M50 part IV plus the NYE beer tasteoff

Today, I promised Bob I'd let him know how my latest round of beer tasting, spread over NYE eve and NYE night, went, along with throwing in the latest M50 rundown- in fact, the penultimate chapter of the M50 countdown!  And there is another layer to the countdown I have been meaning to get to, which we will call the Laurie Seal Of Approval.  I had asked her in an early rundown if any really stood out to her, and she gave me 8 songs- two we've already done, one this post, and the other five in the ever-lovin' Top Ten coming up next time.  So let's start off with a couple of brewskis and go from there.


From bad to good:

Lagunitas Little Sumpin' Sumpin' Ale.  I know there are a ton of people I know on the webs that swear by this stuff.  And I have to let you know right now, hoppy beers don't do it for me.  Hops to me smell like armpit, and I found it funny that one of the reviews on BeerAdvocate misspelled it "hippy", because I imagine many hippies prolly did smell like this.  Before you send the hate mail, even Scrappy walked away from this.  Twice.  But for 7.5% ABV, I gave it the old college try.  Then, mercifully, the pizza arrived, I let half of it sit while eating, took one last sip, and "cleaned the kitchen drain" with the remainder.

I would have said someone was Messin' With Me, as Northern Faces said on their top dog that made #12 on the Fifty.  Perhaps I should have known better, but I was a newbie, full of...

...Innocence In Paradise, like Squeeze sang on their hit at #16.  And so I just did like Foxygen told me...

...and played Follow The Leader, their tune at # 19.


Before going back to the beers, Let me just say the LSOA (Laurie Seal Of Approval) songs last time were Rhyl Love at #23 and Two High at #25.


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Fieldhouse Wheat, made right down the road in Indy.  This was a touch hoppy for a wheat to me.  Not undrinkable, but not a favorite.

 UFO White Ale.  Advertised in reviews as having an "aggressive but not overbearing" spice taste and aroma, I had to say that MY bottle had no smell whatsoever, and very little taste.  Pretty much Coors Light, just cloudy.


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I would have to say that those three beers didn't send me to...

...Heaven, like the song from PVRIS at #20.  In fact, I might have suggested to the first two...

...Let's Get Lost, as the Pretenders ft Neil Tennant did on that song at # 13.  Nor would I have done as...

...Ducktails suggested on their song Light A Candle.  Nor would I have ordered one at the Cosmic Piano Bar while listening to...

...Dent May doing Picture On A Screen, which came in at #18.


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Now the next two are cheats, because I have had them before and I knew they were good!  The first is Paulaner Hefe-Weizen, my go-to Belgian witbier.  Cloudy, tasty, filling but light, it made peace with my stomach after the Fieldhouse Wheat.

Kentucky Bourbon-Barrel Ale.  This is a lot like a boilermaker without quite as much bite.  Not only really good, tasting much like the name implies, but a formidable 8.19 abv!  It was the high point of night two- not surprisingly when you consider it's competition was the UFO and the Lagunitas.


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Scrappy was dying for a taste of the KBB, but I told him it was mine...

...And Mine Alone, like the song by Kidsmoke that took the # 14 slot.  In fact, it would be a fine choice if I ever crossed the sea and hit a bar in...

...Monaco, listening to Public Access TV playing the song of the same name at # 17.

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Victory Golden Monkey:  The easy winner, this stuff was fantastic!  It opened with a spiced pear smell from the top- but if you brought the side of the glass to your nose, you got banana!  Similarly, the first 1/3 or so had a lot of the spice taste, the middle was like beer mixed with banana juice, then the end of it - well, at the end you knew why it was rated 9.5 abv!  I would definitely drink this again- though perhaps not more than two at a sitting, and quite slowly...


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And now, in case you thought the last song, and the LSOA song for this set, had passed you by...

... I give you Chicano Batman at #11 with Passed You By!


Next time, the Top Ten of 2017!

M50 part III and top news stories of 2017

So as I was thinking about this post, I found a local news story on the top stories of the year.  I thought, now that would be a good thing to fill in on an M50 post!  So I went looking for the top news stories of 2017, figuring that every national media source would have something by the point I started looking (AKA NYE afternoon).

