Archive Listing
July 6, 2010 - June 29, 2010
Monday, September 14, 2009
Not Beating a Dead Horse
Hero Worship is Kewl.
Hero Worship is Kewl.
VICK
IS, UH, REFORMED. I was going to let this one go. I really was.
Even though Mrs. CP abruptly announced to me that she could no longer
support Ohio State football even if it was one of the abiding
sentimental legacies of my late mother. I understood her:
She was further upset by early reporting that OSU Coach Jim Tressel's first response was evasive and even flippant. I looked up the record and Tressel seemed more protective and guarded than casual:
Well, "Mom" and "Mika Vick" aren't exactly the same kind of entry on an eyepatch, but what a coach says in public and what he says to his team in private can be two different things, and I also don't believe that Terrrelle Pryor is actually endorsing killing people or killing dogs. He took plenty of heat for what he said in Columbus, and he's taking plenty of heat for it from Mrs. CP. Michael Vick is nobody to look up to. Who would hide this fact from a dumb, naive kid? But it's easy enough to give the kid a second chance, at least until he smashes his girlfriend's face or beats his dog to death.
As I said. I was going to let it go. Until I read Michael Wilbon's column. Which rubbed me the wrong way. A lot. Here it is:
Michael Wilbon should know better than to conflate morality with "feelings." Before he went to Northwestern University's School of Journalism, Wilbon attended St. Ignatius Prep, where, presumably, he gained an education in Christian moral doctrine. His insistence on further confusing moral outrage with political and racial prejudice is downright repellent. There's a whole catalogue of hypocrisies he's committed here, and I am going to call him on them.
Things Wilbon is dissimulating about, to the detriment of those he pretends to care about:
But you won't be there, will you Michael Wilbon? You're just using Terrelle Pryor for your own expedient political purposes. Because there are a whole lot of things you'd be more forthcoming about if you really cared about Terrelle, or race, or young people, or even all your political ideals. But you don't really care about those things. You're just another hypocritical liberal mass media parasite.
Name calling? Yup. But I can prove it all. You make your living in and from the world of professional sports. You know -- not kidding, you KNOW -- that the mysterious difference between the dazzling college stars who fizzle in the pros and the Hall of Fame all stars in every professional sport is almost always disciplined intelligence, an ability to work as hard and productively at the mental aspects of the game as the physical. You also know that reading, writing, and 'rithmetic figure strongly in this hidden part of the excellence equation. No, they don't have to be scholars, but being a person with the attributes of a scholar is indispensable.
That's why the speeches at the Hall of Fame inductions are usually so moving. Outfielders, point guards, goalies, offensive linemen, and murderous linebackers step up to that podium and wow us because they have a sense of history, personal humility, emotional memory, family, language, and character that makes them momentarily eloquent and usually overcome. Illiterate, narcissistic psychopaths need not apply. When brutes do creep into the mix on the basis of pure physical skills, they are, well, embarrassments, and they may have made fortunes but they don't rest comfortably in the eternity of the game. Yeah, it's probable that O.J. Simpson was the greatest NFL running back who ever lived, better than Brown, Sayers, and Payton. But whose story would you rather repeat to your children? And would you still defend Terrelle Pryor if he put O.J. on his eyeblack because he was "the greatest back ever"?
But you choose to defend stupidity on behalf of stardom and high draft status while overlooking the one supreme service you could provide to the people of your race you are so hypersensitive about. You could, not to put too fine point on it, tell young people the truth. What's that?
What IS that, kemo sabe?
Now hear MY RACIAL RAGE.
I understand you pitched a one-hitter when you were a high-schooler, Michael. Did you ever think you were going to be in the White Sox starting rotation? No? Why not?
Because you weren't an idiot. At St. Ignatius you also paid attention in math class and you knew that there are only about 10,000 jobs in professional baseball, most of which pay almost nothing. Compared to jobs for smart well educated people, which amount to maybe 50 million. Which are far FAR greater odds than any that exist for making a living at professional basketball. How many NBA jobs? 500? If you care as you say you do, how can you not stump the country, night and day, imploring kids to learn everything they can in school, as opposed to offhandedly reporting that college students of all kinds are "numbingly inarticulate"? Oh. That's right. You have a career to look after, WAPO savant...
YOU MAKE ME COMPLETELY SICK. The only hope for young people who have athletic talent and less than stellar academic talent is to find a sport in which they might earn a scholarship for the purpose of getting a real education that could lead to a job, graduate school, or other knowledge-based opportunity. Swimming, diving, gymnastics, wrestling, soccer, baseball, volleyball, lacrosse, etc, etc. Which mean run like hell from both basketball and football, the worst dead ends in terms of college opportunity there are. Less than one percent make the pros. The other 99 percent have no time to go to class and finish as 7-11 clerks with lifelong physical disabilities well after they've had their 48 minutes on national TV.
What do YOU do? You comment in your cultured, sanctimonious way about only the most high visibility sports, and you make excuses for the total illiterates who are exploited by the American collegiate athletic system and discarded afterwards, except for the celebrated one percent who get to be privileged thugs, given endless second chances, by you, in the professional marketplace. Because they give you something to talk about. And patronize the rest of us about. On air. Screw you.
Terrelle Pryor will be a non-story in the professional ranks. He's an athlete. But he's as doomed as Michael Vick. Whose inexplicable failure to be a great NFL quarterback is easily explicated by the fact that he's -- barring some unlikely intervention by wise, stern men who care -- a fantastically athletic but narcissistic, semi-literate, psychopathic punk Just like Vince Young. He'll never look like a living statue at the Canton induction ceremony, applauded by his physician, professorial, and otherwise professional children and his beloved wife of 30 or 40 years. Take my bet: Vick (and Pryor after him if the cycle isn't broken) will spend more time in prison than delivering motivational speeches. Just like O.J.
