Well, the Female Rights movement has been an overwhelming success, to say the least. Beyond propelling women to the forefront of the nation, it has opened the door for gays, lesbians, trans-sexuals, trans-genders, vampires, shape-shifters, and any other group whose identity may be unfairly misunderstood due to society’s “old-school” definitions of gender. Wonderful! This is truly a melting pot, and we should be tolerant of each other’s lifestyles. Unless, of course, you just want to be just a regular guy, you know, a throw-back to the old days, watching sports and chasing girls.
The stereotypical man, as is portrayed everywhere, is tough. They are taught to stand up for themselves and the ones they love. If things get physical, it’s time for a “real man” to spring into action, roll up his sleeves, and take care of business. This has been the male ritual for centuries, across all cultures, beginning at childhood.
In most countries today, altercations arise daily between young boys. In a schoolyard setting, these disputes are usually settled by an afternoon brawl for all to witness and cheer. Those who follow the tradition are rewarded with a virtual badge of honor in victory, while even the loser can score points for a brave showing.
One who chooses not to participate in the challenge, however, is seen as a coward and dishonored among his peers, while receiving a deranged nod of approval from figureheads, such as parents and teachers. The signals are perplexing to say the least, and yet, a child who is gay receives our sympathy for being so “confused” even though the decision to not fight for him is probably much clearer. Divas don’t fight.
Still, bombarded by society’s twisted views of gender in this country, the average heterosexual male presses on. He must make a choice early on whether to appease his natural instincts and engage in these physical confrontations or be a “good” boy. Although pressure from above can be heavy, as in the case of a D.A. leaning on a convict to turn state’s evidence, usually, being punished by mom can not hold a candle to being black-listed by an entire school.
The cloud of confusion for the poor male only becomes thicker, however. Beyond the realm of scolding authorities, it becomes clear that this sort of aggression is, in fact, celebrated by everyone. Not only are the best fighters treated with respect in their own circles, but the same adults who punish you for it actually enjoy such sport after hours. Great boxing legends fill a century worth of history, and today more than ever, with the emergence of mixed martial arts, which is pure school-yard fighting, the best and baddest brawlers around are heralded as national heroes.
Finally, it begins to make sense. Obviously, a real man fights at times, when it is necessary. We all understand the game. It is natural; it is a sport. Every television show or movie has some violence in it, or maybe a lot. You have bar room brawls, sucker punches, karate flicks, and every other brand of Hollywood rumble between men and boys of all ages. The hero in cinema is usually the best fighter or at least a guy who gets in a “lucky” shot.
So, what happens when an all-American man strolls into a bar and a good old-fashion argument breaks out? It should be quite obvious to anyone watching, given the social cues both men have received since birth, what should occur. If you are a man, as defined by society, you must fight and restore your honor.
Only, in this country, a regular man is persecuted, and his natural conditioned response to that situation is met with an arrest and probable jail time, along with a lifetime of carrying the label of “violent offender.” The same actions that once brought him merit and are seen as a beloved form of entertainment in many other settings have now essentially defamed him. Is this not confusing?
Monday, September 13, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
Sorry, Lebron Just Isn't "That Guy"
The around-the-clock watch on LeBron James, which had dominated the sports pages of every major city all year, finally came to a surprising conclusion when he decided that it would be in his best interest to play ball for the Miami Heat. The announcement shocked many in the media who presumed that “The King” would be unwilling to share the spotlight with Miami's incumbent hero and finals MVP, Dwayne Wade. To them, his goal was clearly to be the great
est basketball player ever by rewriting some lucky team's history, something he couldn't manage in a small town like Cleveland, but it appears that they've misjudged him, and perhaps, N.B.A. owners just went berserk over the game's best role player.
Still, the signing was probably beneficial to the league. With two studs, both in their prime and playing along side a third fellow blue chipper, Chris Bosh, there's no question that the Heat are poised to land in the Finals, most likely in a classic showdown between two great champions, Dwayne Wade and Kobe Bryant. It is exactly the type of match up fans love, especially in a sport made famous by the Magic Johnson vs. Larry Bird rivalry and at its peak when Michael Jordan defeated every worthy contender of the time, one by one. LeBron James was supposed to be one of “those guys,” but the fact is, Mike, Magic, and Bird could never be happy in somebody else's shadow.