Not really.  There were a ton of "specialized stories"- top fill-in-the-blank stories of the year.  The top "undercovered stories" (it was an LA Times story, so I skipped); the top stories in Malaysia (!); in the Baptist Church, in IT, at Marvel studios, in tech, in sports, at Disney World;  even the top stories of the year for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (no joke).  But was there anything like I was looking for?  Well, kinda...


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One of them was not the story of scandal told by the Orwells...

..who landed They Put A Body In The Bayou at #22 for 2017.  And let's not forget my favorite story of the year- about a letter from Elvis and a #1 that never was...

...that gave Wayne Newton the #28 of 2017 for The Letter.

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So what I found that was even slightly of a general AND national level consisted of NBC News, the AP, Google's most trending and the NYT's most read.  Between the four of them, here are their somewhat combined efforts:

#1- Hurricanes.  This got inflated a bit, as while NBC and AP combined all four storms as an item, Google had all 4 storms trend (with Irma being their top trend of the year), and 2 of the NYT stories referenced Irma.

#2- The massacres in Las Vegas and Texas.  NBC combined, NYT had stories on both, and LV was their #1.

#3- The #MeToo movement and sexual harassment.  NYT had stories on both Weinstein and Lauer.  Perhaps not surprisingly, NBC mentioned the hashtag but not Lauer.  AP had this at the top of their heap.

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I would like to mention we do have one song that would seem to fit in with the hurricane stories-

Puddle Of Mudd's cover of Gimme Shelter at #21.  Weather around here right now, though, is more in tune with the #26-

Melody's Echo Chamber and Crystallized.

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Back to the top stories:  A quartet of stories had 3 mentions each.  They would be: World terrorism, dealing with refugees and other "culture war" issues (as NBC put it), North Korea, and the Solar Eclipse.

The only other stories that got more than one mention were about Trump and the Mueller "I've got NOTH-ing" probe.  There was a group of one mention items, including the rising price of BitCoin (which I still don't understand), Obamacare's imminent demise, the tax overhaul, the last Mayweather fight (NYTs #2, if you can believe it), a tear jerking story about a dying woman who made up a dating profile for her soon-to-be-single hubby (also NYT), and, believe it or not, the FB event of the year, the birth of April The Giraffe's baby  (Google's #2 trend behind DACA).


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Tom Jones would say, "I Know" ( his hit at #27) that that isn't much of a list, but perhaps, as Moon Taxi might have said...

...we might have had our expectations Two High (their #25 song on the list).  So I tried an alternate plan...


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Since the path of my search was littered with local sites giving THEIR top ten stories, I thought it might be interesting to take a few of them and shake them down.  So I picked ten local news sites around the nation- including the FTW one that started all this- combining their stories into general categories to see what kind of story was making their lists.

1- Local politics, 16 stories.  Some surprise there, huh?

2- Crime and murders, 12.  A good half of FTWs stories fit this profile.

3- Public works, 8.  Basically we built that, we aren't building that, we tore that down.

4- A tie between accidents (AKA anything bad that had a limited impact) and disasters (same on a larger scale) with 7 each.

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The last four from this set of the M50:

...the Old 97's at #30 with Good With God...

...Alvvays at #29 with In Undertow...

...The Japanese House at #24 with Somebody You Found....

...and Plume Of Feathers with Rhyl Love at #23.



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6- A tie between child abuse/murder stories and local sports items at 5;

8- A five way tie at 4 between sex crimes, school issues (one station had a market on these, including a high school whose students went out on strike to keep their coach from being fired by the superintendent, and a principal in that same district who did a resignation-suicide doubleheader that seems to have also been laid at the superintendent's feet), local talent, national politics, and the drug epidemic.  Thank God we're making it all legal, that'll help.  In about ten years, that's how we'll solve the sexual assault issue, just watch.


Only about 6 "feel-good" stories out of 50, though.  We had the big Addison Agen on The Voice deal, but she was surrounded on the poll by 7 shootings, 5 murders, and 2 suicides.



Happy New Year- hope you survive, I guess.

M50 part II plus "Now I get it"

Another chapter got added to the long and worthless battle of "I've been invalidated" this weekend.  To recap, we start with yet another attempt at trying to reason with a liberal whom I saw as a friend about his Tweeting of how our current President is a Nazi and he'll soon set up concentration camps.  But this time, in disputing him, I also somehow "invalidated" him by disagreeing.  I had thought, until now, that his concept of invalidation was because gee whiz, I wasn't as smart as him ("I am well-regarded in intellectual circles..."), which most people might look at and say, "Who's invalidating who?"



