Eat that Favre, and go home.

That's right, Brett, just leave your jersey and jock strap at the door, get your Wranglers, collect your check and ride your tractor back home. Luckily your not far from your Louisiana home. You had a shot, you could have made it, you got so close. But close doesn't count. You showed us your typical self, you were able to out throw Brees by over a hundred yards, but again your cowboy showboating ways proved to be your achilles. Those two interceptions certainly hurt your chances of making it to the big show. Favre, there's no doubt you are a great athlete. But you have proved to be more of a liability than an asset. You might have rallied your troops to get this far, but you couldn't seal the deal. I ask that you please don't drag this out, just announce your retirement, ink a deal with FOX, or NBC to be a commentator. We know you love the attention, why else would you drag out your illustrious carrier to the point where it's becoming a circus. No longer do we say, "wow, that Favre, what a great quarterback!" Instead we just look and say, "damn he's good for being so old!" Those two statements mean two different things. Do we still think you are one of the best? Sure you still have the few faithful blind who will follow you until you play for the Raiders, and say you are still great as you try to teach Jemarcus Russell how to love and play the game right. But you're not a top tier player. Look at the team you left last season, the Jets, with a much less seasoned quarterback corps, and they made it just as far as you. Please Favre, just go home, it's hard, I understand. Cultivate another skill, take up another hobby. Anything! Just leave your great career alone, let it stand, and leave the NFL, ESPN, and FOX alone, so the commentators there can heal their broken hearts that you wont be coming back, and they will have rebounded by the time they get back to work in August.

Obama could bust the BCS with Broncos - College Football - Rivals.com

I came across this page, and it is brilliant.  Without doing any official political maneuvering, he can upset the entire BCS syndicate in one simple gesture.  While terrorists are hiding bombs next to their junk, and the economy is making slow Lazarus like awakening, and wars and rumors of wars rumble throughout the Middle East, it would be the wrong time for the President or Congress to take on the BCS through legislative means.  This would not be the first time that President Obama has lent his name and fame to collegiate sports.  When he made out his bracket for the NCAA Basketball Tournament, it was carried live to homes all over and then rebroadcast on the major network evening news.  As President, he doesn’t need to push for there to be call to action, but really by just inviting them to the White House for a meet and greet would a be sign that he is backing the change to the BCS.

The next question is should BSU be considered the National Champions? I would say, “no”.  Should the be ranked number 4?  No.  They should be ranked at least number 3, if not number 2. 

Alabama is the undisputed champion this season.  The thing that separates Alabama and Boise is the schedule.  Boise had no real key wins this season.  Of course Boise is caught between a rock and a hard place.  They play in the WAC, one of the weakest conferences, in division I.  Their nonconference games are played against smaller and weaker schools.  This is not because BSU has not attempted to play the bigger schools, its just that the bigger schools refuse to play BSU.  The schools that belong to the Big Six want to pad their schedule with what they deem to be weak teams, or even teams from the division II.  They look to get as many wins as possible so they pick the low hanging fruit, those smaller programs that are looking for the money the big schools offer and the national publicity, even if it is humiliating.  Schools in the Big Six dont want to touch the likes of BSU, TCU, Utah and other big schools from the outside conferences.  These schools are too tough, and they do nothing for the Big Six records.

Back to my point though about Alabama, its only right that they be the champions, they had to beat the likes of Florida, and other top tier teams of the SEC, as well as beat Texas.  BSU’s only real big game came against TCU, where they didnt put the game away until late into it.

Next season though I think we will see BSU play for the championship.  They have all but 2 starters returning next season.  Their key wins will be against Oregon State, and VT, if they one of those they are gone from the BCS, and if they lose any conference game they will be playing a bowl game sometime before Christmas.  Its that simple.

I would put my final rankings as such-Alabama, BSU, Florida, Texas.