The teams who missed out on Bron's services, despite their infatuations, may have saved themselves and their fans from a serious disappointment. Much like the N.Y. Knicks, for example, who have thrown in the towel for two seasons now, specifically to clear cap room for this year, most of his suitors were expecting someone to lead them to the promised land and glorify to their jersey. Apparently though, LeBron needed his own savior.
Just like passing up crucial shots in the playoffs, playing it safe, when his career and the fate of the sport itself was at his fingertips, displays that he lacks that killer instinct, inherent in all of the game's legends. Miami was a no-brainer to him. in other words, closing seconds, down by two, the Heat were wide open under the rim. Only, Jordan takes it to the hoop to draw a foul or he lets one fly from behind the arc. He's a killer, and unfortunately, LeBron isn't. For that very reason, this whole thing was blown out of proportion.
There's no doubt that the kid is freakishly talented and makes a fine addition to any basketball team. You could even argue that his dedication to team play is admirable, if that, in fact, was his motive. Although, shrinking in the postseason and then, sneaking out of Cleveland without so much as a phone call to the team owner are pretty good indicators of where he's coming from.
Moving forward, it should be interesting to see how the teams who were shunned by King James execute their plan B, if they have one. Those who were able to downplay the event for what it was, an over-hyped lottery, which conveniently required a nice amount of cap-space to enter, should be able to add some quality components to their system and be competitive. It isn't over for them yet. Teams that missed out on LeBron James will draw just as many fans by kicking his ass.
est basketball player ever by rewriting some lucky team's history, something he couldn't manage in a small town like Cleveland, but it appears that they've misjudged him, and perhaps, N.B.A. owners just went berserk over the game's best role player.Still, the signing was probably beneficial to the league. With two studs, both in their prime and playing along side a third fellow blue chipper, Chris Bosh, there's no question that the Heat are poised to land in the Finals, most likely in a classic showdown between two great champions, Dwayne Wade and Kobe Bryant. It is exactly the type of match up fans love, especially in a sport made famous by the Magic Johnson vs. Larry Bird rivalry and at its peak when Michael Jordan defeated every worthy contender of the time, one by one. LeBron James was supposed to be one of “those guys,” but the fact is, Mike, Magic, and Bird could never be happy in somebody else's shadow.
The teams who missed out on Bron's services, despite their infatuations, may have saved themselves and their fans from a serious disappointment. Much like the N.Y. Knicks, for example, who have thrown in the towel for two seasons now, specifically to clear cap room for this year, most of his suitors were expecting someone to lead them to the promised land and glorify to their jersey. Apparently though, LeBron needed his own savior.
Just like passing up crucial shots in the playoffs, playing it safe, when his career and the fate of the sport itself was at his fingertips, displays that he lacks that killer instinct, inherent in all of the game's legends. Miami was a no-brainer to him. in other words, closing seconds, down by two, the Heat were wide open under the rim. Only, Jordan takes it to the hoop to draw a foul or he lets one fly from behind the arc. He's a killer, and unfortunately, LeBron isn't. For that very reason, this whole thing was blown out of proportion.
There's no doubt that the kid is freakishly talented and makes a fine addition to any basketball team. You could even argue that his dedication to team play is admirable, if that, in fact, was his motive. Although, shrinking in the postseason and then, sneaking out of Cleveland without so much as a phone call to the team owner are pretty good indicators of where he's coming from.
Moving forward, it should be interesting to see how the teams who were shunned by King James execute their plan B, if they have one. Those who were able to downplay the event for what it was, an over-hyped lottery, which conveniently required a nice amount of cap-space to enter, should be able to add some quality components to their system and be competitive. It isn't over for them yet. Teams that missed out on LeBron James will draw just as many fans by kicking his ass.