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At this point I'd like to say, I hoped I took the high road-

...like the song Hope The High Road by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, which took this year's #40 position.  But alas...

...as Chicano Batman said in their #31 hit, Friendship Is A Small Boat In A Storm.


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So after e-mails trying to explain my side and calm things down were basically ignored, save for a lovely meme that re-iterated the accusations against me, I finally just cut the social media ties with him on Twitter and stopped following his blog, because eventually I was going to say something we would both find hurtful, and I didn't want to do that.  Then...

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...no, we didn't have Cops Come, as the song at #37 by Northern Faces would say, but a woman "entered" the battle...

...and it wasn't a Girl With A Blue Guitar, like the one Cotton Mather sang about in their #38 hit.


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What did happen was, he had his wife "follow" me on Twitter, never really posting or even entering my feed.  Just watching, I guess, to see what I would do next.  So I left it sit for a while, waiting to see if a further contact would come- it did not- and so I saved us all a lot of problems and blocked her as well.

Or so I thought.

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Diverging just a bit, I should mention that we had 3 songs in the fifty that carried over points from last year, two of which were last posts' Day I Left Home and PTP, which received minor points from 2016, but there was one major hit that had major points on both sides...

...The Shacks with the El Michels Affair and Strange Boy, which got the #9 slot in 2016 and gets the #39 slot for 2017! (BTW, I just realized that I'm typing this on NYE to post NYD, so I better be careful with my "this years" and "last years", because soon- for me- it will be next year!)  Anyway, so what did our "Strange Boy" do next?


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Well, first, he had the Missus follow me on Google+, which is a place I am connected to because of all the Google-ly things I do but rarely go there.  Then he posted a little snippet on G+ himself.

Friends do not abandon you just because of a disagreement in opinions on political perspectives.
Eh, +CW Martin Chris Martin?

This despite an e-mail I sent him not long ago explaining how I missed when we actually acted like friends, and wished him the best.  Because I really do, but I can't and won't put up with the constant "poor me" when I disagree with him and accuses me of abandonment, along with being stupid and "invalidating".  I see as I grabbed his quote that he has issued yet another post accusing me of being the fake friend.  Good on ya, hopefully one day you'll get that mirror fixed.

But the point of bringing all this up is, I think I now understand how I invalidated him- and how I daily invalidate all the trolls on either side of the aisle out there.


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Yep, I've got Your Type- the song by Alvvays, at #33 on the year's countdown.    And I hope I will no longer be riding in the same old...

...Chariot, which Beach House landed at #34.  But I do have a theory...


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You see, I think that there are a ton of people out there who, at various levels, use politics as an outlet for the hatred that is inside them.  It doesn't even have to be directed at the people or causes they troll,  it's just the bone they chew to let it out.  And that is the sad thing about politics, and I suspect it is the way you always have had politics.  A small group in the middle actively trying to use the system to make a better life for EVERYONE- and surrounded on one side by people using it for various levels of hate-expression therapy, and on the other by those that actually hold the power- or think they do, or are hanging on to them like remoras for scraps- and whose only need for politics is to maintain their position of power.

So I guess that explains a lot.  I invalidated him when I exposed his hate for what it was, rather than the politics he perceived it to be.  I'm not saying he is a hateful person- I think a lot of such people don't even realize they are doing it.  I have seen it in myself and have been trying to eliminate it.  Which is why I cut ties in the first place- it was just a constant egging on of the parts of myself I am trying to get rid of, the parts that would just love to get rid of frustration and pain and anger by taking it out on him or any other comer.  I don't want that anymore, so I cut the ties.  For that, I am a "fake friend".


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Yes, just like the one the Orwells sang about at #32, I was becoming a Black Francis- and I put a stop to it.

...and you might think that, like POWERS, that would make me want to Dance (#35) to the Beat Of My Drum (#36).  But...

