Courtesy, Chivalry, and Other Stuff We’ve Ruined…

Everyone has a breaking point. It’s true. There is some trigger that lies within every human that, when pulled, unleashes a fiery rage from which the rest of us must flee. For some of us, that trigger is not buried all that deep. It’s right there under the surface, visible, just begging to be pulled. It’s never really given time to reload or recharge before being called upon to fire yet again. For others, the trigger is buried deep within them. It’s accessed so infrequently that it’s bursts are powered by the pressure and repressed rage from which some of history’s best rants have sprung.

Clark W. Griswold goes nuts....

The one constant, no matter what type of “trigger” you possess, is that the finger pulling your trigger is usually attached to the hand of an asshole. I don’t use that word to offend. I don’t use it to shock anyone, or to scare off anyone living within an overly sensitive world. I use that word because it accurately describes about 90% of the world in which we live today. I believe science has shown, and history will verify that only about 20% of the world is actually an asshole, the rest of us have simply been driven to assholery by the rest of you assholes!

Remember when you were expected, as a man, to hold the door open for a woman? Remember when the woman would thank you for this effortless gesture? It still happens on occasion, but for the most part it is just another example of morals lost. I hold the door open for women, all the time. I’m not talking about the women with whom I share a home. If you don’t hold the door open for your own wife, you don’t deserve her. Period. I’m talking about complete strangers. I take time out of whatever I’m doing to step back, and hold a door open for women all over town. Nine times out of ten, the women do not even break their conversation as they stroll past me, so immersed in their own worlds that they don’t even notice. Frequently, I will do the old “oh, you’re welcome” but for the most part, I just move on. Calling attention to their selfishness will only encourage them to display it in more aggressive fashion and I’m still not allowed to punch women. (I’m sure that social law will be antiquated soon enough.)

What about men? Men, even the most refined of us, are naturally rude on occasion. We don’t mean to be. I sincerely don’t mean to fart in the bathroom while my wife is getting ready for work. There are several things that men do naturally that are still considered rude. Those are not what concern me. The things that concern me are this “rap-star” mentality that seems to have swept our world. If I have to step out of the way to keep from running over another little bastard in a wife-beater style t-shirt, and a respect me or else attitude; I may have to create a hostage situation. You don’t get respect just because you have the ‘courage’ to call a woman a ‘bitch’ or a ‘ho’. Now, before anyone goes claiming that was a racist statement, it wasn’t. Period. It was not racist and for you to assume that it was makes YOU the racist. I’m sick of having to watch every word that comes out of my mouth for fear of offending your precious little world. I was not referring to any skin-color in the above statement. I was simply referring to anyone who acts like they deserve respect for anything other than working their butt off to earn it. If this group happens to reside within a specific pigmentation spectrum and you also happen to fall within that spectrum; clean up your community and stop blaming everyone else!

It was once considered that there were certain professions that, once achieved, grandfathered you into the world of social graces. Doctors for example, were once considered to be beyond reproach. Now, doctors are just as guilty as anyone else. My wife has been trying for three weeks to get in touch with her doctor. it’s a simple phone call. It will require nothing but maybe thirty seconds of his precious time, but she has yet to talk to him. Last time she was in his office, he prescribed a new medication. He told her to try it out and call him back with the results. She did her part. He has failed conclusively. She has navigated her way through his maze of personality-less assistants who have made promises they never intended to keep. She is now running extremely low on her meds, almost out, and her doctor finally called back today. (3 weeks – 7 phone calls – 7 promises that it would be taken care of that day.) He didn’t even call personally, he had one of his impersonal minions call and tell her that a prescription has been called in for her. I guess medical school now includes classes in assholery.   

My father and my grandfathers taught me to always treat a lady with respect, no matter how she may treat herself. My grandfathers would be ashamed of what the world they fought so hard to defend has become since their departure. I’m willing to bet that, if you’re reading this post, yours would be ashamed as well.  Chivalry used to require notions such as fair-play, nobility, valor, honor, courtesy, and loyalty. How many of those attributes can you spot in the world around you right now? Not just in terms of how men treat women. No, women don’t get a free pass just because men don’t hold the door open for you anymore. You don’t get to allow trainwrecks like Heidi Montag to achieve even a smidgeon of fame and then cry that chivalry is dead. You want to be treated like a ‘lady’, act like one. Stories of chivalry happen to women worth pursuing. They were women for whom the pursuing men would gladly pledge their eternal loyalty. You never heard tale of a maiden being “pounded in the bathroom at Steak n’ Shake.” 