Still objecting, Wilbon? What would you tell Terrelle in private if you weren't defending him from the fancied army of intolerant white people who actually have moral standards? You'd tell him to grow up. You'd tell him to get an education. Like YOU did. You'd tell him to watch and learn from the dignity of men like Jamie Dukes.
You should have seen his lesson on NFL Gameday Scoreboard to
his co-hosts about being "the face of the franchise." Impressive.
Yeah, I know who he is. He puts you to shame in terms of pure character stature, Wilbon. Even if he didn't go to private Catholic school. He's actually learned something from his Florida State education.
Being a man isn't about race. It's about, uh, well, being a man. Something Terrelle Pryor will never learn if he reads your columns.
BONUS. Top points for the first person who can document the tongue lashing Michael Vick administered to Terrelle Pryor for having picked the wrong NFL idol... and extra credit for the substitute idols he suggested to the very fine young man who worships the ground he walks on...
In Saturday’s game against Navy, [Ohio
State quarterback] Terrelle Pryor put the word “Vick” on his eye black
(”Mika” is his sister’s nickname). As far as I know, he still had
it on in the second half. He had a very questionable quote after
the game, saying “Not everybody’s the perfect person in the
world. I mean everyone kills people, murders people, steals from
you, steals from me, whatever. I think that people need a second
chance, and I’ve always looked up to Mike Vick, and I always will.”
She was further upset by early reporting that OSU Coach Jim Tressel's first response was evasive and even flippant. I looked up the record and Tressel seemed more protective and guarded than casual:
Reporter:
He's a kid, but he had to perhaps expect that this could be
controversial.
Tressel: I think that's probably -- you would think, but on the other hand, Terrelle's of the opinion that, you know what, I'm not any big deal, I haven't done anything, and like anything else, whether it was a coverage read or a defensive guy not playing a gap or whatever, these are all moments that we can learn from, but again, I guess I would refer back to the fact that you have -- you would have to know him the way I know him to understand that he didn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings, to be insensitive to something that someone feels strongly about, that's just not him.
If there's ever anyone that feels bad about something or downtrodden about something, he's the first one there with his arms around them, that's just the way he is. So as they say, it is what it is and you learn from what you learn from and it's -- to go back to your original question, I don't know the answer to that because if someone came in and wanted to put "Mom" on their eye patch or their wrist, I've got a tough time questioning that.
And so that's part of life and I'm sure Terrelle -- he's one of those guys that he feels terrible about anything that's not just right. And I know he doesn't feel good that that disappointed someone. And his intention would never be to make anyone disappointed about something and that's just his nature and we all sometimes miss the mark, but as I say, teachable, learnable moment.
Tressel: I think that's probably -- you would think, but on the other hand, Terrelle's of the opinion that, you know what, I'm not any big deal, I haven't done anything, and like anything else, whether it was a coverage read or a defensive guy not playing a gap or whatever, these are all moments that we can learn from, but again, I guess I would refer back to the fact that you have -- you would have to know him the way I know him to understand that he didn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings, to be insensitive to something that someone feels strongly about, that's just not him.
If there's ever anyone that feels bad about something or downtrodden about something, he's the first one there with his arms around them, that's just the way he is. So as they say, it is what it is and you learn from what you learn from and it's -- to go back to your original question, I don't know the answer to that because if someone came in and wanted to put "Mom" on their eye patch or their wrist, I've got a tough time questioning that.
And so that's part of life and I'm sure Terrelle -- he's one of those guys that he feels terrible about anything that's not just right. And I know he doesn't feel good that that disappointed someone. And his intention would never be to make anyone disappointed about something and that's just his nature and we all sometimes miss the mark, but as I say, teachable, learnable moment.
Well, "Mom" and "Mika Vick" aren't exactly the same kind of entry on an eyepatch, but what a coach says in public and what he says to his team in private can be two different things, and I also don't believe that Terrrelle Pryor is actually endorsing killing people or killing dogs. He took plenty of heat for what he said in Columbus, and he's taking plenty of heat for it from Mrs. CP. Michael Vick is nobody to look up to. Who would hide this fact from a dumb, naive kid? But it's easy enough to give the kid a second chance, at least until he smashes his girlfriend's face or beats his dog to death.
As I said. I was going to let it go. Until I read Michael Wilbon's column. Which rubbed me the wrong way. A lot. Here it is:
The folks in the Buckeye State like it
when Terrelle Pryor is throwing or running for touchdowns, when he's
playing quarterback for them. But if
he feels something they don't feel, if he keeps his own opinions and
not theirs, specifically on the subject of Michael Vick, they don't
like the 20-year-old college sophomore so much. Some of them
dislike Pryor intensely because he likes Vick and had the nerve to say
so publicly by putting "Vick" on an eye-black strip during Saturday's
game. You can read the columns, the Buckeye message boards and see how
many think he's dumb, or stupid, or a disgrace to his team and his
school.
This is the world we live in, where it's not enough to have your own feelings; you have to pound everybody else until they believe exactly what you do. It's too bad Pryor isn't eloquent enough to express himself any better than he did following Saturday's game, when he said in defense of supporting Vick, "Not everybody is the perfect person in the world. Everyone does ... kills people, murders people, steals from you, steals from me. I just feel that people need to give him a chance."
