Green Scissors

The song says “Love, sweet love” but I don*t think that we*re missing love in our world. We see it around us everyday. Especially at the holidays when the charitable contributions skyrocket. Most of us have some love in our hearts for something or someone. We love our families, our friends. Perhaps we love God, or the Earth or whatever entity you place at the center of your spiritual life. Some people even love ideas. Freedom comes to mind but there are other concepts worth our love.

No, what we are missing in our communities is empathy. The ability to understand another human beings plight. To see inside their minds and hearts and understand that, as much as you might disagree with them or hold their way of life in contempt, they are just trying to get through this world just like you are.

Three events of the last week have brought this to mind. The brawl at the Pistons game, the killings in Wisconsin, and the Laurie family*s shame. These are three pretty unrelated situations but they all call for a certain degree of empathy that I don*t think they will receive from most. I*m not saying that we should agree with the actions of those involved. I know that all three of these incidents leave me feeling disgusted with all parties involved and in some cases feeling a little ill. But before I rush off to any judgements, I*m going to try to put myself in their shoes for a moment or two.

In Detroit, were the fans wrong in their behavior leading up to the brawl? Absolutely. Were Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson and ben Wallace acting like schoolyard bullies? No question. Was everyone invlolved in the fights and susequent riotous behavior guilty of massively poor judgment? No question. But take a second to think about the progression of events from each of their perspectives. Don*t forgive, don*t condone the behavior. Just try to imagine yourself there. You were just shoved by another player. You*ve removed yourself from the situation, you*re playing it cool. When suddenly an attack comes from the one place that it should never come from. The stands. Too much to take? I*d like to think that I could back down from it, but I can see why Artest did what he did.

As for the hunter killings, I can*t fathom shooting one person much less 8. But I can understand how being outnumbered 8 to 1 by an extremely hostile group of armed individuals might cause me to act in pretty extreme ways.

I guess what I am saying is that in the midst of all of these things, we need to stop and ask ourselves “What would I have done?” or, more precisely “What circumstances can drive a person from point A to point B?” Judgement will be passed on all these people whether it is in court or in the court of public opinion. But before you render your verdicts, pause a moment to ask the question. It need not change your opinion at all. But you may begin to understand how every act of every person in our world affects you minutely and how the cumulative effect of those actions can change the person you wanted to be into the person you are.

Six inches of snow on the ground the day before Thanksgiving. The headline on CNN says “Killer Flying Shrimp?” and the Zen calendar*s offering today is

Salt gives up its salty taste to become one with the ocean.
–Jnaneshwar

Don*t know what it all means but I*m sure its all releated somehow. Happy Thanksgiving everyone

I don*t have a lot of dreams anymore. When I was a kid I used to dream all the time. Including some nightmares of the “wake up all sweaty and terrified” variety. But since I got into double digit ages it really hasn*t happened that often. Occasionally I will be a little confused when I wake up and not be able to rememebr what day it is or somethign like that. But actual dreams are few and far between.

Which makes the ones I have that much stranger.

I went to bed early. Really early infact. 9 PM is damn near lunch time based ont he screwed up schedule I have managed to squeeze myself into. But I was able to fall asleep by 9:30 or so. Its 1:30 AM now and the damn dream woke me up.

Its a recurring dream. which is doubly weird since even when I was younger and dreamt pretty regularly, there were no repeat performances. But this one keeps coming back and it rattles me everytime. Some of the details change but the basic plot remains the same.

I am suddenly forced to pick up and leave everything I know and love because of a transgression in my distant past (don*t know what, but I get the impression its like I killed someone in self defense and then made the mistake of trying to cover it up). So off I go. First part of our story has me on foot with one other person, identity unknown but they are a good friend and accomplice. We spend the better part of a day and night hoofing it to a local railroad tracks and trying to jump a train. First few times I had the dream we end up getting caught right there by an overzealous lawman with avigilante complex (pretty sure its the guy from O* Brother Where Art Thou) and Bad Things ™ begin happening. At which point I wake up.