What about customer service? Remember that concept? Am I alone in wanting to bludgeon the receptionist who looks up with an annoyed look on her face when I enter her office and waits for me to speak to her and justify my presence in her world? There are a few shining examples of exceptions to this rule, but not many. Occasionally, you’ll get that one server that makes ordinary food in an ordinary restaurant exceptional. More often that not, you get a rude, disinterested ‘waitress’ that makes delicious food in an exceptional atmosphere taste like crap. Don’t think that you’re getting off easy just because you have been on the receiving end of such service. Bad service in restaurants is the product of not only a decline in general values, but centuries of degrading, ignorant treatment by impossible customers. I’ve spent enough time in the trenches of the Food Service Industry to know that bad-service is usually the fault of the guest, not the server. People who have never worked behind the bar on a Friday night should not be allowed to drink in one. People who have never run an eight table section on Valentine’s Day should not be allowed to make a reservation in one. The madness that takes place behind the scenes in a restaurant would shock the average person, but it’s necessary to make you feel like you just ate something you couldn’t make at home. Still, if you don’t like the service, you are always encouraged to call the corporate offices and file your complaint. Just navigate your way through a maze of automated response systems, foreign accents, and unpredictable transfers to departments you swear are being made up as the call progresses. Customer service has become a fairy tale.

What do we do? How can we get back to the way it was when our parents were raising us to respect who we are, what we have, and where we came from? We can’t. Sorry, but those days are gone. The battlefield has changed, as they say. My parents had the ability to shut me off from the world when they needed to. They could control my exposure to the world around me and they could explain, on their terms, the things for which I had no understanding. If I saw a news story that confused me, I didn’t get to run to my room and look it up on the net. I didn’t get to pull my smart-phone, or some other gadget out of my pocket and have 82,699,000 results in .22 seconds. I love technology. Without it, I  wouldn’t be sharing these thoughts with you. With that in mind, how do we get back on track? How do we make sure that our kids have a world better than the one we now inhabit? It starts at home. Yes, it’s a cliché but it’s so true. Complaining about the current political landscape does absolutely NOTHING to make your children better citizens. Being the first to know what the star of the latest vampire movie ate for lunch might make you irresistible to pale-skinned teenagers, but it will not help to make those same teenagers responsible adults. Take charge. The old adage about TV being a babysitter no longer applies. TV has so much more to offer than it did in the days surrounding that phrase’s birth. Computers and the internet are fantastic tools for growth if used the right way. Right now, however, porn is the only industry in our country that seems to be stable.

Take charge of the things you can actually control. Make YOUR family the family you want it to be. Don’t rely on outside influences to raise your kids and then gripe when they turn out to act just like the characters they see on TV.

As always, thanks for playing!

JRG1

Little Jihadist Weiners…

Remember Anthony Weiner? The US Representative from New York (Democrat, by the way. That fact was simply ignored for the most part during his 15 minutes of fame.) who so angrily and defiantly condemned us all for not believing his ridiculous lie about having his Twitter account hacked? Remember that? He tried to claim that someone else had gotten a hold of his account info, taken a picture of their own….umm….well, “weiner” and sent it out to various women. Eventually he admitted that the story he had so adamantly force-fed to us was pure poppy-“cock”, and admitted that he had not only sent the lewd photos, but had also instructed his porn star mistress (among others) to lie about their relationship. Well sadly, it turns out that sending pictures of his little congressman may have been the least offensive aspect of this entire fiasco. I personally don’t care what anyone does with their private parts as long as they are not aiming them at me, or anyone I care about. Use them in accordance with the law, and your sexual exploits are your own business. Technically, he didn’t break any laws, other than the laws of decency. He’s a congressman, so those laws obviously don’t apply. The double standard applied to politicians is ridiculous and we all know it. I won’t get into a long diatribe about the way liberals slam conservatives anytime the slightest indiscretion is discovered, but consistently ignore the same within their own party. That’s fine. As maddening as it is, we bring it on ourselves. Conservatives claim the moral high-ground so when one of us is caught with our pants down (literally), we deserve a bit more judgment than those who proudly adhere to a strict policy of moral bankruptcy. That’s not the discussion for today.

