful (drunken) hands while cheap beer was swilled by all.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers (who incidentally play under the moniker of the Bay itself not the city that the Bay is in located in, Tampa) managed to end a magical season by beating the Saints in a game that meant something to both teams. Some preseason projections had the Bucs being the worst team in the league, yet they finished with 10 wins and could easily have had 12 had they not choked away some winnable games. Their underdog success, rising star QB and Doogie Howserish head coach are enough to make you forget that their best RB is a world class asshole who's most famous for sucker punching another player on live TV then challenging the crowd to a fight. Even frequently troubled Bucs rookie WR Mike Williams think Blount was out of line. Maybe we didn't all forget.

Oakland, located in that blighted area of San Fransisco Bay known as East Bay, wrapped up a confounding resurrection to respectability by sweeping the AFC West, going 2-2 in the NFC West and 0-6 against everyone else. How nice it is for all us Silver and Blackers that the bulk of Raider wins came against hated foes, demolishing the Broncos twice, costing the Chiefs the 3 seed in the playoffs and breaking the decade long string of futility against the Chargers. Add to that the long awaited dominance of Darren McFadden, the lusted after departure from the JaMarcus Era and everything tastes a little sweeter today. Even Tom Cable made it through Black Monday with a job. Everyone rejoice!

Even the much roiled San Fransisco 49ers, inhabitants of the shining, parade loving West Bay, had reason to celebrate. The interm head coach, whose name I can't remember and don't want to google, won his first and probably only game as head coach. Why should anyone care? This guy was literally living out of his car for a chance to volunteer to coach. Volunteer! And this wasn't Keifer Sutherland living out of his Ferrari while it was parked on his dad's estate, this guy was a vagrant, through and through. When asked why he would do that all he said was "I love football and I love to coach." The meek may inherit the Earth but the passionately persistent can evidently climb the ladder to the top of Bill Walsh's team. Feel good all around for a team that was a mess all year.