It's an almost incoherent defense, really, the suggestion that "everybody murders or steals." Then again, we're talking about a college sophomore who, not surprisingly, plays football better than he speaks. I deal with enough college students, not all of them athletes, who increasingly are numbingly inarticulate, which isn't the same thing as being stupid. While Pryor ought to be able to express himself with a little more clarity, he also ought to be able to like or dislike pretty much whomever he wants without having outrage directed his way.
When Pryor walks onto a football field or into a college classroom, where disagreement was encouraged once upon a time, and declares how much he likes Vick, groupthink (or more precisely, nothink) kicks in. Fans have taken the partisan politics of Washington to other areas and overrun the internet with pitchforks. Heaven forbid a player or coach expresses an opinion or anything that anyone anywhere disagrees with. If Pryor weren't so talented, well, they might even call for him to be benched this week against Southern California.
What Pryor said that isn't offensive, to me anyway, is "I always looked up to Mike Vick and I always will because I still think he is one of the best quarterbacks." People want to pass a law now making it illegal to say anything that isn't hateful about Michael Vick? Last I checked, he served nearly two years in prison for his crimes. Move on.
The level of intolerance that people so boldly express now is stunning and even worse, quietly accepted. Same thing was evident in Kentucky where John Calipari sent a team jersey to President Obama (which he filmed for his Facebook page) and came under such heat for it that the post had to be deleted. Don't think for a minute that race under the guise of conservatism has nothing to do with this.
I've never been a Mike Vick fan, particularly, and thought he deserved jail time for his heinous crimes. But the sanctimonious criticism directed at anybody who suggests that Vick should have a second chance or that people should simply let him be, has become ugly. And if young Pryor is bold enough to take the heat for simply speaking his mind, even if the sentiment is unpopular, some of us ought to be bold enough to stand with him. [boldface added]
This is the world we live in, where it's not enough to have your own feelings; you have to pound everybody else until they believe exactly what you do. It's too bad Pryor isn't eloquent enough to express himself any better than he did following Saturday's game, when he said in defense of supporting Vick, "Not everybody is the perfect person in the world. Everyone does ... kills people, murders people, steals from you, steals from me. I just feel that people need to give him a chance."
It's an almost incoherent defense, really, the suggestion that "everybody murders or steals." Then again, we're talking about a college sophomore who, not surprisingly, plays football better than he speaks. I deal with enough college students, not all of them athletes, who increasingly are numbingly inarticulate, which isn't the same thing as being stupid. While Pryor ought to be able to express himself with a little more clarity, he also ought to be able to like or dislike pretty much whomever he wants without having outrage directed his way.
When Pryor walks onto a football field or into a college classroom, where disagreement was encouraged once upon a time, and declares how much he likes Vick, groupthink (or more precisely, nothink) kicks in. Fans have taken the partisan politics of Washington to other areas and overrun the internet with pitchforks. Heaven forbid a player or coach expresses an opinion or anything that anyone anywhere disagrees with. If Pryor weren't so talented, well, they might even call for him to be benched this week against Southern California.
What Pryor said that isn't offensive, to me anyway, is "I always looked up to Mike Vick and I always will because I still think he is one of the best quarterbacks." People want to pass a law now making it illegal to say anything that isn't hateful about Michael Vick? Last I checked, he served nearly two years in prison for his crimes. Move on.
The level of intolerance that people so boldly express now is stunning and even worse, quietly accepted. Same thing was evident in Kentucky where John Calipari sent a team jersey to President Obama (which he filmed for his Facebook page) and came under such heat for it that the post had to be deleted. Don't think for a minute that race under the guise of conservatism has nothing to do with this.
I've never been a Mike Vick fan, particularly, and thought he deserved jail time for his heinous crimes. But the sanctimonious criticism directed at anybody who suggests that Vick should have a second chance or that people should simply let him be, has become ugly. And if young Pryor is bold enough to take the heat for simply speaking his mind, even if the sentiment is unpopular, some of us ought to be bold enough to stand with him. [boldface added]
Michael Wilbon should know better than to conflate morality with "feelings." Before he went to Northwestern University's School of Journalism, Wilbon attended St. Ignatius Prep, where, presumably, he gained an education in Christian moral doctrine. His insistence on further confusing moral outrage with political and racial prejudice is downright repellent. There's a whole catalogue of hypocrisies he's committed here, and I am going to call him on them.
Things Wilbon is dissimulating about, to the detriment of those he pretends to care about:
1. Professional athletes have to care what people think of
them. Like all entertainers. If he cares about Terrelle Pryor, he
should make it clear that making enemies in the audience is a very bad
idea, economically and professionally.
2. "It's too bad Pryor isn't eloquent enough to express himself any better than he did following Saturday's game." Too bad? How about tragic, pitiful, fatal? Yes, people are inclined to be forgiving about the missteps of youth, but we're not exactly innocent about the implications of what young people say anymore. Hell, the whole popular culture is designed to rub old noses in the grime of youthful relativism, isn't it? You can expect all you want that post-adolescent parents and grandparents will accept whatever whims young idiots have latched onto for the moment, but you cannot demand that we accept what we regard as unacceptable because the faces who spit in ours are young, unmarked, and education free. In case Wilbon can't see it, let me make it clear for him. People are entirely free to write off Terrelle Pryor as a person of no interest without even trying to "pound everybody else until they believe exactly what you do."
3. "I deal with enough college students, not all of them athletes, who increasingly are numbingly inarticulate, which isn't the same thing as being stupid." Excuse me? Not the same thing? Ever heard the phrase "distinction without a difference"? Is that what they taught you at St. Ignatius and Northwestern? That having a moral conviction, a story, some demonstrable facts were all that mattered? That if you couldn't find some way to extract them from your skull in a form understandable by other people they were still Pulitzer worthy?