The scariest part of Weiner Gate is the part that has not been reported at all. The scariest part is that our government either believes we are too stupid to connect the dots, or they themselves are actually too stupid to do so. The mysteries that should be undergoing thorough investigations are instead being ignored. “The story is behind us, let’s move on” seems to be the mantra of the left. I’m not so sure that the lewd conduct of the congressman now enjoying his third trimester of unemployment was the real problem. As the story unfolds (absurdly quietly, by the way) connections and mysteries are raised that just make the hairs on the back of my neck stand erect. (NO! I will NOT stop making dick-jokes! You lie to me and then talk down to me as if I’m an idiot with a name like Weiner; you will get every joke I can come up with!)

QUESTION 1: How did a Jewish man gain permission to marry a devout Muslim woman, and vice-versa? This is a very serious violation of Sharia law.

QUESTION 2: How did a devout Muslim with strong and documented ties to the Muslim Brotherhood come to hold a position within the highest ranks of US Government? The credo of the Muslim Brotherhood is: "God is our purpose, the Prophet our leader, the Qur'an our constitution, Jihad our way and dying for God's cause our supreme objective." Doesn’t really seem like someone following that credo should hold a trusted position within the United States Department of State, does it? Am I just being a prick?

The facts that have been completely ignored by what has become an absurdly complacent, almost brainwashed media are much more frightening than a Congressman sending out a few pictures of his “constituents.” Here’s what we know, that has not been reported or investigated anywhere that I can find. At least not to the degree warranted.

1. Anthony Weiner, a Jew, married Huma Abedin, a Muslim woman, in 2010. Former US President Bill Clinton officiated the ceremony.

2. Huma Abedin was born in Michigan, but was raised in Saudi Arabia by devout Muslim parents. She was later educated in the US.

3. At age 20, Huma Abedin started working as a White House assistant to then first lady, Hillary Clinton in 1996. She and Cruella de Cankles have been inseparable ever since.  She now holds the position of Aide and Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary Hillary Clinton in the State Department.

4. According to numerous sources, which have never been denied or refuted, the mother of Huma Abedin is a member of the Muslim Sisterhood. (The women's division of the Muslim Brotherhood.)

5. Islamic scholars and experts confirm that no Muslim woman, especially devout Muslims and members of the sisterhood, may marry a non-Muslim man unless that man has converted to Islam.

6. It is well known, especially in intelligence circles including the CIA and the FBI, that the Muslim Brotherhood is the most notorious global, anti-American, jihadist organization in the world. Their long range sights are set upon establishing an Islamic caliphate in the west. (That means, converting America into an Islamic nation, folks). According to their own documents - authored by the highest levels in the Brotherhood - America is destined to be settled as an Islamic nation, and that it will use deceit and infiltration to accomplish this goal from within.

Anyone remember a book called Mein Kampf? We glossed over that one too. We thought “Oh, those are just the maniacal ravings of a madman. No one will ever really listen to him.” We were wrong. The Muslim Brotherhood Project, written in 1982, has been the marching orders for Muslim Jihadists around the globe just as Hitler’s craziness guided the Nazi movement.

Here is an excerpt from the Muslim Brotherhood Manifesto – written in their own language – introduced at the Holy Land Foundation trial.

“The process of settlement is a "Civilization-Jihadist Process" with all the means. The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah's religion is made victorious.”

Wait a minute……did they just say they would destroy us "by our hands”? As in “use our own laws against us”? Could it be that the very people we consider to be our enemies (extremists; scripture manipulating madmen; etc) are using our own convoluted, hyper-sensitive, often common-sense free laws to sabotage us? I’ll re-read it, but that’s sure what it sounded like to me. (Can you sense slight sarcasm?)

Based on these facts, there are several conclusions we can draw from the whole Weiner Exposure.

1. Hillary Clinton is either blind, an idiot, or complicit (possibly a combination of the three) in the fact that a person with known ties to such a terrorist organization is working in the highest levels of our government.

2. There is certainly more to the story of the Weiner wedding than what we currently know. If Anthony Weiner converted to Islam, it was done surreptitiously because it would have been a death sentence to his political career. And if so, Weiner certainly knew of the Muslim Brotherhood connections of his wife.

3. An Imam from the Islamic Cultural center of New York, Omar Abu-Namous, not only approved of the union, but he has also encouraged Huma Abedin to stand by her man during the cybersex scandal. Thus, it must be advantageous to the goals of Islamic jihad and the Muslim Brotherhood to have Huma Abedin inside the bowels of the Department of State with daily access to governmental intelligence. Therefore, her "marriage" to a US Congressman, regardless of religion, was openly accepted.