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But no, it just makes me sad.  I "invalidated" him by refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of the hate he was directing (for this, I could point out a recent post of his- in fact, the reason why I went to the trouble of unfollowing him- where he called all republicans "racist, xenophobic" and something that equated to being Nazis with enough wiggle room to claim it isn't what he REALLY said.)    He spied me out out of bewilderment, because now he no longer had me responding to his hate-therapy. and thus, that meant I "abandoned the friendship" he was no longer showing anyway.


So let me put this to rest with one last thing.  I am still here.  I still pray for you, I still worry about you.  I never thought of you as invalid, but your opinions are poisoned with hate, or else you would have taken the opportunity to debate on policy any of the many times I opened that door.  They are beneath a thinking man like yourself, and I called you on it.  And if I had left the door open, the arguments would have escalated and left us both as less of a person.  I tried to get us back to a personal level and you IGNORED it, except for your cute little meme and your self-martyring statement that I posted above.  If you have any desire to do anything from here, you know my e-mail.  I am willing to be your friend.  I am not willing to be your therapeutic device.

M50 post Numero I

Today I run through the first 10 members of this year's top 50, voted on by... well, me.  I plan on interspersing the tale with various other things, and today I'll be telling you the tale of how KC and I took Aaron to his first hockey game.

Now in honor of firsts, I'll start out of order with the only act in the 41-50 slots NOT to be posting their first M10 hit in this countdown...

...Jana Kramer, whose I've Done Love grabs the #47 slot;  and also, there only two of these acts that don't post their first hit with the songs in this grouping ( though they do later on).  And they would be... 

...POWERS, the one act that has three songs in the countdown, with their second one, Closer, coming in at #49...

...and Flogging Molly, whose second trip into the M10, The Days We've Yet To Meet, comes up at #50.


Now, last night we got to the game pretty close to the last minute, and thus had to park way out in the snow-swept boonies (which is a little redundant as everything was snow-swept).  KC wondered if we'd remember where the vehicle was, but I wisely observed we were between row P and row S, and told Aaron that if he kept in mind the main two bathroom functions, we would be just fine.


Inside, we watched the hometown Komets play the Wheeling Nailers.  First thing that KC taught our young novitiate was to look through the Nailers' roster to pick out a name to pick on.  They soon settled on a player named Fejes.  Apparently pronounced FEEG-ees with a very hard "g", KC started calling him "Veggies".  Not to be outdone, I suggested that the "j" was in fact an upside down and somewhat mutilated "c", and thus he was in fact "Feces."


No feces in this countdown, though.  Though we had no crap, we did have a "creep"- this week's #1 song, Shilpa Ray's Manhattanoid Creepazoids, coming in at #48. 

Others of possibly questionable elements include the band that plays what it called "Gay opera church music"...

 ...the Hidden Cameras with their tune Day I Left Home at #46...

... and the non-PC named Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears at #42 with PTP.



The first period of the game really gave Aaron the best of things: two Komet goals for a 2-0 lead that lasted well into the final period, and two fights- the second of which featured our best guy (AKA the one KC and I liked from last year) Cody Sol pounding a luckless opponent into oblivion.  After which, while there was considerable pushing and shoving, no one further dared to drop the gloves again.

Yeah, just try something...

And I couldn't mention a fight without mentioning the great fight video from Colony House's You And I, which takes #41...

  On the opposite side of who you want to fight for you would prolly be ...

...Barry Manilow, whose NYC Rhythm/On Broadway medley took #45- which, I told Laurie was somewhat ironic.  When I was a kid and he was big, I used to get so mad at end-of-year countdowns that always stuck his songs outside the top 40- and yet, now with my own countdown, here he sits.



Though we had a shutout going, our goalie was more lucky than good IMHO, and I figured it wouldn't last.  And I was right- just after the middle of the 3rd period, he gave up two quick goals, and with about 5 minutes to go, it looked like we might have OT... but....


...first, let's bring up our last two songs for today.  One of them...

...is Greta Morgan AKA Springtime Carnivore with Midnight Room (which I have been known to sing to Scrappy as "Midnight Booofus") at #43.  The other...

...the late Tom Petty and his Heartbreakers with the amazingly prescient #1 hit Walls No. 3....

Some things are over

Some things go on

Part of me you carry

Part of me is gone

...which finishes the year at #44.  And the finish of the hockey game?

