THE POOR SHALL INHERIT
By now, after incessant coverage on all
major and cable networks, you should be aware of the problems the National
Football League has had with its grossly inept mishandling of sexual and
physical abuse incidents perpetrated by some of its players. The publicized
incidents primarily involve actions by young men mainly from the rural south
and southwest. Ah, ‘alleged actions’ claim NFL honchos who want to keep the
game pure and lucrative.
One exception is New York-born Ray Rice, formerly
of the Balti8more Ravens football team, who was the star of a much-played
videotape showing him slugging his finance in a casino elevator. She thought
that he must have really cared, because she married him after the incident.
When he was cut from the team because of
possible financial repercussions for the Ravens, Steve Bisciotti, the team’s
“naïve” the owner, showed empathy for Rice’s wife, who “is still the one who’s
suffering the most.” “Now she has an unemployed husband,” he said.
Unemployed, but if he had any smarts, he
may have saved a few dollars from earlier times.
Rice originally signed a 5-year, $35
million contract and received a $15 million signing bonus a few years ago. In
2012 his base salary was $2 million, in 2013 it was $1 million with $1.75
million option bonus, and Rice received
$25 million in first two years of his contract.
Can you truly feel sorry for young men
playing professional sports, when some of them “earn” more in a game that the
average American worker earns in a year or longer.
INSANITY RAINS
YOU’LL FIND IDIOTS
EVEN IN THE WOODS
There’s a lovely park not far from our
Santa Cruz home, and my wife Carmen and I enjoy an after dinner walk through
its rolling hills, forest, meadows, and we especially love to stop at a bend in
the road. At that point, there’s an inlet from the ocean, with a myriad of
birds on the water. It’s the ideal place to do a few minutes of Tai Ji to calm
the heart and soul to end the day.
As we were doing gentle Tai Ji movements
the other day, only a few feet apart from one another, we heard a noisy couple
approach, along with a quiet dog. We paused and waited for them to pass, and
watched as the woman and the dog continue on. Then the black-clad man in his
forties, pushed his way in-between the two of us, and started doing contrived
motions as he loudly proclaimed, “Push out the bad. Bring in the good.”
I turned to him, and asked him how do we
push out the bad that’s standing between us and disturbing our bit of
tranquility. Oh yes, my wife just reminded me that my language may have been a
little harsher, and he seemed insulted as he reluctantly strode away.
WHO CAN READ?
Homeless people have a First Amendment
right to make signs and express themselves, even when they stand on a medium by
a light, disturbing traffic while soliciting funds. There is a rotating group
of regulars, each with their own signs and times, at the light where Capitola
Road ends at Soquel Drive in Santa Cruz. When that solicitation slot is vacant,
drivers see a printed, government sign affixed to a post, which reads:
NO SOLICITING
OR REMAINING
ON MEDIUM
INSANITY REINS
IT’S NEVER MY FAULT
The San Francisco 49ers, a semi-professional
football team, received nine penalties for a total of 107 yards in their recent
loss to the Arizona Cardinals. Anquan Boldin, their wide receiver, caught only
six passes for a meager 36 yards, and was obviously frustrated by his own
mediocre performance. After one play ended, Anquan walked over to a Cardinal
player and deliberately butted him in the head. In a press conference after the
game, Boldin blamed the officials for the penalty.
PARK IT HERE OR ELSE
There’s a group of less inexpensive
parking options away from the on-site airport parking, and we use one of them
whenever we leave town for more than a week. A few days ago we received an
email from their national headquarters with the headline, “Can Airport Parking
Kill?”
Within the email they described the death
of a man at a parking facility on Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. They concluded
their sales pitch with, “Don't be late and end up
in a crate. Save stress and possibly anything worse by utilizing technology and
reserving all your travel needs in advance.”
Two days later they offered a mea culpa
in a second email, which read in part, “There is no
excuse for the topic of the recent email sent to our customers, and we can only
extend our deepest apologies to those disrespected by it.”
Why did they try to make
amends? Just like most everything you read about when an error in judgment is
made, it’s based on the almighty dollar. They further confessed, “We appreciate
your continued business with us and apologize once again for this unfortunate
event.”
WALK HERE, OR ELSE
Ultra-Orthodox leaders in a
suburb of London placed posters in Yiddish and English declaring that “Women
should please walk along this side of the road only.’ The volunteer Jewish
police said that the signs were put up in advance of a Torah procession “in
order to prevent men and women from coming into physical contact with each
other.”
In an obvious anti-Semitic action,
non-Jewish citizens of the town objected, since some Gentile and less religious
Jewish couples prefer to walk with one another. It should be noted that no
Gentile objected to Haredi wearing fur hats, black coats, dark suits, having
their tzitzis hanging free, and creating as many offspring as needed to ensure
a Minyan within each household.