It is time we wake up and protect our asses! No one is going to do it for you. Stop cowering under the guise of political correctness and stand up to what has become a silent invasion. The demonic assholes that committed the cowardly acts in New York City, Pennsylvania, and Washington DC on September 11, 2001 did so after months of blending into our society. They drank liquor regularly. They caroused with women. They ate pork and appeared to be average, law abiding, immigrants. Their mission was to infiltrate and kill. The mission of the Muslim Brotherhood is to infiltrate and conquer. Even if it takes centuries, their marching orders are to “maintain the appearance of moderation to mask the true intentions of Islamic Action.

Things like a little man named Weiner sending a few pics of his little man named Weiner to a few women who have no doubt been shown quite a few little men named Weiner don’t really seem so bad when you step back and look at the bigger story. The fact that he is no longer a Congressman does very little to set my mind at ease. His devout Muslim, and now pregnant, wife is loyal to a group of people willing to wait hundreds of years to make sure my future relatives bow and pray to a god that would permit the actions of 9/11. Forget the wars in Afghanistan. Forget the little madman in Iran. Forget about dick-pics. What does any of it matter if the enemy is killing us from within. Is terror the distraction? Are acts like car-bombings, bus bombings, school massacres, beheadings, and hijackings all done to mask the actual intent of this so called brotherhood? Did they anticipate our need for revenge after such acts on our own soil? Did our reaction to 9/11 provide the perfect distraction? If you think about it, it’s rather brilliant. Most likely TOO brilliant. Hopefully too brilliant. To assume that they would know our culture and our propensity to forgive is giving a ton of credit. Our liberal fear of hurting someone’s feelings has become the enemy’s most valuable weapon. We wouldn’t want to not hire someone based on their religious affiliations. That would violate discrimination laws, etcetera. When are we going to allow common-sense to prevail when we come to the realization that one of our laws was created in a different time to address and antiquated list of problems? Your religion, Mrs. Weiner, is not the problem. Your radicalized, extremist interpretation of your religion is the problem. You’re fired.

As always, thanks for playing.

JRG1

On a personal note, I’d like to take a second to thank all of those that have recently stood up to workplace terrorists and challenged the accepted standard in defense of the woman I love. You’ve appeased a ton of helpless feelings on this end. Thank you

The Devil’s Winning…..

Greed, Gluttony, and California

Okay, so maybe California is not the direct result of the devil, but he was definitely one of the State’s founding fathers (or ‘Framers’ as they are required to be called in California textbooks now). People who would have been burned at the stake just a century ago are now the most influential ones in our kid’s lives. I remember my grandfather seeing the 1970’s version of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders uniforms and becoming increasingly uncomfortable. I’m not sure if it was one of those “teacher, I CAN’T come to the blackboard right now” moments that all boys go through a few times in their lives or if it was the fact that he was watching the scantily clad women parade around the TV screen with his impressionable grandson in the room with him. Maybe it was a bit of both. Either way, I’ve never changed the channel when they’re bouncing around the screen during a game.

We all know the Seven Deadly Sins. The photo to the right embodies a few of them by itself, but have you stopped lately and taken a really good look at how many of them we commit on a daily basis without giving the act a second’s thought. Hey…..stop looking at the picture, dammit!

Pride – Thomas Aquinas, the Medieval Theologian and eventual Catholic Saint, wrote “inordinate self-love is the cause of every sin.” (I’d put a picture of St. Thomas Aquinas on this page but I’m afraid it would cause a noticeable imbalance with the previously posted art.) Think about that statement for a second. It could not be more true of our society today. Kids are taught to love themselves above all else. We have grown to believe that our own needs and wants are more important than those of anyone else on the planet. Common courtesy has been pushed aside to make room for self-serving YouTube posts, popularity, and unjustified respect. No one is willing to be truly great anymore. We just want adoration laid at our feet simply because we exist. Remember when you actually had to earn respect and loyalty. Now it seems that the more shocking and vulgar you allow yourself to be in public, the more of a following you will have.  The most mundane act has propelled categorically unworthy celebrities into realms of fame they have no business even locating, let alone residing in.