4. "What Pryor said that isn't offensive, to me anyway, is 'I always looked up to Mike Vick and I always will because I still think he is one of the best quarterbacks.'" I'll come back to this one.
5. "The level of intolerance that people so boldly express now is stunning and even worse, quietly accepted." Intolerance has to do with things like fashion, hygiene, and manners. It's an idiotic word when you apply it to to matters of fundamental human behavior. Can I be "tolerant" of wifebeating? Pedophilia? Killing? Animal cruelty? As long as they act sorry afterwards? Sorry, Michael. (Whichever one answers...)
6. "Don't think for a minute that race under the guise of conservatism has nothing to do with this." I'll come back to this one, too.
7. "But the sanctimonious criticism directed at anybody who suggests that Vick should have a second chance or that people should simply let him be, has become ugly. And if young Pryor is bold enough to take the heat for simply speaking his mind, even if the sentiment is unpopular, some of us ought to be bold enough to stand with him." By all means stand with him. As long as you're still standing with him when his career goes nowhere and he's tending bar in Dublin, Ohio, 25 dreary improverished years from now.
2. "It's too bad Pryor isn't eloquent enough to express himself any better than he did following Saturday's game." Too bad? How about tragic, pitiful, fatal? Yes, people are inclined to be forgiving about the missteps of youth, but we're not exactly innocent about the implications of what young people say anymore. Hell, the whole popular culture is designed to rub old noses in the grime of youthful relativism, isn't it? You can expect all you want that post-adolescent parents and grandparents will accept whatever whims young idiots have latched onto for the moment, but you cannot demand that we accept what we regard as unacceptable because the faces who spit in ours are young, unmarked, and education free. In case Wilbon can't see it, let me make it clear for him. People are entirely free to write off Terrelle Pryor as a person of no interest without even trying to "pound everybody else until they believe exactly what you do."
3. "I deal with enough college students, not all of them athletes, who increasingly are numbingly inarticulate, which isn't the same thing as being stupid." Excuse me? Not the same thing? Ever heard the phrase "distinction without a difference"? Is that what they taught you at St. Ignatius and Northwestern? That having a moral conviction, a story, some demonstrable facts were all that mattered? That if you couldn't find some way to extract them from your skull in a form understandable by other people they were still Pulitzer worthy?
4. "What Pryor said that isn't offensive, to me anyway, is 'I always looked up to Mike Vick and I always will because I still think he is one of the best quarterbacks.'" I'll come back to this one.
5. "The level of intolerance that people so boldly express now is stunning and even worse, quietly accepted." Intolerance has to do with things like fashion, hygiene, and manners. It's an idiotic word when you apply it to to matters of fundamental human behavior. Can I be "tolerant" of wifebeating? Pedophilia? Killing? Animal cruelty? As long as they act sorry afterwards? Sorry, Michael. (Whichever one answers...)
6. "Don't think for a minute that race under the guise of conservatism has nothing to do with this." I'll come back to this one, too.
7. "But the sanctimonious criticism directed at anybody who suggests that Vick should have a second chance or that people should simply let him be, has become ugly. And if young Pryor is bold enough to take the heat for simply speaking his mind, even if the sentiment is unpopular, some of us ought to be bold enough to stand with him." By all means stand with him. As long as you're still standing with him when his career goes nowhere and he's tending bar in Dublin, Ohio, 25 dreary improverished years from now.
But you won't be there, will you Michael Wilbon? You're just using Terrelle Pryor for your own expedient political purposes. Because there are a whole lot of things you'd be more forthcoming about if you really cared about Terrelle, or race, or young people, or even all your political ideals. But you don't really care about those things. You're just another hypocritical liberal mass media parasite.
Name calling? Yup. But I can prove it all. You make your living in and from the world of professional sports. You know -- not kidding, you KNOW -- that the mysterious difference between the dazzling college stars who fizzle in the pros and the Hall of Fame all stars in every professional sport is almost always disciplined intelligence, an ability to work as hard and productively at the mental aspects of the game as the physical. You also know that reading, writing, and 'rithmetic figure strongly in this hidden part of the excellence equation. No, they don't have to be scholars, but being a person with the attributes of a scholar is indispensable.
That's why the speeches at the Hall of Fame inductions are usually so moving. Outfielders, point guards, goalies, offensive linemen, and murderous linebackers step up to that podium and wow us because they have a sense of history, personal humility, emotional memory, family, language, and character that makes them momentarily eloquent and usually overcome. Illiterate, narcissistic psychopaths need not apply. When brutes do creep into the mix on the basis of pure physical skills, they are, well, embarrassments, and they may have made fortunes but they don't rest comfortably in the eternity of the game. Yeah, it's probable that O.J. Simpson was the greatest NFL running back who ever lived, better than Brown, Sayers, and Payton. But whose story would you rather repeat to your children? And would you still defend Terrelle Pryor if he put O.J. on his eyeblack because he was "the greatest back ever"?
But you choose to defend stupidity on behalf of stardom and high draft status while overlooking the one supreme service you could provide to the people of your race you are so hypersensitive about. You could, not to put too fine point on it, tell young people the truth. What's that?
What IS that, kemo sabe?
Now hear MY RACIAL RAGE.
I understand you pitched a one-hitter when you were a high-schooler, Michael. Did you ever think you were going to be in the White Sox starting rotation? No? Why not?