Obama could bust the BCS with Broncos - College Football - Rivals.com

Titles and factions

I recently saw on a facebook post something about the Manhattan Declaration. It was a good read. It had valid points, and was thought provoking. But what stuck out to me was the fact that they continuously had to point out that they came from different religious backgrounds to write this declaration. I found that bothersome. Why cant we just declare ourselves as "us", or "we". Follow Jefferson's example when he said "we the people", he didnt break it down by labeling subgroups within the population. We constantly find ourselves trying to label ourselves, or others. We bicker about how we wish to be called, what is the proper term to use. I have a light complexion and red hair, instantly people try to make me be Irish, and theres nothing wrong with that except for that I'm not Irish. My jumbled political ideas, and voting record would show that I'm maybe a little more liberal than my neighbors, but that doesnt make me a Democrat. We seem to want to instantly label people, it makes us feel good, secure. Like that annoying 3rd grade teacher used to say "a place for everything and everything in its place." If we can label people then we know how to deal with them, and we feel at peace. People get annoyed by being called the wrong thing. I dont. Sure people can call me Irish-American, I know their wrong, but it makes them feel secure and it doesnt bother me. If they question my ancestry, I'll be more than happy to tell them that my family comes from England, Scotland and Prussia, sorry no Ireland. Whadah you know? We might converse with a fellow being. When people call me white, I dont care, its close enough. When people call me Caucasian, I dont care. When people want to throw the label of Christian on me, that is fine as well, I believe in Christ, my idea of him in the general sense is the same as others, so that would make me Christian. We constantly want to label ourselves, and labels are troublesome. This idea of labels proves troublesome for people in the United States that have not been in the majority. The constant struggle to find that cohesive identity among all. Even the Federal government cant come up with a proper way of labeling people. A person may change ethnicity multiple times during their life according the U.S. Census bureau, which for the longest time didnt (or still doesnt) know how to identify someone from India. Look it up, its interesting. My ideas of absolving the labeling of people might be too idealistic, but I'm going to try it. Instead of just labeling people, I'll just call them what they are....a person, I think that is concise enough.

The Quiet

the silence is omnipotent
filling the air, allways noticable
smoke, not the weak wisps of cigars
or cigarettes, but of distruction
and change
the evident smoke standing vicarious
for what had been before
the deafening silence fills my ears
I can touch, I can feel it
is this what what I longed for
just a little bit of solitude
please give me peace
but peace is not quiet
im discovering the peace
in the chaos, in the noise
the beautiful noise.

Remembering When

It was 8 years ago on Friday. It doesn't really seem that long ago. The memories of how we felt that day. Where we were, who we called, what we did. It was a day that will stay imprinted on our minds forever. For an instant we we struck dumb, we were in awe, disbelief, and fear. Some were angry. Angry that such a thing could happen to us. Angry, and thirsty for quick vengeance. For the most part those feelings quickly washed away. It turned into something else. The spirit of our citizens and residents emerged. It is what makes us American. People threw themselves into harms way. For what? Sometimes it was to save just one soul from the inferno. Sometimes it was to be their so they wouldn't be alone as they moved into the great beyond. Some did it because it was their duty. More people flooded the area. Despite the dangers of more explosions, collapses or chemical exposure. The risks were great, but the job had to be done, the rewards greater. For a moment we are simply Americans. We weren't liberal, conservative, republicans, democrats or divided between us and them. The nation stood as We. We the People stood together. We came together. We honored the dead. Revered the heroes. Embraced the survivors and the "survived by" as well. Let's remember how we felt, the unity at that time. The closeness, the camaraderie, the United family that we are.

I am the mash'd fireman with breast-bone broken,
Tumbling walls buried me in their debris,
Heat and smoke I inspired, I heard the yelling shouts of my comrades,
I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels,
They have clear'd the beams away, they tenderly lift me forth.
-Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

Remember the heroes. Thank those that stand the line between us and danger. Those that stand guard over us at night, and protect us by night. Thank those that are willing to lose their life so that we may have ours. Let us never lose our American Spirit. Let us always prevail, no matter how far or hard we fall, we shall always rise.

God bless us all.

Psalm of Waiting

time drips, life force
from an open wound
bleeding slowly, dully aching
gently unrelenting
slowly ticking at sixty-eight
thousand four hundred miles an hour
the Preacher and Paul say a time
there is a time for
everything

what is time?
die or live
reap or sow
is it my seven
days of creation
or forty days of waiting?
How much time is sufficient?
let this be the time
sufficient is for the day
let today be the day
this be the hour

of the reckoning, awakening
resurrection and exaltation
let this by the day
of change and the quickening

I am no Job
I am no martyr
let the days of suffering
let the days of proving
end

i am at the bedrock
i am in the hole
but I am not hid
I am not forgotten
deliver me or grant me
knowledge of my purpose
I am....knocking

Puncho Says It's a Great Day!

It wasn’t a dark or stormy night. The setting was rather benign. Slightly before sunrise. All quiet. It was that quiet that existed as only a handful of people stirred. The house rested except for one. Russell had an early tee time that his friend hooked him up with at Brentwood Club. The day before the house was full of noise, a million kids running through the house, parents all telling each other how wonderful the other kids were, but secretly knowing that their child was more superior than the others. The Clown Puncho. It would be patronizing to say creepy clown, since within the word “clown” lies the innate attribute of creepy. He was amusing enough, gags, magic and balloons. The balloons. The man pulled out so many balloons from all over his costume. His form of latex was a balloon, it had to be. The big shiney helium balloons with his face and in big letters “PUNCHO SAYS IT’S A GREAT DAY!” or “PARTY TIME!” or “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”. Then there were the balloon animals. When does one come to the knowledge that they have the skill of the balloon beast. The creation of an animal out of air-godlike. What after one was mastered the language Klingon, has popped every pimple, and mentally consummated a relationship with every suicide girl does one feel like it is now time to tackle the craft of balloon making?