Well, first I have to tell you about the Komet I picked on.  His name was Mason Baptista, and I found him to be slow on an ice-skating tortoise level, and was on him all night- until late in the second, when I told KC, "Since I've picked on him SO much, he'll probably score."

So anyway with that table set, the game finished with two Komet goals in a very short time.  Then, after we killed off a rare penalty (outside the fights, the refs only called an obvious high-stick and a cross-check I missed), the Nailers pulled their goalie for the extra skater.  And guess who hit the empty net.

Mason Baptista.

One more note on Baptista:  I had been cheering on a Komet named Gabriel Desjardins (calling him "Frenchy").  When Baptista made his appearance, KC said, "Another Frenchy", but I said, "If he was French, it would be Baptiste with an "e".  I don't know what he is with an "a" ."

KC quipped, "Maybe 'southern French'."

To which I added, " Maybe Creole?"

Later as I was going down my Twitter feed at home, I hit the Komet tweet on Baptista's goal.  Onto which, Twitter added the following helpful hint- 'translate from Haitian Creole?'

Some things you can't make up.  Come back Monday for some order of 40-31!

The M10 and a few other things I drug along

With the musical Tardis taking a well-deserved week's vacation, I bring you this week an M10 update plus a few other things I have in my "in-box".


FIRST of all, I would like to announce that since Mo Kenney's Unglued hung in there for a tenth week, slipping a notch to #4, it passes the tied twosome of Quiet Corners And Empty Spaces and Strange Boy to become the all time biggest hit in M10 history!  Plus, being that high still, Mo will prolly claim another honor next week- 11 weeks on the countdown, another all-time record.


SECOND, I hit a trio of headlines this week that really left me in amusement over the irony.  Headline #1:


Russia warns U.S. against meddling in upcoming election

Not only is this one funny vis-a-vis the recent election and the continuing investigation (which reminds me of nothing so much as Scrappy sniffing his butt), but it was inspired by the State Department comment over Russia's high court banning Putin's only opponent, Alexei Navalny, because he had been convicted of fraud- a charge that Navalny claims was a convenient way of getting him banned from the election in the first place.  In other words, you have to HAVE a contested election before you can meddle in it.

Well, I might be wrong there.  I thought you had to have something to investigate before you have an investigation as well, but apparently I was misled there.


Another M10 announcement concerns the fact that we will have a new #1, as POWERS falls to #2 after 2 weeks at the top with Beat Of My Drum.  And it won't be last week's #9 (Brian Fallon's Forget Me Not), or #8 (Shilpa Ray's tune Shilpa Ray's Got A Heartful Of Dirt), as they both maintain those positions.

The second ironic headline comes from Voice Of America:

Libya Puts 142 Migrants on Plane Back to Guinea


Which is ironic in that for a change Libya isn't in the news for sending migrants to Italy in leaky boats.  Apparently they had a backlog of contestants for the swim to Sicily sweepstakes (perchance because they ran out of boats capable of getting out to sea before sinking), and had to send them back where they came from.  Fortunately for the hard luck migrants, Libya has better planes than boats.


More Mo?  More Mo!

Unglued slips that notch because Mo Kenney's next hit, On The Roof, climbs three spots to #3, thus you get 2 Mo in a row.  Its partner in debuting last week, the Shacks and Audrey, moves 2 to #5.  And since Bobby wasn't a big fan of the "breathy" nature of that song's live performance, here is the studio version:






And that third headline isn't so much ironic as just plain stupid.  So you know it involves California, right?

Farmers' markets a racially biased cause of 'environmental gentrification,' professors say


Yes, Farmer's Markets are a bad thing, because- according to eminent intellectuals Pascale Joassart-Marcelli and Fernando J. Bosco (who earn their living make their money as geography (yes geography) professors at San Diego State)- they are a "white space" where white people do white people things (like apparently buying produce).  And why is buying produce such a white-only activity?

The professors, as reported by Campus Reform, say farmers’ markets are “exclusionary” because locals cannot “afford the food and/or feel excluded from these new spaces.”

The SDSU professors, who teach classes like “Geography of Food” and “Food Justice,” argue that “farmers’ markets are often white spaces where the food consumption habits of white people are normalized.”

And I mean that in triplicate:  1- HOW MUCH do they charge at California Farmer's Markets that non-whites can't afford to buy?  2- "Food Justice?"  Has you tomato been wronged?  3- So it's a bad thing for whites to eat normally?

