Royale with Cheese

I went to a birthday party for a four-year-old boy this past Sunday. I'm sure I'll have recovered by Thursday.

Over the past couple weeks we’ve heard a lot about this “anger” that seems to be prevalent throughout the country. That people are mad as hell, and they aren’t going to take it anymore. Okay. People are angry. I guess that’s okay. Although things are looking better, they aren’t like they were back in the good ol’ days of 2007 or 2008. A lot of people are underemployed and a lot more people are out of work altogether. Many approaching the age of retirement saw their savings evaporate over the past 16 months (although those who chose to remain in the market after the collapse of 2008 have already regained about 60% of what they lost), and millions of people either find themselves evicted from or trapped in homes they can neither afford to sell or pay for. Times are tough all over, and sometimes anger can be a great motivator for innovation and improvement. But most of the time, anger is the catalyst for poor decision-making. Anger is an emotional response, and angry people often react in a manner detrimental to their own self-interest. Nothing inherently wrong with being angry. Be very wary of acting out of anger.

A new poll caught my attention yesterday. A majority of those polled want the government to “do something” about the deficit. A majority of those polled also want the government to “do something” about job creation. I can’t decide whether this reflects a simple misunderstanding of basic economics, or a demand that this administration attempt to implement two diametrically opposed policies at the same time. I am inclined toward the former. Whether you want the government to stimulate job growth by spending on job creation programs, or reducing the tax rate, neither of those things can be accomplished without increasing the federal deficit. Spending increases borrowing, while tax cuts reduce revenue. I realize economics is probably not required high school curriculum, but it’s not difficult to see that neither of those actions does anything to reduce the deficit. Yet somehow the President is just supposed to wave his arms and make all the scary bad things go away. Is the deficit a concern? Absolutely. Does it need to be eliminated tomorrow? Absolutely not. The best time to tackle the federal debt is when the economy is growing, when there are enough employment opportunities for those who want to take advantage of them. Funny. No one seemed to care about deficits during the early and mid-portions of the past decade, when the government was dramatically reducing revenues while spending 10 billion dollars of borrowed money a month on wars. Wonder what the difference was?

Last Friday the United States Supreme Court overturned 100 years of legal precedent in striking down campaign finance laws restricting the amount of money corporations and unions can spend on election campaign advertising. Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy claimed that the U.S. Constitution prevents Congress from passing any law abridging the freedom of speech, be it individual or corporate. Essentially, the Court declared that corporations are living, breathing, bleeding human beings, deserving of Constitutional protection. With all due respect to the eminent domain decision of several years ago, this is the worst piece of drivel to come out of the Supreme Court in the last decade. The Bill of Rights is supposed to apply to people, offering them legal protection from the actions of their government. According to another founding document, said rights are inalienable, endowed upon us by our creator. I guess I wasn’t aware that Genesis 2: 21 & 22 actually read, “And the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made He AT&T, and brought her unto man.” If the First Amendment applies to corporations and unions, why not the Second Amendment? Or the Eighth? Or the Fourteenth? Does Microsoft have the right to bear arms? Is IBM protected against cruel and unusual punishment? If I incorporate myself, can I legally vote twice? Hmm. Perhaps I’ll file those papers tomorrow.

The All-American Basketball Alliance announced last week that it hopes to begin its inaugural season in June, with a team from Augusta, Georgia filling one of the spots in the 12-city league. The problem? Only natural-born American citizens with two Caucasian parents will be eligible to play. “There’s nothing hatred (sic) about what we’re doing,” says Don “Moose” Lewis, commissioner of the AABA. “But people of white, American-born citizens are in the minority now. Here’s a league for white players to play fundamental basketball, which they like.” Sigh. Every time I think we’ve made a little progress as a nation, along comes “Moose” Lewis. Lewis claims that he wants to emphasize fundamental basketball, not the “street-ball” played by “people of color.” You know, things like dribbling, passing and shooting, which are all apparently absent from the National Basketball Association. To his credit, the mayor of Augusta, Deke Copenhaver, has refused to give the Moose the time of day. I’m not going to dignify any of the claims of the Moose by either repeating them here or responding to them. I raise the issue simply to make the following point. There is no shortage of people in this country poorly attempting to mask their disdain for those different from themselves with mantras of returning to “fundamentals.”