Friday, September 3, 2010
FaceBook Rant On Plume's New World Order
In response to the plea: The top 50 corps in this country who received bailouts from the gov't laid off 535,000 workers last yr while their ceos rec'd an average salary of 12 million. How can any hard working American not be outraged by this. We must fight for the middle class working man.
Plume responds:
Which is why I've decided I'm not paying my credit cards off, or my cell phone bills. (If the bills gets too high, i just jump ship and get a new free phone with a new cont......ract.) I do the same type of thing with car insurance, oh, and banks.
The two ideas are:
1. That stuff stays on your credit for 7 years from the day it goes into "collection" (IF you already used one of your free "banruptcy passes within 10 years) So, when things get too bad, you suffer 7 years. big deal. Time flies. Plus, during that time you can always get married or sweet talk someone into co-signing the stupid car you NEED.
It's well worth the 10's of thousands you may be down.
I know someone right now who is in his 40's with 50k worth of debt and is still doing the "noble" thing and pay that off....when??? he only has 20 years left. Why not take the seven years and start from zero again. Actually, if he wanted too, he could take his immaculate credit that he busts his ass to keep afloat every month and max out all his lines of credit. So, he starts from like 50K, not zero. THAT'S A 100k turn around in 7 years!! Then you start fresh with new credit cards and you roll on towards death.
The only reason this friend doesn't like that idea is not because it is logically flawed, which is isn't at all, butbecause it is "unethical." Which brings us to the second point, following along with your topic of corruption among the coporate bigwigs, shitting down on us.
The same credit card companies (for one) that we struggle to pay on time to maintain our dignity and so they don't skyrocket our APR at the slightest snafu, who act with less honor than a small-time loan shark, are turning around getting bailouts of their own!!! They frown on debt. They keep their own fucking score to decide what you can have in life, and yet, they get to whitewash millions of dollars when they fuck up!! These are the people with whom we must maintain some sort of ethical relationship??
I say f---- em. Life is not as long and epic as you think. This isn't for everyone now. But, if you're just spending your whole life in a hamster wheel, struggling to save for the "future" we always talk about, as if the present, which is the only thing real, is meaningless and you're are actually either losing money each year with emergency expenditures, credit cards and upside down loans, or you're barely squirrling away enough to get washed away with the first medical bill that your scandelous insurance doesn't cover, then stop. Step out of the constant calculator in your head and concentrate.
Play the game. They made the rules. You get like three do-overs. Not to mention, our friends on the left LOVE to give out free help, by the billions. If you can't make something work with all of that, then you weren't meant to have anything anyway. It's OK though, there are charities for people like you.
Remember. This is America. Land of Opportunity. The same opportunity these corporations have, we have. They just have no shame. There's no shame in playing the game!
After further debate he continued:
Ah, you said it : "those of us who pay our bills and try to avoid becoming overloaded with debt suffer......" the bank doesn't suffer because it doesn't do that. It takes the "bailout."
I'm simply suggesting a way to follow them out of the... emergency exit, so to speak, to leave the Titanic with the wealthy folks, rather than drown with the middle class.
It is an argument which faces scrutiny when it comes to morals. "Those of us who....do the RIGHT thing" can look down at those who snuck out with the aristocrats. There the argument will never pass the test.
But when stripped of these "morals", which are put in place by an entity that mocks them, the pure sensibility of it can not be challenged.
Of course, I am simply presenting an alternate view. Furthermore, I definitely do not suggest this as a way of thinking for everyone, nor would I preach this to the masses. Certainly, if everybody followed suit, our economy would crumble (to the point where we can no longer mask it by squeezing the "righteous" middle class)
Still, I feel secure in the fact that this illusionary "valor" that comes with honoring the fine print of a contract you were subconsciously swayed into signing through sophisticated propaganda and advertising schemes, by a crook who who honors nothing himself, is enough to subdue most.
This again leaves no argument outside of theory or idealism, as the FACT is that one person's decision to take the "safety valve" used by the PIC themselves will go unnoticed during their own whitewash.
