POST #6 - Presidential Election

The morning after the Presidential Election, the sun rose in the East, my alarm clock went off at 6am, I was obviously still alive the world still rotated around the sun and the birds were chirping happily.  It was just another bright sunny day like the day before.  I checked Facebook and couldn't believe my eyes.  It was like an apocalypse and there was human carnage strewn about.  Let me clarify, I already knew Donald Trump had won the election the night before.  The horror for me was sitting in the voting booth being forced to select between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump.  Seriously WTF America, is this the best we have?  How did so many Americans vote for these two pathetic excuses for human beings?  The shock was the reaction of so many people to the news of a Donald Trump presidency.  

I couldn't believe the display of narcissism so many of you put on was utterly ridiculous.  The thought of either one of those two candidates being elected reads like an episode of American Horror Story.  There was no good option between them and to say otherwise is an attempt to lie to yourself.  You need only watch the Alfred Smith Memorial Fund Dinner video to realize how truly mean and vicious these two pieces of excrement are.  The event was meant to be a good natured roast after the final debate.  It was anything but good natured or fun.  These two candidates displayed how un-presidential and in my opinion how uncivilized, unprofessional and an utter lack of character they both suffered from.

 https://youtu.be/yGgxr4Sxoas

Let's get back to the narcissism.  We all have heard the hateful, bigoted, sexist, racist and other deplorable comments made by Trump.  The man is a scourge we will now have to endure for the next 4 years.  Let me repeat, "WE" will endure.  Our society faces a huge test and we will need to pull together tio get through it.  Sadly, all I am seeing is a long parade of posts from people who are distraught, sobbing in bed, whining about not knowing what to say or do and telling others they could never understand how deeply traumatized they are.  Oh yeah and telling me I could never understand as I am a white male.  Actually, I am half Puerto Rican you self centered douche bag.  Grow the fuck up America.  Suck it up and get your ass up and stop wallowing in your pools of self pity.  This isn't about you so cancel the pity party.  It is about our nation getting through this train wreck as quickly and smoothly as possible.  

We allowed this situation to happen and we must now accept the blame.  We had our chance to select better quality candidates but were too busy trying to satisfy our self interests and not what was best for all Americans.  Get up and tell your children you and everyone else screwed up and teach them not to make the same mistakes.  What did you really expect was going to happen?Stop throwing this collective temper tantrum.

Our society has lost all concept of how to interact in a civil, respectful and cordial manner.  People have taken to living in the extremes and refuse to consider even the smallest degree of moderation.  There is no room for compromise in this internet driven society.  When there is this much rigidity, venom, anger and condescending behavior, you can only expect to have polar opposite views.  When your positions becomes this extreme it is just a matter of time until it all falls apart.  We have nobody to blame but ourselves.  This is one shit sandwich we are all going to have to stand in line for and take a bite.

Our nation is great in part because we have elections and peaceful transition of power.  Well except for this time.  We are a couple months away from the inauguration and people are actually calling for his impeachment.  For the record he has to actually be in office before you can impeach him.  Didn't any of you pay attention in history or government classes?  Of course not, otherwise you might have a clue about the Electoral College and the protections it provides to our society.  If you had paid attention you wouldn't be making ignorant comments comparing the Electoral College to"Gerrymandering."  Try reading a book once in a while and learn about the how this system evolved from the Continental Convention and finally took it's current form during the 1880's.  Discover that it is used in other countries of the world and isn't some scheme by one American political party to screw the other.  Take the time to learn about the things in our Democratic Republic that seem to be wadding up your panties and causing you to be an insufferable whining baby.

We made our bed and now it is time to lie in it.  Let us at least act like adults until the nightmare is over.  He is our president and we have to hope and pray the past remains the past and he leads us with honor and integrity.  He needs to be the president for all of us and treat all of us with respect.  We need to do our part for the best interest of our country.  We ALL need to accept him as our president and hope and pray he does his job.

POST #4 - PETA

Our dear friends at PETA would like to see all animals of the world set free to roam and fend for themselves.  It would be the rule of the jungle and survival of the fittest.  For those unfortunate animals that aren't fortunate it is pain and suffering.  In their world, there would be no more healthcare for animals, provided by loving families and attentive caretakers.  If a species was nearing extinction, we'll, "who the fuck cares."