My NFL Thoughts for Conference Championship Weekend:

Wow. After two consecutive weeks of duds, football fans finally got their money’s worth.

After falling behind early to this year’s Cinderella story New York Jets, Peyton Manning snapped out of his funk and torched the best defense in football for 24 unanswered points and a 30-17 victory. Four months ago, no one outside of Indianapolis had ever heard the name Pierre Garçon. Last Sunday, the son of Haitian immigrants looked like the second coming of Randy Moss, embarrassing every Jets defender not named Darrelle Revis. The Colts are headed to their second Super Bowl in four years, and it is not a stretch to say that this team is substantially superior to the 2006 championship team. If one were to include Anthony Gonzalez - who is currently on injured reserve - the Colts have four wide receivers that could start at number one or two receiver for any other team in the league. It’s going to be ridiculously difficult for any defense to contain this team.

For the first time since their inception in 1967, the New Orleans Saints are on their way to the Super Bowl. The Saints defeated Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings 31-28, in an overtime thriller that left the Vikings asking anyone who would listen for the number of the truck that ran them over. Minnesota fumbled the football SIX times (lost three of them), and threw two interceptions, several of which - especially the final interception - were directly responsible for keeping New Orleans in the game. The Saints played far from a perfect game, the normally precise Drew Brees missing receivers and tossing flutter-balls, but their defense was aggressive and opportunistic enough to pull them through.

I feel bad for Brett Favre. And not just because I lived in Wisconsin for four years. At 40-years-old, Favre had his best statistical season EVER, better at four decades than every active NFL quarterback in his 20’s and most in their 30’s. I think it's a fraud that Manning was selected league MVP in light of the season Number Four had. He is the NFL icon of a generation and he will certainly be missed if he ever decides to retire. But as awful as I feel for Favre, I am elated for the Saints. Favre has won a Super Bowl and played in two, and his place in Canton awaits him. The city of New Orleans has been through so much, and the Saints have been so bad for so long, that I can’t help but root for them to win this one. If you listen to the New Orleans radio announcers call the winning field goal, you can hear the torrent of relief in their voices. All the pent-up frustration and anguish of 40 losing seasons and dozens of failed draft picks and fans sitting in the stands with paper bags over their heads and a Superdome full of Katrina refugees came flooding out all at once in wails of joy. “Pigs have flown,” one announcer cried. “Hell has frozen over! The Saints are going to the Super Bowl!” Amen.

My Super Bowl prediction: Indianapolis Colts 35, New Orleans Saints 21.

Finally, the U.S. Marine Corp. admitted to being “concerned” that Trijicon, a Michigan-based manufacturer of optical sight devices for firearms, stamps numerical references to Bible verses on the hardware it supplies to the military. Apparently, the verses referenced carry the common theme of Jesus being the light of the world. Now, exactly why that needs to be embossed on the mount of a sniper rifle scope continues to elude me, but perhaps I’m just missing something. Maybe its a Pulp Fiction thing, you know, when Jules (Samuel Jackson) is being held up in the diner and he explains to Ringo (the robber) why he should hand over the gun and walk away and says the following;

“There's this passage I got memorized. Ezekiel 25:17. "The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is The Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee." I been saying that s&^! for years. And if you heard it, that meant your ass. I never gave much thought to what it meant. I just thought it was some cold-blooded s&^! to say to a muthaf$#&@% 'fore I popped a cap in his ass.”

I always found the idea of someone quoting scripture prior to taking a life disturbing. I don’t see how inscribing scriptural references onto a lethal weapon is any less bizarre.