I decided to find out a little more about these profs and stumbled into RatemyProfessor.com, and I will share a little more about them after the lone M10 debut this week.  Last time they were here, they got a one-week cuppa with their redo of Neil Young's Harvest Moon.  This one is a bit livelier, so without further ado, here is Sunflower Bean ( and 12th Beauty Contestant Julia Cumming):




A video that reminds us all to shave before you go to the prom.


Anyway, back to comments by students about Pascale Joassart-Marcelli:

"Instructor is easily offended and in some ways it seems like she wants to be part of a minority. Like many university professors she is more interested in pushing her very left wing views than teaching the class. She doesnt understand that the only race that matters is the human race. I paid to learn geography not your politics"

"This professor is a joke, no textbooks, only shows slides, and only for a few seconds, giving you no opportunity to takes note, etdc., worst still, she tests on specifics of slides, but then gets very offended when you point all of this out. "

"I found it quite ironic that Prof Joassart-Marcelli would preach about the evils of racist, white farmers markets (seriously) while she enjoys hobbies that are 99% white like skiing, camping and hiking. I can think of no habit that normalizes white behavior more than paying $120 for a lift ticket while surrounded by other, wealthy white people"


And my favorite? 

"Her trumpet like flatulence was the most intelligent form of language she could muster. I believe her favorite class film/lecture topic was Planet of the Apes."

Her partner, Professor Bosco, was much better rated...

"Good teacher, friendly & helpful. Lectures are kinda boring but he tries to make them good, gives study guides and the tests are pretty easy. 5 map quizes that are easy if you put in a small effort. Doesn't take attendance so you can read notes on BB & still do well. Overall a very friendly and understanding prof, interesting subject & pretty easy."

"Funny and a very helpful professor, tries to make lecture fun, pay attention to his exmaples and you'll do good in class."

Of course, some students paid attention to more than his "EXMAPLES"...


"he is super nice, and really hot..."

Yes, this is really him...

Best of the rest:  The rest of the M10 includes the former #1 Rhyl Love by Plume Of Feathers dropping from 4 to 7, Strawberry Runners' Garden Hose from 5 to 6... and the new #1...

...Shilpa Ray and Manhattanoid Creepazoids!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tune in from here on for the M10 2017 top 50- which, as always, will diverge a bit from the straight-point system... but not a lot!

My Christmas gift

If I could give this whole world a gift, I know what it would be.  But before I tell you what it is, let me tell you why it is.

For months, the battle was fought on TV and social media about kneeling for the National Anthem by the NFL.  I do not wish to talk about that, but I do have something to say related to it.  For months, old-time fans and non-Disney-beholden analysts figured out, by NOT listening to the conservative side of your fan base, the NFL would lose fans and still not please the protesters.  The fact that the majority of protesters rejected the sweetheart deal the NFL worked out with the "player representatives" and the empty seats I saw Sunday in Kansas City- a city that used to hold records for sell-outs- on a day the team was trying to clinch their division, pretty much proved that those predictions rang true.

Another story:  I was reading the report on a woman who had a United ticket to go back home, but when she got to the airport, United claimed "the passenger had cancelled it by app, and the seat went to the first person on the waiting list".  Who just "happened" to be Democrat Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.  Problem here isn't her affiliation, nor whether the person rally cancelled the seat or not.  But the problem comes when the woman took a picture of the Congresswoman to post on her social media as she battled with the airline over the situation.  Jackson Lee, asked for comment later, opined that the woman "thought that I, as an African-American, would be an easy victim."  More on this later.

Story three involves a two-day long twitter battle I watched between William Shatner and a group of people I might have defended a few months ago.  Shatner had made a friend in Carolina Panthers tight end Greg Olson, a nominee for Walter Payton Man Of The Year.  (BTW, a non-kneeling white guy, for those that think that makes a difference.)  The NFL and the players association have teamed up to provide a way for fans to vote via hashtags, and Shatner had been beating the drum for Olson.  And for his efforts, which if successful would mean a windfall for Olson's children's charity foundation, he was- and is being- attacked by a group of people so incensed over the kneeling mentioned above, that they think supporting ANY NFL player for ANY cause is an "insult to the flag"- and an insult to the flag is far more important than any child that Olson's charity can help.  Olson is an NFL player- he is therefore evil- and thus so is Shatner.