PETA would love to see animals granted the same basic freedoms and equality as human beings.  You may dismiss the following as hyperbole but our dear friends at PETA would expect equal protections under the Constitution and Bill of Rights for these new citizens of the world.  This is evidence in their recent lawsuit claiming a monkey owned the rights to pictures taken of him.  They also filed a suit under constitutional protection grounds on behalf of killer whales.  Lets just take their premise to its illogical conclusion.  In their world, animals at zoos and theme parks would be considered citizens with equal protections therefore they are now employees.  They would be subject to the same wage and earning laws as anyone else.  Does this mean I must pay dolphins with currency, or can I get away with an equal amount of fish?  Someone would have to establish what is fair compensation for these animal performers.  They would be entitled to the same meal periods, breaks and work day hour regulations as everyone else.  They would be entitled to the right to unionize for collective bargaining.  The thought of facing off against a group of surly lemurs to hammer out a labor agreement might lead to more Jimmy Hoffas.  On the plus side the government would have a entirely new class of workers to  subject to the IRS and their heavy handed tax schemes.

They would be entitled to healthcare under the rights granted under Obama Care.  Yes, we would now subject these animal performers to the same screwed up health care system we now have.  A health care system with the same limitations to ensure insurance carriers can turn a profit for their shareholders.  These animal performers would be entitled to Social Security although that should be bankrupt soon enough.  We would need to ensure compliance with ADA regulations for equal access for all.  We could ill afford the legal action resulting from the denial of library access to Shamu because he can't access the local public library.  The local cable television provider would be required to add a few more bullshit channels to their basic subscriber programming to ensure equal programming or face FCC sanctions.  Airlines would need to provide reasonable accommodations for elephants wanting to travel back to Africa to see their former homeland and how it has degenerated into a shooting gallery worse than Chicago with rampant poaching.  Would there be a weight limit per passenger?  I would assume airlines would need charge the same fees for tickets for fear of some sort of equal consumer protection litigation on behalf of overweight elephants, hippos and rhinos.

What would happen to extracting venom from snakes for anti venom serum.  There would have to be some compensation agreement as we all saw in the animated movie "Bee Movie."  We must make sure we compensate these new citizens equally.  I don't even know where to begin with Guide Dogs?  PETA would advocate there is no future need for assistance dogs, as there is a phone app to take their place.  Their argument is naive, foolish and can I say dumber than lemmings.  Probably not!  They would sue me for insulting lemmings.  They would have you beleive assistance dogs are placed in what they would have us believe are restraints of bondage and I am not talking about a scene from 50 Shades of Grey.  These restraints are to ensure their forced cooperation to perform hard labor.  Their forced internment in peoples homes and forced servitude is tantamount to slavery.  Dear God we owe reparations to the generations of canines who were held against their will.  Since there are little to no birth records we will need a government commission to determine how to compensate the generations of surviving family members.

PETA has spent millions trying to sell their viewpoint that exploitation of animals is wrong and immoral.  Their primary advertising campaign involves the cheap exploitation of women's nude bodies to advance their cause.  Those who advocate a world free of exploitation themselves degrade women to shamelessly advance their cause.  Hey, truth be told, their posters have more nudity than the new Playboy.  So forgive me if I stop here, but my "meat lovers" pizza has just arrived and I am starving for some mouthwatering animal flesh covered in warm cheese, tangy sauce and wrapped in a deep dish crust.  Plus I want to look at more of these photos from PETA.

POST #3 - Dodger Blues

The 2016 Dodgers have lived up to the rich traditions established by their their fore bearers from Flatbush.  The "Bums from Brooklyn" are alive and well in and underachieving in Los Angeles.  With the McCourts departure from Los Angeles like a case of explosive irritable bowel syndrome, Guggenheim Sports has picked up the reigns once held by the likes of Branch Rickey and Walter O'Malley.  The difference being a soul and deep sense of commitment and tradition, not to mention a few billion dollars.  Gone are Vero Beach, Robinson, Drysedale and Alston.  They have been replaced with Camelback Ranch, desperation and a series of managers that have faded into memory.  Oh, I didn't forget the Fox Sports years.  There just isn't a reason to remember them.  So rest assured, the reputation for finishing second or worse is alive and well.  I fear there is little Guggenheim Sports can do little to alter that fate.