Because you weren't an idiot. At St. Ignatius you also paid attention in math class and you knew that there are only about 10,000 jobs in professional baseball, most of which pay almost nothing. Compared to jobs for smart well educated people, which amount to maybe 50 million. Which are far FAR greater odds than any that exist for making a living at professional basketball. How many NBA jobs? 500? If you care as you say you do, how can you not stump the country, night and day, imploring kids to learn everything they can in school, as opposed to offhandedly reporting that college students of all kinds are "numbingly inarticulate"? Oh. That's right. You have a career to look after, WAPO savant...
YOU MAKE ME COMPLETELY SICK. The only hope for young people who have athletic talent and less than stellar academic talent is to find a sport in which they might earn a scholarship for the purpose of getting a real education that could lead to a job, graduate school, or other knowledge-based opportunity. Swimming, diving, gymnastics, wrestling, soccer, baseball, volleyball, lacrosse, etc, etc. Which mean run like hell from both basketball and football, the worst dead ends in terms of college opportunity there are. Less than one percent make the pros. The other 99 percent have no time to go to class and finish as 7-11 clerks with lifelong physical disabilities well after they've had their 48 minutes on national TV.
What do YOU do? You comment in your cultured, sanctimonious way about only the most high visibility sports, and you make excuses for the total illiterates who are exploited by the American collegiate athletic system and discarded afterwards, except for the celebrated one percent who get to be privileged thugs, given endless second chances, by you, in the professional marketplace. Because they give you something to talk about. And patronize the rest of us about. On air. Screw you.
Terrelle Pryor will be a non-story in the professional ranks. He's an athlete. But he's as doomed as Michael Vick. Whose inexplicable failure to be a great NFL quarterback is easily explicated by the fact that he's -- barring some unlikely intervention by wise, stern men who care -- a fantastically athletic but narcissistic, semi-literate, psychopathic punk Just like Vince Young. He'll never look like a living statue at the Canton induction ceremony, applauded by his physician, professorial, and otherwise professional children and his beloved wife of 30 or 40 years. Take my bet: Vick (and Pryor after him if the cycle isn't broken) will spend more time in prison than delivering motivational speeches. Just like O.J.
Still objecting, Wilbon? What would you tell Terrelle in private if you weren't defending him from the fancied army of intolerant white people who actually have moral standards? You'd tell him to grow up. You'd tell him to get an education. Like YOU did. You'd tell him to watch and learn from the dignity of men like Jamie Dukes.
You should have seen his lesson on NFL Gameday Scoreboard to
his co-hosts about being "the face of the franchise." Impressive.
Yeah, I know who he is. He puts you to shame in terms of pure character stature, Wilbon. Even if he didn't go to private Catholic school. He's actually learned something from his Florida State education.
Being a man isn't about race. It's about, uh, well, being a man. Something Terrelle Pryor will never learn if he reads your columns.
BONUS. Top points for the first person who can document the tongue lashing Michael Vick administered to Terrelle Pryor for having picked the wrong NFL idol... and extra credit for the substitute idols he suggested to the very fine young man who worships the ground he walks on...
posted at
3:25 pm
by
CountryPunk
Friday, September 11, 2009
The Pres pays his token
regard...
ORDINARY GOODNESS. Was Obama at Ground Zero on this first anniversary of 9/11 to occur during his presidency? No. But he showed up at the Pentagon and registered his usual dry-eyed vote, "Present."
Secretary Gates, Admiral Mullen and
members of the Armed Forces, fellow Americans, family and friends of
those that we lost this day -- Michelle and I are deeply humbled to be
with you.
Eight Septembers have come and gone. Nearly 3,000 days have passed -- almost one for each of those taken from us. But no turning of the seasons can diminish the pain and the loss of that day. No passage of time and no dark skies can ever dull the meaning of this moment.
So on this solemn day, at this sacred hour, once more we pause. Once more we pray -- as a nation and as a people; in city streets where our two towers were turned to ashes and dust; in a quiet field where a plane fell from the sky; and here, where a single stone of this building is still blackened by the fires.
We remember with reverence the lives we lost. We read their names. We press their photos to our hearts. And on this day that marks their death, we recall the beauty and meaning of their lives; men and women and children of every color and every creed, from across our nation and from more than 100 others. They were innocent. Harming no one, they went about their daily lives. Gone in a horrible instant, they now "dwell in the House of the Lord forever."
We honor all those who gave their lives so that others might live, and all the survivors who battled burns and wounds and helped each other rebuild their lives; men and women who gave life to that most simple of rules: I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper.
We pay tribute to the service of a new generation -- young Americans raised in a time of peace and plenty who saw their nation in its hour of need and said, "I choose to serve"; "I will do my part." And once more we grieve. For you and your families, no words can ease the ache of your heart. No deeds can fill the empty places in your homes. But on this day and all that follow, you may find solace in the memory of those you loved, and know that you have the unending support of the American people.
Scripture teaches us a hard truth. The mountains may fall and the earth may give way; the flesh and the heart may fail. But after all our suffering, God and grace will "restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast." So it is -- so it has been for these families. So it must be for our nation.
Let us renew our resolve against those who perpetrated this barbaric act and who plot against us still. In defense of our nation we will never waver; in pursuit of al Qaeda and its extremist allies, we will never falter.
Let us renew our commitment to all those who serve in our defense -- our courageous men and women in uniform and their families and all those who protect us here at home. Mindful that the work of protecting America is never finished, we will do everything in our power to keep America safe.
Let us renew the true spirit of that day. Not the human capacity for evil, but the human capacity for good. Not the desire to destroy, but the impulse to save, and to serve, and to build. On this first National Day of Service and Remembrance, we can summon once more that ordinary goodness of America -- to serve our communities, to strengthen our country, and to better our world.
