Sporting Thoughts

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It’s well after midnight, and I’m wide awake watching the Olympics.  As I intently watch young ladies trying to sweep a stone onto a target, it strikes me just what a species of sports fanatics we are, me included.  I’m far from an athlete in my own right, but I find myself becoming as emotionally stimulated while watching a competitive event.

Title: Curling | Date: 02/20/2006 | Photographer: Feddar | This file is in public domain, not copyrighted, no rights reserved.

Like most, when the person/team I’m rooting for wins I say, “We won!”  Now, I didn’t do a darn thing but sit with a beverage and shout at images on a screen, but as a loyal fan, I claim part of that victory.  When my guy/gal/team loses, I feel the loss as well.  I feel let down, even betrayed and angry.  “They let me down!  How dare they?!?”

Yet, we crave the emotional roller coaster, and even do things to enhance it.  For example, each week boxing commentator, Billy C, sends his fans a list of fights via email.  The fan who picks the most winners in a month wins a hat or shirt or something.

I’ll never win a hat, never.  Each week I’m at the bottom of the leader board, and I mean the bottom.  I play every week though, because making those picks enhances my emotional ownership of the outcomes.  As I watch the fights, those boxers are boxing for me.

In a similar vein, a few weeks ago 111.5 million people disregarded their typical Sunday routine, fixed salty fatty snacks, stocked up on alcohol, put on jerseys, and watched a football game.  This single competitive event has spawned an American quasi-holiday, complete with its own customs.  While some claim to only watch the game for the funny commercials, it’s a safe bet that the majority of the audience was emotionally invested in the outcome of the game.
  
Tonight,  in spirit, I’m joining millions, perhaps billions, of onlookers as I root for, not just my team, but my country.  “We’re Americans, we can take the gold!”

Perhaps it’s the vicarious identification with victors that keeps us watching.  In this modern world of computer screens and increased isolation, perhaps watching sports, as others are watching, fills our need to feel like part of a team.  It’s something to think about.
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Winter Cold

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I'M BACK!  Well... sorta.

It's been a trying few weeks.  First, my computer went to Geek Squad for a week, where it was diagnosed with 239 viruses.  I got my computer back just in time to catch a virus of my own.   I'm still under the weather, but felt the need to write SOMETHING while I still remember how.

Here's a poem I was inspired to write, in between sneezes and coughs, today.
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Winter Cold

| Title: Snow outside my door | Date: 02/08/2014 |
| Photographers: James Kiester |
This picture was taken by the author of this blog.

Outside my frosted window,
Oppressively thick snow silently covers,
The normally pedestrian landscape.
As I watch the frigid bombardment,
Of seasonal of atmospheric fury,
My body miserably expels germ ridden sludge,
From a variety of bodily orifices.
Aches and soggy tissues,
Tint the otherwise pristine winter show,
Into tempestuous shades of incarcerating weight.

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Those Days Of Yester Year

"I think you're going to find out that westerns will be coming back. It's Americana, it's part of our history, the cowboy, the cattle drive, the

Title: Dodge City [Kans.] Peace Commissioners. L to R: Chas. Bassett, W. H. Harris, Wyatt Earp, Luke Short, L. McLean, Bat Masterson, Neal Brown | Date: cCirca 1890 | Photographer: Unknown | This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code.

sheriff, the fight for law, order and justice. Justice will always prevail far as I'm concerned." ~ Clayton Moore (The Lone Ranger, 1949 - 1952 & 1953 - 1957)

Every winter I seem to acquire a hankerin’ for westerns.  Watching rough and tumble men; drink strong coffee over an open fire, ride across miles of picturesque plains, and mozy up to the bar for a shot of whiskey and a cigar; somehow provides me with a cozy down home feeling I simply don’t get from other genres.

While I agree with Moore’s overall sentiment, I must disagree with him on one key point.  Westerns aren’t about history.  Westerns are about mythology.  These heroic tales don’t depict where we came from as much as they depict where we wish we had come from.

Occasionally, a western will depict the tragic plight of Native Americans, and strive to accurately paint the picture of near genocidal conditions.  However, typical westerns generally depict “Indians” as a force to be overcome, like weather or mountain lions, as Americans struggle to tame the west and realize their manifest destiny.

Although this skewing of the history of attempted ethnic cleansing bares undeniably racist overtones, westerns also convey messages of community, loyalty, justice, faith, camaraderie.

