Hey

I Forgive Bob Costas for One Moment of Stupidity After Today

Stan Musial was always overlooked by the media of his day and the media since he retired from baseball fifty years ago because he was not from New Yawk or Bahstin. Instead, the junkies, cokeheads, bigots, racists, assholes, bullies, self-promoters, juicers, pill poppers, cheaters, philanderers, and all around dickrags who couldn’t carry Musial’s dirty socks have become cultural icons forced upon us because they wore pinstripes or played in the shadow of the Monster while Stan the Man gracefully and politely lived out his days in his adopted hometown, dying just months after his wife of 70 plus years passed away.

Well, after the whirlwind past week, and in fitting fashion, Musial’s funeral was ignored as it happened by some worthless college basketball games and random coverage of Ray Lewis, fake dying girlfriends, and whatever scrapings from the shitpile that is modern sports. That’s too bad, for people missed this classic eulogy by Bob Costas.

While Costas may have been, and probably still is, a fool for his recent speechifying about guns, this speech is indeed beautiful, not for its pomp and grandeur; rather, Costas laid bare the emotions of a true fan and a man who knew and will always know he will never measure up to Musial. And that humility is why it was and is great.

Now I just hope he never talks about guns again.

In Defense of Little Books

March 17, 1992 is a date that will live in my mind as long as I do. That was the day I swore the same oath my grandfathers, father, and later my brother swore. It was an oath to uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. Throughout my life, I would take that oath several more times, as would my brother. All those years, I knew what the Constitution, our sovereign, entailed. I knew about the rights that are and shall always be our birthright, secured in that document by the blood and sacrifice of untold millions who have sworn over the years to uphold it. Ultimately, I would wind up in Washington at the National Archives, once with my daughter in tow, to see with my own eyes not only this document, but the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and a copy of Magna Carta, the wellspring of all beliefs that no man is ever above the law or unaccountable. Upon seeing these documents, I realized that I must allow for my daughter to enjoy the freedoms elucidated in these immortal words and pieces of paper, eternally humbled to have played a minor part to allow her to live under the words I saw under the glass.

That said, in the last few weeks, the issue of guns and the Second Amendment have come up in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings. I will not comment on that aspect here, as I believe I share the sentiments of the rest of the room on that topic. However, recent arguments (protected, I might add) over guns has led to some fireworks on cable TV, especially with Piers Morgan calling for whatever stupidity he’s calling for, culminating with the recent dustup with Ben Shapiro. 

Now, I have no concern with allowing Piers Morgan to be stupid on the air, for our freedoms allow him to do so (put aside the whole debate whether or not a foreign national should enjoy the same rights as I do). But, when he sneeringly and dismissively called the Constitution “That Little Book” , I thought about the Constitution. I thought about the sacrifices made to preserve and protect it, only to have some tosser mock it. 

So, in that vein, please allow me to offer a rebuttal to Mr. Morgan:

00:00.01

Of all of the moments I have had as a parent, few have been more satisfying than watching my daughter fall whilst riding her bicycle. While that may sound harsh, I do not revel in seeing her in pain or disappointed; no, my happiness came when, after a moment of sniffling and checking to make sure that the scrape on her leg or elbow was not serious, she picked herself and her bicycle up, climbed back on, and proceeded to ride some more, never giving up, and proceeding down the path. I mention this because for all of my worries about her future, I am a bit more sanguine than I should be, since if she can pick herself up after a mishap at a mere 7 years old, she certainly has the innerworkings to survive (and thrive) in any environment she may face as she grows older. 

The same should apply to us in the wake of the recent election. Yes, we lost and they won. That, sadly, is beyond dispute. But what next? How and what do we do to start the clock over? How do we reset and begin anew? What do we do with the first second of the new era, in the hopes of doing what needs to be done to push back statism? Will you give up? Will you just say, “fuck it”? Or, will you be like a 7 year old on her bike and get back up and continue the fight, albeit under a new set of rules?

Honestly, I have no fucking clue what to do next. I have no fucking clue how to handle the first second of the first minute of the new era we are in. But I can guaranfuckingtee you this, I’ll get back on that bicycle and plow ahead on my own if I fucking have to, learning along the way what needs to be done next and how to apply it. I will do this steeled by words I came across this week while looking for something else, though I loved them. These were the words of Pope John XXIII as Vatican II rolled along in an effort to inspire the bishops and priests in attendance:

Consult not your fears
but your hopes and your dreams.
Think not about your frustrations,
but about your unfulfilled potential.
Concern yourself not
with what you tried and failed in,
but with what it is still possible
for you to do

Yes, what is still possible. How can I look the child who pulls herself up off the ground in the eye and quit? How can I let defeatism and frustration get in the way? How can I stifle her hopes and dreams by not fighting for them? And how can you do the same for those you care for? How can you look in the mirror and admit defeat and refuse to look to what is still possible, albeit in trying circumstances? That is how I have picked myself up off the floor after the defeat a few weeks ago. And I hope you do the same.

To everyone out there, I have no idea where this road will take all of us, but I promise you this: I will not leave you stranded if you pick yourself up, get back on that bicycle, and restart your clocks with me. I also promise this to be one hell of a ride.

And as for the lefties spiking the football, let me add something for you:

Revenge?