Most of all, on a day when others sought to sap our confidence, let us renew our common purpose. Let us remember how we came together as one nation, as one people, as Americans, united not only in our grief, but in our resolve to stand with one another, to stand up for the country we all love.
This may be the greatest lesson of this day, the strongest rebuke to those who attacked us, the highest tribute to those taken from us -- that such sense of purpose need not be a fleeting moment. It can be a lasting virtue.
For through their own lives –- and through you, the loved ones that they left behind –- the men and women who lost their lives eight years ago today leave a legacy that still shines brightly in the darkness, and that calls on all of us to be strong and firm and united. That is our calling today and in all the Septembers still to come.
May God bless you and comfort you. And may God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)
Eight Septembers have come and gone. Nearly 3,000 days have passed -- almost one for each of those taken from us. But no turning of the seasons can diminish the pain and the loss of that day. No passage of time and no dark skies can ever dull the meaning of this moment.
So on this solemn day, at this sacred hour, once more we pause. Once more we pray -- as a nation and as a people; in city streets where our two towers were turned to ashes and dust; in a quiet field where a plane fell from the sky; and here, where a single stone of this building is still blackened by the fires.
We remember with reverence the lives we lost. We read their names. We press their photos to our hearts. And on this day that marks their death, we recall the beauty and meaning of their lives; men and women and children of every color and every creed, from across our nation and from more than 100 others. They were innocent. Harming no one, they went about their daily lives. Gone in a horrible instant, they now "dwell in the House of the Lord forever."
We honor all those who gave their lives so that others might live, and all the survivors who battled burns and wounds and helped each other rebuild their lives; men and women who gave life to that most simple of rules: I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper.
We pay tribute to the service of a new generation -- young Americans raised in a time of peace and plenty who saw their nation in its hour of need and said, "I choose to serve"; "I will do my part." And once more we grieve. For you and your families, no words can ease the ache of your heart. No deeds can fill the empty places in your homes. But on this day and all that follow, you may find solace in the memory of those you loved, and know that you have the unending support of the American people.
Scripture teaches us a hard truth. The mountains may fall and the earth may give way; the flesh and the heart may fail. But after all our suffering, God and grace will "restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast." So it is -- so it has been for these families. So it must be for our nation.
Let us renew our resolve against those who perpetrated this barbaric act and who plot against us still. In defense of our nation we will never waver; in pursuit of al Qaeda and its extremist allies, we will never falter.
Let us renew our commitment to all those who serve in our defense -- our courageous men and women in uniform and their families and all those who protect us here at home. Mindful that the work of protecting America is never finished, we will do everything in our power to keep America safe.
Let us renew the true spirit of that day. Not the human capacity for evil, but the human capacity for good. Not the desire to destroy, but the impulse to save, and to serve, and to build. On this first National Day of Service and Remembrance, we can summon once more that ordinary goodness of America -- to serve our communities, to strengthen our country, and to better our world.
Most of all, on a day when others sought to sap our confidence, let us renew our common purpose. Let us remember how we came together as one nation, as one people, as Americans, united not only in our grief, but in our resolve to stand with one another, to stand up for the country we all love.
This may be the greatest lesson of this day, the strongest rebuke to those who attacked us, the highest tribute to those taken from us -- that such sense of purpose need not be a fleeting moment. It can be a lasting virtue.
For through their own lives –- and through you, the loved ones that they left behind –- the men and women who lost their lives eight years ago today leave a legacy that still shines brightly in the darkness, and that calls on all of us to be strong and firm and united. That is our calling today and in all the Septembers still to come.
May God bless you and comfort you. And may God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)
Um. Yeah. Empty, arid words and the Great Manipulator's resort to Service and Remembrance. (Applause. Applause?)
And I have to say one nasty thing. Those of you who lost family on 9/11 and signed the same petition Van Jones did -- you have forfeited my sympathy. Sorry. That's just the way it is.
For all the rest there is still the inconsolable sadness that only those who live every day with deep loss can ever understand.
Let us defend this republic against ALL who who would do it in.
posted at
2:22 pm
by
InstaPunk
TruePunk Responds
Right.
YEAH. ME. So. On a post I didn't even write, Steve from Canada decided to unload on InstaPunk.com in half a dozen comments on some Lost Weekend sort of night. That's okay. We don't charge rent for our Comments section. But something happened between him and another commenter that we have to respond to. First, here's a concatenation of multiple "Steve" comments:
America
has never produced a Mozart nor a Beethoven.
Precision Marine drill with bagpipes still makes me tear up. Seriously, Marines rock. Ask any Canadian grunt in Afghanistan...
I will grant you one mulligan -- Hendrix. But that's it.
Punk? Fucking give me a break! I lived trough the 1970s same as you, 'cept I wasn't permanently PCP brain-fucked to the point where I ever -- EVER -- thought that punk culture was anything other than the nadir (until now) of US decline. Punk by definition is ugly, anti-Christian and just plain irrelevant to anyone who gives a shit about 6,000 years of art...
You know what pisses me off?
It's like having a perfect older brother who would always bail you out when you made stupid kid mistakes.
All that swept away with one election. You fucking monumenatally egostically stupid Americans elected a communist immediately after waging a 50 year cold war against communism.
It's like dieting -- a year of watching calories is undone by a month-long cake binge. Your 200 years has yielded: a population even Canadians are disgusted by. Fuck you and your martial culture!
Let's see you take over Southern Alberta. You'd get 100 feet and there'd be a military cease-and-desist. We really might as well have 10th century Rome as a "threat".
Thanks to you fucktards I've had to buy new shotgun shells, sight in the old deer rifle, wire the 163 year old house for a generator, and set in provisions.
And we aren't going to fight any more wars for you. Find us in the mountains and the villages, one by one.