Russell, still not completely awake stumbled from the room down the hall to the bathroom. Shutting the door behind him, turning on the light. He closed his eyes and allowed his eyes to get accustomed to the light though his eyelids. Finally when he felt like he could open his eyes, “oh shit!” He startled. Puncho was behind him smiling in the mirror. Russell swung around and thrust his right hand into Puncho’s face. The face bobbed about making the red ribbon dance around. “Damn.” Russell said, letting a laugh escape his lungs. It had scared the hell out of him. Then again who wouldn’t get the crap scared out of them seeing a balloon laughing at them in the mirror. He grabbed the ribbon, pulling it closer, and than palmed the balloon thrusting it out of the bathroom. The act of thrusting a balloon might possibly be the most anticlimactic action. No matter how hard and with what ferocity one puts behind the thing the damn thing will not go any faster, only if meanders about bobbing and mocking the anger. Especially when it has the face of a grinning clown.

The rest of the morning routine was normal. Shower, wash and then shampoo last. Shave, brush the teeth. With the towel secured around his waste, he opened the door and exited without looking. There was Puncho right in his face. It had hung there outside the door the entire time. Russell pushed it out of his way, into the hall. The balloon floated up ward and away, with the ribbon trailing behind. As Russell turned the ribbon wrapped itself around his throat. Russell grabbed at it trying to pull it loose, but it grew tighter. He tried to puller higher up on the ribbon, to pull the balloon closer to try and build some slack in the ribbon. All he received instead was rumble and scream. He tried to back up and tripped over a Transformer toy, losing his footing the ribbon grew tighter, cutting into his skin. He scrambled, but his feet could find no purchase. He tugged and groped, but there was no relief. Only more screaming, whining, and all sorts of horrific noises. From down the hall he could hear noises as though someone was waking up. He tried to call out, but he could make no noise. There were patches of darkness in his sight. The whining was gone, he could smell something burning. He looked up and saw Puncho smiling and around him in a halo was “PUNCHO SAYS IT’S A GREAT DAY!”

Monica a lovely little number stumbled from her bed, she heard noises or at least she thought she did. “Russell?” She calls from the side of her bed where she puts on her robe. “Russell?” She calls head cocked to the side at the door. “RUSSELL!” She yells. She runs to him, dancing above his head was the balloon, all bright colors and smiles. Next to his body lay a large wooden fan blade. “Russell!” She cried over her husband’s dead body.

Winter Warmth

Your name is the color green
bursting from the white blanket snow
eyes large and alluring
the moon that controls me like the tide
a heart burning, the Yule log fire
a beacon in the cold winter Earth
fork tongued fools speak falsehoods
to your eternal beautiful essence
there lips are sealed, they stayed
silent they are like a night of snow
your synonyms they do not know
wife, mother, sister, teacher, friend
healer, counselor, nurse, educator
daughter, princess, heiress to the universe
no poem, no matter the length, the
breadth, the width, the depth of it
especially on by the weak penned poet
could contain, capture the you that is you
to know you is to live, see, breathe,
touch, smell, love you
and only then can one know only
a fraction, a part of you. like
the snow one cannot separate every
flake, but simply stand in awe of the whole.

Enough Already

On Tuesday night the world lost a lot of people. Everyday people die. The moment we exit the womb and take our first gulp of air we take a step towards death. Death and taxes are things that we cannot avoid. Death comes for us in a myriad of ways, sometimes death carries a face. Sometimes nature takes us, death is born out of our mortality. Sometimes death is the result of carelessness, a mistake can turn lethal, and in such cases the one that made the mistake dies a little too. Although they still breathe, and walk, a part of them is dead. At times death comes in the form of hatred, rage, or the derangement of a broken brain and conscious. On Tuesday 3 people: Heidi Overmier, Elizabeth "Betsy" Gannon, Jody Billingsley had their light snuffed out by a creature that doesn't even have the basic qualities of being called human. I refuse to mention this subcreatures name, or depict his image. He is best to be forgotten. Sadly what happened on Tuesday night is an occurrence that happens quite frequently.