Tonight*s version featured me being a little smarter. Since I had been caught the last few times this happened (and I somehow remember that in the dream) I decide to spend a few extra days on foot and hike to an abandoned hotel in the middle of nowhere to hide out for a bit. After a few days of not eating, that gets old and we walk to visit some relatives who generously give us a couple of motorcycles and some supplies. My friend and I set off like Fonda and Hopper in Easy Rider to make a vagabond tour of the U.S. doing good deeds or some nonsense (aren*t dreams wonderfully vauge?) while we avaoid the man with the posse and hangmans noose.

Funny thing is, this time what woke me up in terrified sweats was the fact that I would never see the kids or Donna again. Just snapped wide awake at 1 AM convinced that I had forsaken them to save my own ass and was going to have to live with that.

Don*t know what it means. I can guess, but dream interpretation is about on the level of fortune cookies for me. I have been a raging asshole to everyone in the house this week for reasons I can*t pin down and I*m sure there is some meaningful parallel in my dream. But if the damn thing isn*t going to offer up a solution, I would really prefer that it not wake me up in the middle of the night since I*m pretty sure that its the sleep deprivation thats causing me to be a prick.

What does it all mean? Hell if I know. I just wanted to write it down somewhere. Maybe I*ll figure it out later.

Detroit. Hockeytown USA.

I just watched the end of the Pacers/Pistons game in Detroit and it was scary. Not scary in the traditional sense of the NBA; poor shooting, no passing, and no sense of how to finish a 3 on 2 fast break. No, it was scary the way a dark alley is scary. The way a redneck bar after midnight on a payday weekend is scary.

Seems that the mercurial Ron Artest laid a foul on Ben Wallace. It was a hard foul and unecessary but it wasn*t “flagrant” according to the refs. In fact, it was a push from behind that didn*t even knock Mr. Wallace over. His response was to give Artest a shove to the face. Technical on Big Ben and an ejection.

After that there was a lot of thuggish yapping on both sides as these multi-millionaires tried to prove to each other that they still knew how to throw down in dark alleys. Except for Artest who removed himself from everything by laying on the scorers table. An odd way to offer no resistance but I sort of liked it. It told everyone there that he was out of the fray and still let them know that he held them in contempt. Touche.

So a home fan with too much beer in him and no sense whatsoever apparently became enraged by Artest*s display of disrespect towards the hallowed Palace at Auburn Hills (perhaps the fact the the Pistons were going to lose the game handily also factored in). Said fan decided it would be an appropriate response to throw a FULL BEER BOTTLE at the 6*7″ 247 lb professional athlete with the history of temper and violence issues. Ron saw the guy who threw it and promptly went after him. He shouldn*t have but frankly, if you throw a bottle at me and you are a foot shorter, 50 pounds lighter and still talking shit, I am going to come get you too.

After that it got ugly. Fans swinging punches at players FROM BEHIND. Now that is scary. Not much security to be seen anywhere for a few minutes. Players trying to kill fans, fans trying to kill players, other players trying to break the whole thing up. One genius decided to run on the court and start yet another fight in front of Detroit*s bench.

Finally as the Pacers are leaving the floor, the fans are pelting them with so much beer, soda, poprcorn and lord knows what else that it looked like a full blown riot.

Scary. Disgusting. Ridiculous. The NBA has long been sliding towards a league of youg, overpaid, hyper-priveledged arrogant kids who think that because they have hops and handle that they own the world. Well tonight we saw the fruition of that slide.

Its nice to know that NHL fans won*t have to miss out on all the action this year. Head for the hardwood fellas. Or, as the old saying goes “I went to a trash talking slam dunk wrestling match and a basketball game broke out.”

I love a good food fight as much as the next man. And I think that kids will, on occasion, have fun in ways that we would not always prefer. Lord knows I did. I recall a month of high school where we terrorized the cafeteria by catching an apple on a fork (try it, its oddly fun) from greater and greater distances. What we discovered was that at about 20 feet the velocity needed to get the apple to the fork caused the apple to explode on contact.