Guggenheim Sports was heralded as the great savior of the Dodger franchise.  They rode in on a majestic white stallions to save the day.  They were closely followed by carts loaded with cash.  Frank Walter, Stan Kasten, Magic Johnson and the gang threw money around like a band of drunk sailors on shore leave.  The amount of money spent was viewed as obscene even by New York Yankee standards.  Money spent on overage half season rentals, overrated minor league prospects with glaring deficiencies and a bevy of dead arm pitchers who never had a career to start with.  At first Guggenheim could lay blame and throw Ned Colletti under the bus as the problem.  He was however banished to sportscasting on a channel only a small portion of Los Angeles can view.  Hell, they may have done him a favor as nobody knows where he went.  Guggenheim brought in their "Wonder Boy" in the name of Andrew Friedman and paraded him around like a prized show dog.  Friedman was given the lofty title of President of Baseball Operations and permitted to hire a bounty of former General Managers to assist the new General Manager Farhan Zahidi.  The Dodger front office and payroll exploded like a defense department contract budget out of control.  Friedmans' new philosophy of having a dozen chefs in the kitchen fused with a mixture of traditional scouting reports, saber-metrics and an old gypsy mystic with a crystal ball took over decision making.  Now in his second year in control of the Dodger front office Friedman and company are responsible for the product on the field.  A product that would most likely be subject to a recall if the FDA had any say.  Watch out Los Angeles, your show dog has a bad case of fleas.

We have sat back with great anticipation to see what type of innovative moves Friedman and company would make in bringing top caliber players to the team.  With each free agent market, non waiver trade deadline, and player draft we have waited like rabid dogs for a meal that never comes.  The Dodger front office and all of its super star talent hasn't produced a single rabbit from the magicians hat.  Instead we have watched top tier players pass on an opportunity to cash in for high salaries in Los Angeles to play for other teams.  While Theo Epstein is building a dynasty in Chicago with the previously pathetic Cubs, Friedmans' plane is stalled and in a free fall and nobody can find a parachute.  The collapse appears inevitable and blue blood will be splattered about Chavez Ravine like a Rorshach test gone way wrong.  There is something wrong in Los Angeles with this once great franchise and nobody seems to know how to bring them out of the stark darkness of the abyss.

With the exception of Corey Seager the Dodger farm system has provided little new talent.  The jury is still out on Trayce Thompson, Julio Urias and a couple other names.  What we have seen are the likes of Yasiel Puig, Alex Guerrero and Joc Pederson come up to the majors only to fail in dramatic fashion.  In the old days Vero Beach turned out a long string of high quality players and "Rookies of the Year" award winners who were disciplined and knew how to play baseball.  Now Camelback Ranch is turning out players with flawed swings, poor fundamental understandings of the game and little to no discipline.  The once great farm system is now merely a group of caretakers and camp counselors who have forgot how to teach the game or inspire the youth to learn.  People make fun of Tommy Lasorda but he made the youth want to learn and believe in themselves.  He made them winners and earned his place in the Hall of Fame.  When you talk to Dodger greats you always hear stories of how Vero Beach shaped and molded them into great players.  That is all now gone and we lost forever in time.

The Dodgers top priority for the last decade has been rebuilding their pitching staff.  The farm system and the front office have only delivered Clayton Kershaw and Kenley Jansen.  This level of ineptness is only rivaled by the jackasses we keep sending to congress.  We currently are paying for players no longer om our roster like Alex Guerrero ($10,000,000), Hector Olivera ($23,300,000), Matt Kemp ($14,000,000) and Carl Crawford ($21,100,000).  The Dodger also are paying Yasiel Puig ($6,200,000) to play in the minors.  We cannot forget disabled list salaries of Hyun Jin-Ryu ($23,500,000) and Andre Ethier ($53,000,000).  Keep in mind these are all salaries related to transactions approved under Guggenheim Sports.  So much for their keen insight in identifying the best talent money can buy.  It's time we have Andrew Friedman, Farhan Zahidi and the rest of the Dodger Baseball Operations division checked for cataracts.  As for Stan Kasten, I am not sure if it is Alzheimers or plain old senility as his ability to run a baseball team as the President is in serious question.  He has approved all the transactions Andrew Friedman and his predecessor Ned Colletti have made since Guggenheim Sports took over.  Maybe Stan Kasten could work for the top movies studios as he is skilled at losing money on the scale of the Ghostbusters reboot or the train wreck that was Batman vs. Superman.  