This is where we have gone wrong.  Nobody can hear beyond their set of causes and sound bites.  No, strike that.  They can hear, they just don't want to.

Yesterday, on a nice Christian post by a relative of Laurie's, an atheist commented in amazingly polite opposition, citing that "If God was all you claimed, why wouldn't He want to show Himself?" and continuing with that Christian interference in the nation's laws makes us somehow the bad guy.  Even though I knew what to expect, I relied on God's inspiration to give him a polite response, pointing out that God HAS shown Himself- the Word, the Prophets, the pastors we have and the opportunity to share that word- if not to his expectations, well, Jesus didn't perform signs for unbelievers.  I also explained to him that once you make that decision against God, He respects your decision and closes your ears, and thus what is a Living Word to Christians is a book one can't understand to unbelievers.  His reply, as usual, was the third pillar of atheist excuses- the Bible is "full of contradictions" and thus not worth looking into.  Thus proving my point, but I knew he wouldn't catch that either.

Because he had made his decision.  He can NO LONGER listen.

The NFL was not long ago the foremost brand-protective enterprise in the world- "Protect the shield" was the mantra.  But now, because they would not listen past their own POV, they are being discussed as a case study in brand destruction by reputable business schools.

Sheila Jackson Lee didn't listen either.  She heard all her usual rhetoric, that if a black person is involved in anything, the "cause" is white privilege and white prejudice.  Despite the fact that a clear thinking idiot would realize the woman wasn't upset at losing her seat to an African-American, but to a privileged big-shot.  Didn't matter if it was her, or Donald Trump or George Soros or Jeb Bush.  They had money- they got the seat.  But SJL can't hear things that blame herself or her OWN privilege; it must be because the woman's a racist.

The people attacking Shatner have a cause, some would say a good cause.  I myself would say a good cause.  BUT, they are fighting it in an arena just as poorly picked as the one the protesters chose, and look just as stupid doing it.  And they aren't hurting the protesters or William Shatner one bit.


Here, people, is who their idiot battle is hurting.

In 2009, after watching his mother tackle and survive breast cancer, Greg Olsen founded Receptions for Research: The Greg Olsen Foundation. The Foundation's Receiving Hope program focuses on cancer research and education programming. The program has distributed over $524,000 to six hospitals and foundations nationwide, with funding generated by events executed entirely by Greg. The program's most notable and largest fundraiser, Kicks for a Cure, has raised over $850,000 in its eight year history.


In early 2013, Greg and his wife Kara founded the HEARTest Yard Fund after a routine examination of their unborn son, T.J., revealed the infant had Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS), a congenital defect marked by an underdeveloped left ventricle and aorta. The HEARTest Yard Fund is a family service program administered in conjunction with Levine Children's Hospital in Charlotte. The cutting-edge program provides families of babies affected by congenital heart disease with services including in-home, private nursing care, physical therapy and speech therapy, all at no cost to the families or hospital. The program provides about $25,000 - $30,000 worth of nursing care (approx. 460 hours) per family during the first six months of the baby's life. Since its inception, the fund has distributed nearly $1.7 million in support.



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There are people, like the guy on FB, who cannot listen.  But people like the NFL, like the Shatner attackers, like SJL, they COULD listen.  If they would quit clogging their ears with sound bites, slap themselves a couple of times, and LISTEN to what they are saying.

They claim to fight hate and prejudice, but foster it.  They claim to be inclusive, but they are anything but.  And it all starts when you let your ideology work your mouth, rather than studying a matter to its fullest.

And I am far from innocent.  After ending one week with a tired tirade over something stupid at work, I posted a Bible verse the next Monday on my scoreboard.  A verse, when I read it that night, made me drop my head in shame.  It went like this:

37 Who is he who speaks and it comes to pass,
When the Lord has not commanded it?
38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
That woe and well-being proceed?
39 Why should a living man complain,
A man for the punishment of his sins?

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So if I could give that one gift to the world this Christmas, it would be simply this:

Listen.  Not to the stuff playing in your own head, but to what the other person is saying.  To what GOD is saying.  Listen, and make it a better world.