I'm very sorry, AJ, don't be mad at me. lol But unless I am openly rallying for something, I tend to dismiss the arguments that go, "well, if everyone did what you say you're doing....." because often I agree. I don't think EVERYONE should do anything at once.
granted, me giving out financial advice is sort of like a quadrapalegic ski instructer, but.....
Plume responds:
Which is why I've decided I'm not paying my credit cards off, or my cell phone bills. (If the bills gets too high, i just jump ship and get a new free phone with a new cont......ract.) I do the same type of thing with car insurance, oh, and banks.
The two ideas are:
1. That stuff stays on your credit for 7 years from the day it goes into "collection" (IF you already used one of your free "banruptcy passes within 10 years) So, when things get too bad, you suffer 7 years. big deal. Time flies. Plus, during that time you can always get married or sweet talk someone into co-signing the stupid car you NEED.
It's well worth the 10's of thousands you may be down.
I know someone right now who is in his 40's with 50k worth of debt and is still doing the "noble" thing and pay that off....when??? he only has 20 years left. Why not take the seven years and start from zero again. Actually, if he wanted too, he could take his immaculate credit that he busts his ass to keep afloat every month and max out all his lines of credit. So, he starts from like 50K, not zero. THAT'S A 100k turn around in 7 years!! Then you start fresh with new credit cards and you roll on towards death.
The only reason this friend doesn't like that idea is not because it is logically flawed, which is isn't at all, butbecause it is "unethical." Which brings us to the second point, following along with your topic of corruption among the coporate bigwigs, shitting down on us.
The same credit card companies (for one) that we struggle to pay on time to maintain our dignity and so they don't skyrocket our APR at the slightest snafu, who act with less honor than a small-time loan shark, are turning around getting bailouts of their own!!! They frown on debt. They keep their own fucking score to decide what you can have in life, and yet, they get to whitewash millions of dollars when they fuck up!! These are the people with whom we must maintain some sort of ethical relationship??
I say f---- em. Life is not as long and epic as you think. This isn't for everyone now. But, if you're just spending your whole life in a hamster wheel, struggling to save for the "future" we always talk about, as if the present, which is the only thing real, is meaningless and you're are actually either losing money each year with emergency expenditures, credit cards and upside down loans, or you're barely squirrling away enough to get washed away with the first medical bill that your scandelous insurance doesn't cover, then stop. Step out of the constant calculator in your head and concentrate.
Play the game. They made the rules. You get like three do-overs. Not to mention, our friends on the left LOVE to give out free help, by the billions. If you can't make something work with all of that, then you weren't meant to have anything anyway. It's OK though, there are charities for people like you.
Remember. This is America. Land of Opportunity. The same opportunity these corporations have, we have. They just have no shame. There's no shame in playing the game!
After further debate he continued:
Ah, you said it : "those of us who pay our bills and try to avoid becoming overloaded with debt suffer......" the bank doesn't suffer because it doesn't do that. It takes the "bailout."
I'm simply suggesting a way to follow them out of the... emergency exit, so to speak, to leave the Titanic with the wealthy folks, rather than drown with the middle class.
It is an argument which faces scrutiny when it comes to morals. "Those of us who....do the RIGHT thing" can look down at those who snuck out with the aristocrats. There the argument will never pass the test.
But when stripped of these "morals", which are put in place by an entity that mocks them, the pure sensibility of it can not be challenged.
Of course, I am simply presenting an alternate view. Furthermore, I definitely do not suggest this as a way of thinking for everyone, nor would I preach this to the masses. Certainly, if everybody followed suit, our economy would crumble (to the point where we can no longer mask it by squeezing the "righteous" middle class)
Still, I feel secure in the fact that this illusionary "valor" that comes with honoring the fine print of a contract you were subconsciously swayed into signing through sophisticated propaganda and advertising schemes, by a crook who who honors nothing himself, is enough to subdue most.
This again leaves no argument outside of theory or idealism, as the FACT is that one person's decision to take the "safety valve" used by the PIC themselves will go unnoticed during their own whitewash.