Envy – Envy is the desire for another person’s traits, status, abilities, or situation. Envy causes us to grieve when good things happen to our neighbors. In it’s most innocent form, envy can be witnessed at any child’s birthday party. The kid having the party and receiving the gifts and attention is on cloud nine. (Usually launched there by the fuel of cake, anticipation, and attention.) The kids who are simply attending the party watch as their friend opens gift after gift and is treated like royalty. Their little brains can’t comprehend the fact that THEY will be the ones getting that attention in just a few short days, weeks, or months. They have an excuse. What’s yours? What’s our excuse, as adults, for feeling a sense of personal accomplishment when a celebrity loses some of their luster? (Insert Charlie Sheen reference here) Why must someone lose in order for us to feel victory? This lesson was taught to me by my father a few years back when he lost a job he had loved for over three decades to a sniveling little weasel who lied and manipulated his way into the minds of the Board of Directors. I was angry. I wanted revenge. I wanted to march into the corporate headquarters and de-brain the bastard sitting in what should have been my father’s office. My father however, felt none of those things. We were walking my son down the cul-de-sac near my home. I asked my Dad why he wasn’t more angry and he explained that anger is a waste of energy. It took a while for me to see it that way, but eventually the company that had abandoned my father went to crap and my dad is happier than he’s ever been. Not because of the company’s failings. He’s happy because he truly practices what he preaches and that my friends is a trait I hope to someday master.  

Gluttony – Gluttony is the inordinate desire to consume more than your body requires. There is no better example of gluttony than America. We are a country built on excess. We shovel food in our mouths at a rate that would make most countries literally sick to their stomachs. And don’t think that just because you don’t have a big muffin top belly hanging over the top of your designer jeans that you are not part of this definition. Even the physically fit citizens of the US consume more than will ever be required for survival.

In the words of nineteenth-century Russian Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov:

Wise temperance of the stomach is a door to all the virtues. Restrain the stomach, and you will enter Paradise. But if you please and pamper your stomach, you will hurl yourself over the precipice of bodily impurity, into the fire of wrath and fury, you will coarsen and darken your mind, and in this way you will ruin your powers of attention and self-control, your sobriety and vigilance.

TV commercials don’t make life much easier in the old stomach restraining pursuit. I can’t remember the last time I ate a burger from that place that serves it’s coffee crotch-melting hot, but every time I see an ad on TV, I salivate like one of Pavlov’s hounds. (Please don’t believe that I see myself as a perfect specimen of health and self discipline. I had a piece of chocolate cake during the game last night that would have made Rosie O’Donnell envious!)

Lust – Lust is the inordinate cravings of bodily pleasures. Of course it is next to impossible to claim innocence of this sin. Sex, flesh, and temptation are literally everywhere. Even Church has become a cleavage filled extravaganza. Lust is not necessarily something we can control as it has been proven that men have sexual urges every .00063 seconds. (Couldn’t find an actual number, but I bet that’s not too far off.) Women are just as guilty but have become masters at disguising their lust. The problem is not that lust exists. The problem is that we as a society continue to encourage such behavior. My stepdaughter wears shorts to school on a regular basis that would have made her the most popular girl in any school I ever attended as a kid. The sad thing is that even with the distinct hint of ass-cheek hanging out of her shorts, she is one of the most conservatively dressed girls I see on the campus when I drop her off in the mornings. Where are the parents when some of these little “Businesswomen Of The Night” are getting ready for school in the morning? I think we all know lust is a sin. Is it time we start demanding more of an opposition to it’s rampant control over us? Can we do such a thing? Can we prove to advertising agencies that we will continue to buy food, beer, and clothing without having to see someone’s half naked daughter first? Is it time that someone let Victoria know that her Secret is out of the bag? We get it, Vicky…..you like to wear little silky things that make your A-Cups look like C’s. And while we’re on the subject; why the hell do I get a Victoria’s Secret catalog delivered to my house in MY name?!?! I know I could just call and cancel it if I wanted to but quite frankly that’s none of your concern and I’ll thank you to stay out of my personal affairs. I will not post an illustration of lust. If you want to see pictures, type in ANY body part in your search engine and see what comes up.