Given the dustup over the “revenge” comment made by Obama and the subsequent “love of country” retort by the Romney team, I thought about revenge. To the left, revenge and avengement for past grievances, be they real or imagined, is nothing new; in fact, revenge fuels much of their policy and agenda motivation. So, getting worked up about a lefty uttering that word initially did not get me worked up. Ditto for Romney’s “love of country” comment.

But then I thought of something: what about this country? What has it been through the last four years? What has happened to the hopes, dreams, ambitions, and expectations of so many people since January 2009? What has happened to our standing in the world? What about the Constitution, our ability to defend ourselves, or the promise for a better tomorrow? In essence, what has happened to my country, your country, our country, and who facilitated this shittiness?

That’s why I do have revenge in mind with my vote. I fucking have revenge in mind for what has been inflicted upon this country. I have revenge in mind as I seek to see those who did this to us retired from office. And I fucking have revenge in mind, since I love this country too much to see those who this to it granted another shot to ruin it even further via the legal means granted to us.

Amoebafuck those in power with the ballot and the legal avenues to remove them from office bestowed upon us as a birthright. We are this close to voting the left out out of office and into the fuckbin of history, so don’t let up now.

That is all.

 

Someday

When I was younger, I never wanted to have a child. The thought of me being responsible for the well being of a small creature completely and utterly reliant upon me for life and sustenance frightened me, especially given my fondness for the fun life. Plus, how could a loser like me relate to a toddler? My wife’s sisters’ children all were afraid of me, so what about one who was with me all the time?

But, all of that left me when I first was able to hold my daughter seven and a half years ago. This moment was not at the hospital, for her first days were spent separated from us due to complications, but rather on my couch back at home, in the middle of the night, away from the nurses and well wishers, watching some stupid fucking show on ESPN, just because nothing else was on worth a flying fuck at the time. At that moment, I looked down and saw my daughter, sleeping the sleep of the angels on my lap. I saw me looking back, and a strange feeling came over me at OFuckThirty in the morning. A new feeling, one I never encountered before.

Now, I was too fucking tired to completely comprehend what was going on, but as the days wore on, the old protectiveness I used to display on the baseball diamond or in the barroom came through, though this time, it was not throwing a beanball at some dickhead who had just bowled over my shortstop a few innings ago or helping to even the odds with my friends as a rival fraternity closed in on our turf. No, this was a different protectiveness. This was protecting the future, as cliched as that sounds. This was not only making certain she was physically safe (and woe to any boy who thinks that in a couple of years he can get fresh with her. Just sayin’), but also making certain she had the same opportunities and chances as my parents labored to secure for me as the inevitable “letting go” moments start piling up. This is making certain she is able to succeed and prosper. This is making certain that she will be able to do all of this, despite the obstacles in her way. I mean, she’s my daughter, so a little bullshit on the path should mean nothing.

But what of the future? What does it hold? Debt? Shitty job prospects? Reduced opportunities to achieve and prosper? Reduced health care? Threats from rising powers who seek to displace the US as the global hegemon who can guarantee and protect freedom and capitalism? Derision at home from those who seek to sneer at the people who work to pay the taxes that fund their consequence free lifestyles? That is what my daughter faces?

When she sleeps, I sometimes still look in on her and watch her for a minute. I watch her dream her dreams of rising ponies and eating ice cream by the bathtub, as she describes it. And I realize that someday, she will leave this house and go out on her own. Someday, she will face the obstacles I listed above, and I will be unable to help her. Someday, I will have to let her go, and this someday frightens me. It frightens me to think of what she will face. And it frightens me to think that I will be unable to stop what will confront her.

But I can. I can protect her someday by doing some things she still cannot do. I can protect her someday by voting to determine the future of this country and the accompanying risks. I can protect her someday by doing my damnedest to remove from office via the franchise those who wish to restrict her future. To my daughter, all I can promise her is that I will do everything I legally can do to help her someday be as carefree as her today.All I can do is promise her that I will never let her down. All I can promise her is that I will never allow those who wish to doom her go untouched.

And to those who wish to restrict her someday, I have a few words for you as well.

Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Flyerfuck you forever and a fucking day with the fuckwang from the flying fuckbeagle of freedom. Fuck you for thinking you can restrict my daughter’s future without a fight. Fuck you for fucking thinking you could sneer at us without me fucksmacking that sneer off of your fucking fuckmangled faces. Fuck you for thinking you could impose your will without us fucking kicking you in your fucking nutsacks along the way. And fuck you for general purpose because I fucking hate seeing the future fucked over by a bunch of skinny jeans wearing fucksticks.

You think you can go untouched and damage my daughter’s future? Discofuck you with a syringe.

You think you can dampen her chances for a better tomorrow? Rotofuck you up your wellfucked fuckhole with the fucking fuckstick of the future.

You think we won’t go down without a fight? Equinefuck you with a horse’s fuckcock.

No, fucking fuckmonkeys of failure, we will not stand idly by and let you fuck over the country’s future. We will fucking not let you fucking get way with turning us into a socialist fuckhole without a fight. And we fucking the fuckdonkey in the back of the fucktruck will not let you get away with it so long as we can vote your fucking asses out.

I have no idea what will happen Tuesday, but I fucking guarantee that I will not let my daughter’s future be squandered, so long as I have something to say or do about it. I owe it to her, and I owe it to you.

So fucking go out and vote. Fuck the statists in their fucked over fuckholes and teach them it won’t happen anymore.

Thank you, and fuck the left.

Knock. Knock.

Sorry I have been away for a while. If it’s acceptable, I have probably one more left in me. Stay tuned.