I'm very sorry, AJ, don't be mad at me. lol But unless I am openly rallying for something, I tend to dismiss the arguments that go, "well, if everyone did what you say you're doing....." because often I agree. I don't think EVERYONE should do anything at once.
granted, me giving out financial advice is sort of like a quadrapalegic ski instructer, but.....
FaceBook Rant On The War Against The American Smoker
I advise everybody to quit smoking, but why this war on smokers all of a sudden?? First we can't smoke anywhere, not even the top row of a baseball stadium! (Go watch some old TV, 30 years ago. They were smoking in the barber's chair, on a plane, in a courtroom, on the floor of congress...
Now we pay a few hundredbucks on a nice dinner for two with a smooth bottle of wine, and we have to huddle outside like fucking lepers just to catch a smoke before coffee. (God forbid we enjoy it WITH our coffee!!) That's because the "pure, angelic" non-smokers, who are probably obese or anti-hygenic, might be offended, or perhaps the wicked second hand smoke is going to cut through the thousands of other lethal chemicals traveling throughout our respitory system every minute and kill their baby. (who incidently is the fucking person who need not be in the establishment. Call me crazy but I'll take a dude lighting up a butt over a screaming kid any day!!)
Not to mention, here in NY it's like 10 bucks a pack. Sure! The states are going to Hell in a hand basket so they ask, "Where are we gonna find some extra revenue? Oh, I got it! Tax the smokers! Fuck them!"
How quickly we've forgotten that back in the 1600's, a handful of religious freaks and greedy maniacs traveled to this new land, with no knowledge of the soil and surviving starvation only thanks to the Indians' need for their weapons.
Still, they were dying of disease, running low on resources, and wearing out their welcome with the natives quickly. They had no reinforcements from the motherland. They were left for dead, actually turning cannibal, but they suvived thanks to a couple of money-hungry snakes who had there own little side plan.
They brought TOBACCO SEEDS, rare shit fom Spain or something! The plants grew beautifully and became the cash crop of our great country!! The first US city, Jamestown, was built on fucking tobacco fields!!!
Tobacco saved this country!!!! It raised this country. Every single man who had a hand in designing it, from the aristocrats who wore wigs and signed shit with fountain pens to the peasants to the slaves....SMOKED TOBACCO!
How quickly we forget!!!!!!
Now we pay a few hundredbucks on a nice dinner for two with a smooth bottle of wine, and we have to huddle outside like fucking lepers just to catch a smoke before coffee. (God forbid we enjoy it WITH our coffee!!) That's because the "pure, angelic" non-smokers, who are probably obese or anti-hygenic, might be offended, or perhaps the wicked second hand smoke is going to cut through the thousands of other lethal chemicals traveling throughout our respitory system every minute and kill their baby. (who incidently is the fucking person who need not be in the establishment. Call me crazy but I'll take a dude lighting up a butt over a screaming kid any day!!)
Not to mention, here in NY it's like 10 bucks a pack. Sure! The states are going to Hell in a hand basket so they ask, "Where are we gonna find some extra revenue? Oh, I got it! Tax the smokers! Fuck them!"
How quickly we've forgotten that back in the 1600's, a handful of religious freaks and greedy maniacs traveled to this new land, with no knowledge of the soil and surviving starvation only thanks to the Indians' need for their weapons.
Still, they were dying of disease, running low on resources, and wearing out their welcome with the natives quickly. They had no reinforcements from the motherland. They were left for dead, actually turning cannibal, but they suvived thanks to a couple of money-hungry snakes who had there own little side plan.
They brought TOBACCO SEEDS, rare shit fom Spain or something! The plants grew beautifully and became the cash crop of our great country!! The first US city, Jamestown, was built on fucking tobacco fields!!!
Tobacco saved this country!!!! It raised this country. Every single man who had a hand in designing it, from the aristocrats who wore wigs and signed shit with fountain pens to the peasants to the slaves....SMOKED TOBACCO!
How quickly we forget!!!!!!
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