Losers. Fuck you. ..
While we're in the mood, there is one IP contributor who loves to make assholish remarks about Canadians.
Last week: two more dead. US equivalent: 20
Fuck you, TruePunk. Fuck you up the arsehole with a gun barrel. [boldface added]
Precision Marine drill with bagpipes still makes me tear up. Seriously, Marines rock. Ask any Canadian grunt in Afghanistan...
I will grant you one mulligan -- Hendrix. But that's it.
Punk? Fucking give me a break! I lived trough the 1970s same as you, 'cept I wasn't permanently PCP brain-fucked to the point where I ever -- EVER -- thought that punk culture was anything other than the nadir (until now) of US decline. Punk by definition is ugly, anti-Christian and just plain irrelevant to anyone who gives a shit about 6,000 years of art...
You know what pisses me off?
It's like having a perfect older brother who would always bail you out when you made stupid kid mistakes.
All that swept away with one election. You fucking monumenatally egostically stupid Americans elected a communist immediately after waging a 50 year cold war against communism.
It's like dieting -- a year of watching calories is undone by a month-long cake binge. Your 200 years has yielded: a population even Canadians are disgusted by. Fuck you and your martial culture!
Let's see you take over Southern Alberta. You'd get 100 feet and there'd be a military cease-and-desist. We really might as well have 10th century Rome as a "threat".
Thanks to you fucktards I've had to buy new shotgun shells, sight in the old deer rifle, wire the 163 year old house for a generator, and set in provisions.
And we aren't going to fight any more wars for you. Find us in the mountains and the villages, one by one.
Losers. Fuck you. ..
While we're in the mood, there is one IP contributor who loves to make assholish remarks about Canadians.
Last week: two more dead. US equivalent: 20
Fuck you, TruePunk. Fuck you up the arsehole with a gun barrel. [boldface added]
Next, here's the rebuttal from our own "Billy Oblivion," who's as certain in his own way as Steve is in his:
Dude, back off on the Meth a bit.
Seriously, life lasts longer when you don't do that shit.
Punk wasn't any more anti-christian than anything else in the late 70s and early 80s. I've known a lot of punks of various kinds, and most of them had personal relationships with religions that gave them good reason for their attitudes. Some were still very strong in their beliefs in god, some weren't. And given how the major churches in America were behaving (RCs covering up child sexual abuse for example, and the rise of the Send Me Your Money mega churches), they (the churches) deserved every bit of the abuse they got...
I've been a fairly hard core punk/Deathrock type (hung out with a lot of Goths in the 90s) since highschool and while yes, there is a strong currently of anti-religion in Punk, it goes right along with the rest of the anti-authoritarianism and nihilism that was a product of and a reaction to 70 something years of progressive politics in American and Western Europe (1900s-1970s). I can't find the article(s) now, but there was some stuff published that indicated a deliberate attempt by socialist/communist organizers in England to co-opt the punk "movement" there. Obviously it had much more success there (Crass, Sub-Hum-Ans (as opposed to the Canadian Subhumans, which was a totally different band) for example had ardent and obvious left wing politics. But then Britain always was further left than the US.
American *has* produced the likes of Mozart's and Beethovens in terms of talent, but our cultural tastes ran along very, very different lines. In the US we didn't (until FDR) have a real patronage system, so talent had to find popular acclaim to keep working, not just critical acclaim or the pleasure of one man.
Europe produced Bach and Brahms. America produced Johnny Coltrane, Miles Davis, Fats Domino, Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington. And the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo.
Canada is really screwy. Your snipers rock, your Royal Engineers impressed the hell out of my father in Korea (which takes a lot. He was a fairly tough guy). It's disappointing that your soldiers aren't as well respected inside you country. And your "Human Rights Commission" needs to be put down with prejudice (BTW, feel free to name 8 or 10 American departments, commissions, councils or whatever that also need a single .22 shot to the back of the head). [boldface added]
Punk wasn't any more anti-christian than anything else in the late 70s and early 80s. I've known a lot of punks of various kinds, and most of them had personal relationships with religions that gave them good reason for their attitudes. Some were still very strong in their beliefs in god, some weren't. And given how the major churches in America were behaving (RCs covering up child sexual abuse for example, and the rise of the Send Me Your Money mega churches), they (the churches) deserved every bit of the abuse they got...
I've been a fairly hard core punk/Deathrock type (hung out with a lot of Goths in the 90s) since highschool and while yes, there is a strong currently of anti-religion in Punk, it goes right along with the rest of the anti-authoritarianism and nihilism that was a product of and a reaction to 70 something years of progressive politics in American and Western Europe (1900s-1970s). I can't find the article(s) now, but there was some stuff published that indicated a deliberate attempt by socialist/communist organizers in England to co-opt the punk "movement" there. Obviously it had much more success there (Crass, Sub-Hum-Ans (as opposed to the Canadian Subhumans, which was a totally different band) for example had ardent and obvious left wing politics. But then Britain always was further left than the US.
American *has* produced the likes of Mozart's and Beethovens in terms of talent, but our cultural tastes ran along very, very different lines. In the US we didn't (until FDR) have a real patronage system, so talent had to find popular acclaim to keep working, not just critical acclaim or the pleasure of one man.
Europe produced Bach and Brahms. America produced Johnny Coltrane, Miles Davis, Fats Domino, Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington. And the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo.