• When the local bank was robbed, men dropped what they were doing and joined the posse.

• When a neighbor’s barn burned, town folk spent the next Saturday building a new one with no thought of pay.

• If a crime was committed, the varmint would be brought to justice by the  incorruptible law man.

• Everyone went to “Sunday meeting,” or at least  respected the institution.

• There was always a poker game a fellah could join, after a hard day tending cattle on the north 40.

Of course, the real “old west” was much dirtier, messier, and meaner than these tales would have us believe, but so what?  It doesn’t matter that Wyatt Earp may not have always waited for his rival to draw first.  It doesn’t matter whether the real Bat Masterson disarmed would be scoundrels with his cane, before reaching for his gun.  It doesn’t even matter that The Lone Ranger never really dispensed an even handed brand of justice.

These fictionalized figures of yester year entertain us by representing the noblest parts of our past in straightforward morality tales.  Although the historical slants may be iffy, at best, the senses of romance and escapism, delivered by these stories, are valuable in their own right.
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Bad Defense Of Bad Policy

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The first time I lobbied the legislature for anything, I went, with a citizens’ group, to Salem to advocate for a bill which would pay a living wage to caregivers of people with disabilities.  We met in a lunch room beneath the capital building, where we were addressed by a white bearded long haired 50 something guide/coach named Fritz.

Fritz perched himself comfortably upon the edge of a cafeteria table, crossed his ankles, and motioned for us to gather ‘round.  “Republicans are not the bad guys,” he began.  “Liberals and conservatives alike, work hard in this building, every day, to make Oregon a better place.  We have honest differences of opinion about how to go about achieving that goal, but those differences don’t make one party good and the other party evil.  They’re simply obstacles to be overcome as we work together as allies to improve the quality of life in our state.”

This view of party politics stuck with me for a long time.  However, given the recent government shutdown, cuts in SNAP benefits (food stamps), and now the unwillingness to extend unemployment benefits, it’s become harder for me to maintain the idea that politics doesn’t boil down to a question of good versus evil.
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Title: Rand Paul speaking to supporters at a townhall in Meredith, New Hampshire | Date: 01/08/2012 | Photographer: Gage Skidmore | This picture is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

According to the BLS' Job Openings and Labor Turnover report from Dec. 10*, in October of 2013 the American jobs market offered 3.925 million job openings. Unfortunately, unemployment numbers from the same month** reported 11.3 million Americans were out of work. That translates to 2.88 job seekers for every available job.

While it’s mathematically impossible for every job seeker to find a job, under current economic conditions, the GOP has voted to suspend extensions of unemployment benefits, and its members are rallying against the reinstatement of such benefits.

Bizarrely, even though 16 million children in the United States – 22% of American children – live below the federal poverty level***, largely because there aren't enough jobs to employ every job seeking American, Republicans are trying to justify the repeal of benefits, by claiming such a repeal incentivizes job seeking.

"When I said it's a disservice, I meant it - I am worried about the workers. Not that I think they become bad people by becoming unemployed longer, but that the longer they're unemployed, the less likely they are to ever get a job again," ~ Rand Paul.****

In other words, if the government suspends benefits, during one of the worst cold snaps in U.S. history, the, want to be working, poor will have an extra incentive to apply for jobs, which aren’t there, before their families freeze & starve.
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WHAT!?  Does Representative Paul honestly believe that sending impoverished job seekers into a state of panic over how to feed their children, pay rent, and heat their homes, make 6 million jobs suddenly appear?  Of course not, he’s not stupid.  It’s more likely Paul, and his colleagues, figure that since poor people don’t vote Republican, cutting programs to the poorest among us is a good way to save money without affecting their constituency.

Not only is this perspective a remarkably cruel point of view to base policy upon, it’s also incredibly short sighted.  Removing millions of consumers from the market place hurts business.

If the Joneses aren’t buying groceries, not only does the grocery store have to lay off a box boy and a clerk, but the food manufacturers have to eventually lay off factory workers, which shrinks the consumer base even further.

As much as I admire Fritz’s “one big family” point of view, I can’t help but label a policy of sticking it to the poor as just plain evil.

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Sources
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.a.htm*
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_11082013.pdf**
http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty.html***
http://inplainsight.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/23/22023538-paul-borrowing-for-unemployment-benefits-weakening-us-as-a-country?lite****

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