Anger – Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath. It’s easy to point to almost anyone you know and remember a time when they lost their temper or said something they later regretted. Anger is just as controlling as lust, yet we somehow have managed to keep our anger in better control than we have managed to keep our sexual urges. Not by much though. Think about it…..would boxing, wrestling, UFC, or any of that other nonsense be as popular as it is if it weren’t for our inherent anger issues? No it would not. Domestic violence, child abuse, animal cruelty…..all bi-products of anger. The aggressive mentality we breed into our kids is often mistaken for success. The more people who fear you the better you’re doing. Horse-shit!! Stop teaching your kids that their worth is based on the amount of ass they kick you hillbillies! That’s not the way the world needs to work. There are times when physical strength is needed, but it will never be in a ring, chasing another man in tiny shorts while drunken villagers demand blood. I could kick your ass but that just means that someone else is going to come along and kick my ass. Anger really has no place in the world I am trying to build for my children. If it has a place in your world then perhaps YOU are the on in need of a good old fashioned, knock down – drag out, beating.

Greed – You all know what greed is, and we are ALL guilty of it. We live in a society that would gladly be boiled alive in oil as long as the oil was the finest money could buy. We’re basically the Roman Empire in a modern world. We’ve learned nothing from the many lessons greed has taught us in the past. We continue to empty our moral accounts in exchange for possessions. I’m not a dirty hippie or anything. I love my house. I love my car. I love the nice clothes that I own, but I didn’t buy any of those things because I needed to prove to someone else that I have money. People who hold their monetary wealth over people are never as happy as they make themselves out to be. Those who do find happiness in wealth alone deserve to be laughed at when it all gets taken away. The big house, the fancy job-title, the snide remarks about those with smaller account balances than you…..what the hell is it all supposed to prove? You’re not as happy as I am, I can assure you. The things that you have squandered; those things that you lay  in bed at night wishing you could get back; they’re my treasures now. They’re my treasures because I don’t view them as possessions. I don’t view them as royal subjects or just pieces of my great life. I view them as my family. Do you honestly believe people are going to remember how much money you made in your lifetime after you die? Do you think they’ll care how big your house was or that you travelled to exotic places? No. You will be remembered for the life you lived, not the money you spent.

Sloth – People often get sloth confused with gluttony and while it is true that the two often go hand in hand, they are two very separate sins. Sloth refers to the avoidance of physical or spiritual work. In other words, when you take a shortcut; cheat on a test; use steroids; delegate work to another; or any other manner of getting out of work……you are sinning. When you see an opportunity to minister to a stranger but you shy away at the last second; you are sinning. My youngest stepdaughter has a rather annoying habit of putting clothes she doesn’t feel like folding at the moment into the dirty laundry hamper so that someone else will wash and eventually fold them for her. She saves herself all of six seconds by deploying this little maneuver, but she can’t understand why it upsets me and her mom the way it does. (She’s a teenager, so therefore by law, we as her parents are stupid anyway.) I see guys at the gym every night that just personify this sentiment. You know the ones I’m talking about? Juiced up on steroids to the point that their heads are even muscular, yet I rarely see them lifting a weight. Whatever happened to the pride you get from working hard toward a goal. I’m proud of the work I’ve put into the body I have. I’m proud of the victory I can claim over my addiction to nicotine and even more proud of my little brother’s victory over alcohol. NO ONE can ever say that he took the “easy way” out and if you do……I’ll forget all that crap I wrote about controlling my wrath!!

Things have got to change or we are literally heading down the same road as all the other great civilizations that crumbled before us.

As always, thanks for playing.

JRG1

Innocent Until Proven Guilty (and Other Antiquated Notions)

Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat – The Latin phrase that law students everywhere are not only required to memorize in pronunciation and spelling but also in concept. It’s the presumption of innocence afforded to the accused in a criminal trial. It’s a concept that’s been adopted in many nations. In it’s most basic essence, it means that someone is presumed innocent until guilt can be proven. The burden of proof lies with the prosecution. That’s the fancy way of saying it. The redneck way of saying it may be something like “if yer gonna ‘cuse me of sumthin, you better be havin’ some proof, motherfu……” (I think you get it.) For example, there is no reason to assume that the gentleman pictured here is guilty of any heinous crime based solely on the fact that he had a toilet installed on the veranda of his family home. I’m assuming that this estate does not lie within the borders of a gated community. I’m also assuming that Mr. Porchpooper, Esq. is not talking to his investment advisor on the other end of that ultra-modern cordless phone. These assumptions are a true example of the complete abandonment of a fundamental aspect of our precious legal system. For all I know, this man might be the CEO of a chain of all-night diners, or the head of a powerful and exclusive investment club. You don’t know until all of the facts are presented and weighed. (Although I’m reasonably certain a decent lawyer could get a conviction based on this photo alone!)