What happened though is nothing new, the thing that slithered into the gym and opened fire and then cowardly turned the gun on itself has done what has been done many times before. Herod the Great was a terrible awful man, who is only known in history as the murderer of babies. He ruled over Palestine at the time Christ was born. As he laid on his death bed he ordered the death of many of his subjects for the purpose of ensuring that there would be mourning at the time of his death.

The thing that walked into that gym on Tuesday had the intention of killing himself. The loathsome thing had become depressed from years of female rejection, it was a loner, and a loser who had no worth to the world because it chose to have no worth in the civilized world. It could have just ended its life, it could have taken a table for one and eaten that bullet alone. Instead it wanted to make people hurt, it wanted to take others down with him. It targeted women as though they were the root of its problems. It's mind was broken looking for some kind of acknowledgement in its death. Fine it was the last pathetic attempt of a deranged mind at gaining attention.

Suicide is the product of a selfish and cowardly soul. I can see in the act of taking ones life how it might be poetic. But what happened on Tuesday night is something else. What happened there should not have happened. These types of attacks are growing due to various factors. This is not an issue of gun control, it is not an issue of putting metal detectors in every entry way. It is not about making sure everyone is packing heat. It is an issue of instant celebrity status. When these acts occur news producers begin to salivate.

News station flood our TVs with what occurred. They focus on the person that did the killing. The killer gains instant notoriety. Those that perished are forgotten by the news. It's as though the producers have a fixation with killers. The producers feel some kind of need to give the killer some airtime for giving them a story that they can sink their teeth into and bludgeon the public with for the next week.

They fall into the trap of the killer. Some credit should be given than to the killer...they know how to manipulate the media. In the case of the latest shooting the thing that did what it did seemed like an average guy. Had some obvious social retardation that attributed to his decline, but he wasn't "too creepy". So the media falls in love with another killer, and forgets the stories of those that perished.

This last April was the 10th anniversary of the Columbine shootings. The two things that perpetrated that carnage had attempted to set off bombs but they were too inept to make functioned bombs. According to those that have studied the shooting say that if the bombs had gone off as planned than many more would have died. One idiotic pundit was balls dumb to say that if those bombs would have worked that they would have the had credit for the most deaths in a suicide shooting, but instead that credit goes to "blah" the thing that shot up Virginia Tech. How stupid is that guy. Now it's a contest to see who can kill more people before pussing out and turning the gun on its self? What have we come to?

Justice would be to never mention the name of the killer, to never show its image. They are best to be forgotten. Sure they were people, they suffered from some kind of mental dysfunction, but who doesn't? If we are honest with ourselves we all suffer at some point and in some way from mental breakdown or emotion retardation, but we overcome it or find help. Those that convert to being subhuman and belonging to a subspecies that's not worth living and believes they need to take somebody else down with them in the hopes that they will some how be acknowledged should be tossed by the wayside and forgotten all together.

Oh Sun We Praise Thee, Just Not Too Much.

Yesterday on the web and on the national news ran the story that health experts are afraid that our kids don’t have enough Vitamin D. The principle source of this wonderful vitamin comes from the sun. The importance of the big D is that it helps fight heart disease or other heart related problems. So that means we need to get out more.

“NOOO! The sun is a killer you’ll get skin cancer and die!” Shut up and drive your Prius, and take your visceral contempt for anything remotely fun. There’s no need to lather the kids and yourself in spf 200 before exiting the house. Experts say that 15 minutes of good sunlight is sufficient to combat this deficiency. This time might be extended by a few minutes if you have darker skin, since the darker the skin color the more it filters out the sun’s rays.

The idea that nearly 8 million of our youth in the U.S.A are deficient and nearly 50 million kids are estimated at being “insufficient” in their Vitamin D intake is a sad consequence of our society. We live in a society of excess. The current economic crisis is due to people who have bought houses well outside of their means, and then the banks had to foreclose on them. We’ve all raced inside and have been fearful of the sun since it was made clear that those that worshipped the sun would develop cancer for their heresy.

You know just a little bit of common sense and some moderation would go a long way. A life balanced would be good. Kick the kids out of the house, make them make friends elsewhere than networking or on online video game sites. Then after your skin absorbs some sun then put on the sunscreen, and really is spf 200 really necessary? Jeez, that’s the equivalent of putting on a Cliff Huxtable sweater. Come on now.

And in the age of a society that resembles a herd of cattle as we mosie through life, some cut back in the calorie and fat intake will do us some good. No wonder the rest of the world hates us and at the same time wants to be just like us. We might be the largest consumers of whatever this wonderful Earth can provide, and it’s our nature as humans to do it, we here in the U.S.A have the greatest ability to consume how, when and what we like, to what ridiculous quantities and excess our heart seems fit.