At the end of the day we are not under the "Curse of the Bambino" like the Boston Red Sox were for decades or the "Curse of the Goat" that has maligned the Chicago Cubs still to this day.  The Dodgers have nobody to blame but themselves.  But we still love, "Them Bums,"

POST #1 - I'm Back!!!

I took the last 5 years off focusing on other of lifes pursuits.  Like the song by John Lennon, I chose to sit back and watch the wheels go round and round.  I admit I was lazy, but I was also tired of the entrenched and inflexible positions of the masses.  Aaron Sorkin once wrote in his screenplay for the movie The American President and I paraphrase, "freedom is allowing a person at the top of his lungs to profess that which you would spend a lifetime fighting against."  Now I dont think Mr. Sorkin is any type of genius, but he got that concept correct even if by accident.  A concept the democrats would like to quelch with their attack on conservative talk radio.  Oh, for clarification I lean towards fiscal conservatism and adherance to the Constitution as it was written.  I don't subscribe to trying to redefine the meaning of words with modern definitions.  I prefer to use the original meaning as outlined in their original meaning and the viewpoints of our founding fathers as outlined in the various states ratification letters for the Constitution.  A viewpoint few are willing to research.

Our current election cycle has done nothing to indicate to inspire me.  There are some 320,000,000 Americans and the best we can come up with is Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump?  We are doomed like the Roman Empire, Ancient Egypt or the Chinese Dynasties.  The more advanced our society gets the dumber we get.  The concept of intellectual debate and compromise is lost to hyperbole and polarized positions.  Who cares if the Sword of Damocles is perched above our heads by a single threat of hair.

There is no such thing as mainstream radio anymore.  Just stations, channels, hosts and programs that lean to the left or right.  The concept of impartial reporting is a myth and as ellusive as a modern day unicorn.  Reporting is now defined as means of indoctrination of the masses and a means of delivering talking points to support  the points of view of those wanting to be in control.

So, here we go again.  I will most likely offend some who can't accept alternative viewpoints.  If I do, my only advise is to say, "Get a life!  Oh, and get laid even if you have to pay for it as clearly you need to unwind."

So keep your hands and feet inside the car at all times.  We are cleared for launch..."

POST #2 - Augmented Reality

In the aftermath of both the Republican and Democrat National Party conventions, cops being killed, terrorist attacks, North Korea firing missiles and the Chinese annexing the South China Sea, the folks at Niantic bring us the newest way to forget the world with Pokemon Go.  Who is Niantic you ask?  They are the folks that brought us another augmented reality game called Ingress.  Niantic is a spin-off from Google and has taken the cellphone gaming market by storm.

This social experiment with Augmented Reality has looked more like a Darwin Awards competition.  With players walking off cliffs, driving cars into trees, driving cars into police vehicles, walking into telephone poles and even quitting the job that supports the family, you have to wonder if the barrel with the gene pool of life is empty and we are now trying to capture the leakage remaining on the ground.  These people aren' putting their very lives in danger to save a loved one, the safeguarding of humanity or anything like that.  They are taking these risks to capture enough Pidgeys to evolve into some other digital creature to achieve virtual greatness playing Pokemon Go.  You cannot go anywhere without seeing a throng of Pokemon Trainers running around trying to capture a digital Magikarp flopping on the ground like a fish out of water. I would like to say this is a fad for the young but it has infected Uncle All, Auntie Em and hell even Grammy.  It is like a social experiment seeing kids, hipsters, hippies, gamers, surfers, senior citizens and their caretakers wandering aimlessly looking for something called a Charizard suddenly change direction like a school of bait fish when they hear someone scream, "Garygos."  

Now I will admit, who am I to question this digital phenomena when it has done more to get our obese society off of their couches and out exercising than all the heart attacks, stern doctor lectures, nagging housewives and even surgeon general warnings combined.  Why did it take some virtual digital augmented reality experience to get families to spend time together again hunting Pikachu's together?  When before parent would lament losing the younger generation to electronic gaming, today they are taunting and bragging to each other over their collection of imaginary combative pets.

Whatever the case, if just for a moment, these people have found an escape from the insane polarized world we live in and the harsh reality that life isn't always fair and for some almost never enjoyable anymore.  So to hell with homework, bills, work and even common sense, I need to lean over that cliff's edge as I can almost reach that prized...........splat!!!