But for all of that, if the school had said “don*t do that, and clean up your mess” I would have lept to the task. Not so for the kids in Memphis apparently. Seems that “Meatloaf Day” got a little crazy.

“Given an opportunity first to apologize for their behavior and help with the cleanup, most of the class refused to cooperate,” school spokesman Vince McGaskill said.

Parents, I will ask this question again. What kind of world do you expect to retire in when you don*t teach your kids the basic premise that we are responsible for our own actions? Throw some meatloaf, then you get to clean it up. If you didn*t expect to clean it up yourself, then keep it on your plate. Personally, it might have been worth it to be in an honest to goodness food fight, but I*d expect to be manning a mop when it was over.

The term is “business casual” and it can have a lot of different meanings. For me it typically means khakis and a polo or button down shirt. Same for most men. For women, its always been a harder line to walk. I have seen a lot of things in female fashion passed off as “business casual”. I*ve also seen plenty of women dress much more formally just to avoid confusion.

But lately I have been seeing a trend in the business casual women*s fashion where I work. It seems that knee high boots with knee-length (or shorter) skirts is all the rage. I have seen this on a pretty wide age range and it makes me wonder. Now, I think it is a nice look and most of the women have managed to make the outfits tasteful and close to professional. But I don*t quite understand why you would come to work in a conservative “business casual” environment wearing an outfit that is best suited for a night on the town clubbing.

Folks, they are called CFM boots for a reason.

If you haven*t yet downloaded The Grey Album by DJ Danger Mouse what are you waiting for? The greatest mash-up ever combines the Beatles* White Album with vocals from Jay-Z*s Black Album to spectacular effect. Get it today! The copywrong police may not let you get it tomorrow.

Comes now the next evolution of the project. The Grey Video. Using footage from a Beatles perfomance, Jay-Z on the mic and some better than expected CGI we get a rap/rock alliance that both pre and post dates Aerosmith and Run DMC. Depends on how you look at it I suppose.

EDIT: The original site is no longer with us. I suspect legal reasons but it could just be bandwidth issues. So if you still want to see it try one of the mirror sites from Matt Haughey or Waxy.org.

Hate your cell phone, PDA, pager, or other wireless device? Of course you do. But do you hate it enough to see it destroyed?

If so, according to this from Wonkette.com, now you can! SmashMyPhone.com offers you the chance to have your cellular device destroyed by any of a number of helpful (and hot) young women. And you can see the photos and videos of the pretty girls trampling on technology for the low low price of $12.99 a month.

C*mon, people, just pay the extra money and get some porn, for chrissakes.

Just wanted to mention that the MLS KC Wizards wrapped up another successful season last week. Although they lost in the MLS championship to DC United the Wizards remain the only winning professional franchise in town this year. We went to 4 or five games this season including the playoff win against San Jose in which they scored 3 goals to roar back in the home and home aggregate and win it 3-2.

MLS puts up a great product at an extremely reasonable price. I hope that they continue to draw bigger and bigger crowds. They already do many things right. For instance, you can see video of all their games online. Seeing the games live is an exciting, fast paced, and emotional experience that will suck in even non-soccer fans. I hope that someday I get to see 50,000 people in Arrowhead for a soccer game because the noise and passion that only 20,000 can fill that place with is awesome.

Seems that one John Hostettler, Congressman from Indiana, has come to the startling realization that teenagers have hormonaly addled sex-crazed minds. This in and of itself is not news. His suggestion for making the world a safer place for them, however, is quite novel. Rename a highway!

“Every time I have been out in the public with an ‘I-69’ button on my lapel, teenagers point and snicker at it. I have had many ask me if they can have my button. I believe it is time to change the name of the highway. It is the moral thing to do.”

Now, I know I am taking a lot of liberties in my description of the story. But the fact that he “has been convinced by local religious groups to introduce legislation in the House that would change the name of an Interstate 69 extension to a more moral sounding number” makes my teeth hurt.

I propose that from now on we all use the number “435″ to refer to an explicit sexual act between three people and a cat. I am really tired of the commute to work and I think a new highway name would liven it up nicely.