Canada is really screwy. Your snipers rock, your Royal Engineers impressed the hell out of my father in Korea (which takes a lot. He was a fairly tough guy). It's disappointing that your soldiers aren't as well respected inside you country. And your "Human Rights Commission" needs to be put down with prejudice (BTW, feel free to name 8 or 10 American departments, commissions, councils or whatever that also need a single .22 shot to the back of the head). [boldface added]
Which is where I, TruePunk, have to step in. First of all, thank you, Steve, for reminding everyone of the truly outstanding posts InstaPunk has done about Canada (1, 2), which I also didn't write. Their deep-down goodness and truth speaks for itself and requires no additional rhetoric from yours truly.
Second, I have to note the schizophrenia of the "phrenzied" abuse of the U.S. in the context of this extraordinary confession: "It's like having a perfect older brother who would always bail you out when you made stupid kid mistakes." Is that so? Yeah, we are the older brother and, as such, we've been everywhere and faced everything important before you, almost always with an eye out for your safety as the resident shrimp, and most of your accusations are as easily dismissible as the tantrums they are. You hate us, you love us, understood. We really don't care. When push comes to shove, we'll see to it that nothing awful happens to you. Even if we give you noogies afterwards for inconveniencing us.
And I don't care at all about your debate with Billy over the origins of punk. At all. Or your childish tirade about me, TruePunk. Fine. Have at it. If you ever do piss me off, look out. I'll tear you a new one faster than you can churn out 50 new deranged comments. Right now, I don't care to.
BUT. There's an exchange between Steve and Billy that I can't let pass without remark:
Steve:
America has never produced a Mozart nor a Beethoven.
Billy: Europe produced Bach and Brahms. America produced Johnny Coltrane, Miles Davis, Fats Domino, Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington. And the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo.
Billy: Europe produced Bach and Brahms. America produced Johnny Coltrane, Miles Davis, Fats Domino, Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington. And the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo.
What an unmitigated load of noisome crap on both sides.
You're both assholes, for different but complementary reasons. I'll demonstrate why one at a time.
Steve's assertion is meaningless. Nobody but Austria ever produced a Mozart. Nobody but Germany ever produced a Beethoven (or Bach). Nobody but Britain ever produced a Turner, Shakespeare or Dickens. Nobody but Poland ever produced a Chopin. Nobody but Italy ever produced a Michelangelo, da Vinci, or Puccini. Nobody but France ever produced a Debussy, Satie, Piaf, or Voltaire. Nobody but the Russians ever produced a Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, or Tolstoy. Nobody but Spain ever produced a Goya, el Greco, or Gaudi. Nobody but Norway...
Are you starting to get it yet? Genius is always unique. But, by the way, nobody but Canada ever produced... uh, Gordon Lightfoot and Celine Dion? The Mozart/Beethoven argument hardly qualifies Canada as a superior to the United States.
Phooey. Steve, you're a fool.
Which leads me to Billy Oblivion's response, which is, honestly, the real reason I'm responding to such duelling nonsense at all.
"Johnny Coltrane, Miles Davis, Fats Domino, Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington." Unhhh. So tired of this pretentious bullshit. Soooo tired.
Yeah. Only a tiny handful of black musicians are available to stake America's claim to a contribution to the music world. What fucking politically correct horseshit.
America's contribution to the world of music is so huge it surpasses, by far, even the accomplishments of Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, and every other genius composer whose works are played in symphonic halls around the world. America democratized music. And it's not just a black thing. America added multiple new genres to the world of music: Broadway, country, blues, jazz, rock and roll, and, yes, even pop, which if it has given us Britney Spears has also given us Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra.
What a small-minded vision it is that surveys American musical history and can only cite the heroin jazz of Johnny Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Charlie Parker with a nod to the ancillary contributions of Fats Domino and Duke Ellington. What utter crap. Leaving Louis Armstrong off this list is a sure sign of incompetence, even given the myopic narrowness of the observer.
It tires me out even to try to list the key figures in American music, and I'm not going to try to connect anyone to the obviously abundant YouTube files of Cole Porter, Jimmy Rodgers, Scott Joplin, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, Woody Guthrie, "Blind" Lemon Jefferson, Leadbelly, Aerosmith, Bing Crosby, Johnny Cash, Artie Shaw, Patsy Kline, Beebe King, Elvis Presley, Muddy Waters, Bunny Berigan, Roy Orbison, Samuel Barber, Nina Simone, Bob Dylan, Hank Williams, Sinatra, Garland, Brubeck, Doris Day, Tom Waits... aaagh, forget it.
To leave anybody out is an automatic crime. But the list of Americans is so long it hammers the memory to mush.
What the hell is wrong with you people? To think that music is a vulnerability of the American contribution is moronitude. To think that the rebuttal of such a lame assertion is a function of a handful of artists from one ethnic group is imbecility.
TruePunk says: YOU'RE BOTH FUCKING IDIOTS.
As for the rest of you, go to YouTube and rediscover the incredible volume contribution of American artists to music. Trust me. It will help you forget just how ugly TruePunk gets when he reads nonsense from InstaPunk commenters.
posted at
3:27 pm
by
TruePunk
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Say Anything
The
Great Prevaricator
APOLOGIZED FOR WHAT? He really thinks we're fools. But he's figured everything wrong. People don't care what he wants or promises or pretends is in the healthcare bill of his fantasies. They care about what's actually in the bill that's working its tortuous way through the small intestine of the senate and the large intestine of the house. And they're afraid of what noxious abomination [sp?] will be excreted into their faces at the end of that process. Obama's narcissistic celebration of his private delusions had nothing whatever to do with that gross, physical reality. The entire show may as well have taken place in some alternate universe. That's how little it had to do with our reality.
Which is why there's nothing more that needs to be said about it. Plenty more, perhaps, that needs to be said about him and his despicable party, but there's plenty of time for that later.
