Blog RPS

Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints – Super Bowl 44 Champions

It’s all about branding.  Everything, everywhere.  (Stop and look at your shirt or shoes right now – see what I mean?)

I admit it; I read comments in newspaper posts. Not all of them for certain – I can’t imagine anyone would actually read over 2,000 comments on a six or seven paragraph article in the Washington Post.  (Perhaps there are folks who are worse off than I am in this regard!)

Sometimes I ask myself why I do it – why subject yourself to a virtual hate-fest of ideologues with a smattering of common sense thrown in here and there?  Often those attempting to make a valid point are viciously attacked from both poles of the ideological spectrum.  It’s like rubbernecking at a bad traffic accident; you don’t feel good about looking on at the carnage but can’t quite make yourself look away.  Like looking at any of the 1,677 comments HERE.

But here’s my biggest question.  Do these virtual lessons in how not to get along represent only the lunatic fringe?  Or are they like the tip of an iceberg?  Just like 90% of that ship-crushing ice lies beneath the surface, do these acerbic, animonistic folks who seem to find sport in back-and-forth hate speech represent more that we don’t see?  Have we as a “people” become so distanced from one another – so polarized into left / right, blue / red, liberal / conservative, saved / unsaved, wise / foolish (the categories abound here)… that this is our only way of talking across the divide?  Have we become this mean?  Or has the Internet age simply brought the lunatic fringe into relief in ways we’ve never really paid attention to before?  While I hope it’s the latter, I fear it might be the former.

So I wonder – is the smoke on the horizon of so much of our political, religious, cultural discourse… just smoke from the inevitable friction when people disagree and have real emotion in those disagreements?  Or is there fire there – burning everything in its path, scorching all the earth in such a way that winning or losing no longer matters since these verbal slugfests leave everyone sharing a blackened, useless wasteland?

I’m just thinking…

I’m amazed at how, when I look back on some of the music and lyrics that seemed to make sense to us back in the 1980s… somehow history seems to be repeating itself.

Look at all the “hot button” topics we’re debating today… you’d be surprised – if you really bothered to look – at how we’ve been here before.

Like taking  a stand for what you really believe.  Knowing that the “tea party” / “far right” / “liberals” / you name it… were going to take their shot at you for sharing your beliefs… And yet, you somehow found it important enough to stand up anyway.

Reminds me of people like Haime’ Escalante; or Joe Clark… so many others… Have we forgotten what they tried to teach us?

Nothing new under the sun, is there?  The writer we call “Koleleth” – the “Preacher” from Ecclesiastes… knew more than perhaps we give him credit for:

(Eccl 1:9 NRSV)  What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.

Like these guys tried to tell us way back in 1983:

Stand and Deliver:  Mr. Mister

Some people hate and expect affection
Some people lie and demand the truth
I gotta ask myself if it’s soul deception
Is this the natural thing that we all just do

We take such pleasure from pain, I’m just tired of playing that game
Some things you’ve got to change

Chorus:
You’ve got to stand and deliver, with your body and soul
Stand and deliver, just give me something to hold
Stand and deliver, if the truth can be told
We can make it together, if we stand – stand and deliver

Sometimes my mind drives me to distraction
I want to shut all the windows and lock the doors
And everytime I get a little bit of satisfaction
I see the walls come tumbling to the floor

I know in this life, you gotta stand up for what feels right
Each day and every night

(chorus)

(Solo)

I know in this life, you gotta stand up for what feels right
Each day and every night

(chorus)

Ohhh, ohhh, just give me something to hold
Stand and deliver, if the truth can be told
We can make it together, if we stand – stand and deliver

(chorus…)

Ohhh, ohhh

I met Ken Schrader a couple of weeks ago.  Walked around his race shop with him… listened to him tell us why a “Dillon Trailer” works better for towing a single car than a covered hauler… watched him sit on a pile of Hoosier tires for over a half an hour talking to one of his techs about how an “a frame” needed to be shimmed to match the car set up… Listened to him tell me, “Make yourself at home, walk around, look at whatever you want to…” With millions of dollars of NASCAR stuff around me.

Tonight he climbs into the Red Bull # 82 car at Daytona for the Bud Shootout.  You think I don’ t have a favorite in this race?

Go to it Ken!  Make that Toyota sing around that track!  We’ll be watching…

I wonder… am I  actually becoming a “fan” of someone?  Go figure.

(Click the image below for more.)

Pfizer, your good neighbor?  Yeah, I’m buying that one.  Maybe sell a few more Lipitor pills from this photo op?

And the best part of all?  He calls the security guy from two phones – and the guy never answers!  LOL! (I bet the Pfizer folks wished they could kill that particular footage.)

Why I’m glad I’m not in the Washington, DC area tonight.   Looks like some of our friends are gonna get blasted overnight.  Sorry folks – we’ll take the rain and flooding here any day over what you’re going to have by daybreak.

For my Friend Chris S. who is wondering why Facebook seems to be screwing his life up once again…

Here’s what’s going on – just change the one word “television” to “computer”… You’ll get it.

You have to laugh… When there’s at least one person “out there” that also realizes how shallow and foolish all the name calling that goes on really is… Come on, laugh with me here!