It’s kind of the very basis of our legal system, and one that has been manhandled and molested in recent decades. Everybody’s got their favorite stories to point to as evidence of this, and I’m certainly one of them. The most recent of course, being the Casey Anthony trial. People are so sure that woman killed her daughter that we just can’t accept the verdict she eventually received. I wasn’t in the courtroom to hear all of the evidence, and I certainly didn’t watch all the overhyped, round the clock coverage that seemed to grip the minds of the weak and socially hideous. Of course I feel for the little girl, but I don’t feel any more for her than I feel for any other child that is killed. Accusing the mother of a crime for which she was found not-guilty is not our responsibility. If she did kill that girl, she will answer for her crimes but it will not be at the hands of humans. We’re not capable of delivering that kind of punishment here on Earth.

Then there are the clear cut cases of guilt before proof that we’re not allowed to dwell on. Take the case of a young boy in Sweet Springs, MO that brought his mother’s crack pipe to school for show and tell. The boy had $3,700 worth of crack and crystal meth that he brought to show his classmates for show and tell. Ever hear of anything even remotely close to this happening when you were at that age? Now, we have become so jaded in this day and age that we naturally assume the drugs were the product of the mother’s addiction, but what if that’s not the case? What if the mother uses the pipe and drugs to illustrate a point in her role as anti-drug crusader? To assume that the mother is a criminal, or a drug addict just because the kid brought her glass trumpet and it’s smoking rocks to kindergarten would make me a racist, right? No. The mother was arrested and gave no such story. She’s a shame covered monster with rotting teeth in her mouth, poop in her undies, and no business whatsoever raising a child.

With at least a dozen channels out there offering 24 hour news coverage, there is fierce competition for your loyalty. The problem is that there are only 4-6 hours of news in any given day but these channels try to stretch those stories into a full day. Limited “big-stories” also means that each channel is trying to deliver you a unique spin on a common story. There’s only so much creative spin that can be applied to a story before fact becomes fiction. One channel blatantly leans toward the left side of the political aisle, (Not naming names, but I often refer to them as the Clinton News Network) while another stocks it’s anchor desks with human versions of Barbie and Ken and makes no attempt to hide the fact they lean to the right. While this happens to be the channel I choose to watch, I can certainly understand why some people refer to them as FauxNews. The constant and immediate access to news coverage from anywhere in the world has made everyone an expert. Everyone knows all the facts before a case ever makes it to trial. The pretrial verdict never seems to be acknowledged by those who get it wrong. That’s the beauty of news……you only report on the now. Reporting on a mistake you made in a prediction is not current, that’s old news and you now have to get in front of a camera and explain how you had predicted the outcome all along.

Take a look at the following videos and tell me if you notice the subtle differences. You may have to watch a few times to get it, but there are subtle, almost undistinguishable differences in speech patterns, excitement levels, biased inflection, and level of importance placed on the subject’s role in our society. Watch closely…..

Brian Williams is a fantastic news man, but he would be the first to admit that he’s no Walter Cronkite. No one has ever come close to the legendary anchor’s credentials, but Mr. Williams is simply a product of the changes in news and it’s constantly morphing accepted form. Notice the rehearsed and thespian like emotions on the faces of everyone involved in the story of Michael Jackson’s death. The tears that Mr. Cronkite was fighting to keep back were real, I assure you. That was as emotional as Mr. Cronkite ever allowed the world to see him. News was unbiased back then. It was simply a distribution of facts. Opinions and theories were the responsibility of those watching, not the one delivering. While Michael Jackson was obviously a gifted singer and entertainer, I want you to think for a second what his life would have been like without the show business career. If he had been a neighbor of yours without all the money, merry-go-rounds, zoo animals, sequins, and silk; would you have forgiven his constant molestation rumors? No, you would NOT have. Would you have accepted and endorsed the odd changing of his appearance, skin tone, and voice? No, you would NOT. Media has made us believe that these things are okay just as they have made us believe that celebrity is more important than character. While that may be true in the vacuum of the “News World”, it is NOT true in my world. We need to learn to separate the two.

I guess in the end you could make an argument that we do still adhere to innocence until proven guilty. Technology and increased speed at which information is disseminated have simply made guilt much easier and faster to prove. We still get it wrong from time to time, but for the most part, our legal system is still based on sound principals and philosophies. The problems that arise within it are the direct result of human involvement. Not the system itself.

As always, thanks for playing.

JRG1