Game of Clowns

I thought long and hard about this blog, I mean it's one thing to tear into someone's religious views, but sport is important and people get weird about it. However, I would be dishonest if I didn't voice my opinion on this particular game, American football. To be frank, it's rubbish and even most of those who profess to follow it, don't really care about it, this becomes obvious when you go to a bar, or someone's house and watch the crowd watching the game. But who can blame them, the game lasts four hours, of which about 12 minutes is action, the rest is posturing and talking on radio's.

To really figure out why the Americans took a perfectly good game (Rugby) and utterly ruined it you have to examine the American Psyche. This is a society that has absolutely zero patience, nil. If you watch TV in the US you very soon get irritated by the commercial breaks which are often and long, after each break as your program resumes you get a recap, this is to bring those who have just joined the channel (having lost patience with whatever they were trying to watch) up to speed. Drive through fast food, pharmacies, banks, dry cleaners etc. All of these institutions and businesses provide this drive through service to try and satiate the endless demand for time saved. This behavior is indicative of  a society that has, for the most part, lost the ability to enjoy subtle nuance and the long term view.

American football is highly skilled, of that there is absolutely no doubt, at least it is for the ball handlers,  because (and this may come as a surprise to non fans) not all the players actually touch the ball, indeed you can go an entire career as a footballer and never touch the ball. A pin point accurate pass thrown over huge distance and plucked out the air by a flying receiver is a sight to behold, it's just that these brief moments of sporting excellence are punctuated by hours (and that's no exaggeration) of tedious team changes and pep talks. And there are two teams, I don't mean in total I mean each team has two teams? So your twelve minutes of action is split between four teams in total, but this model fits perfectly into the American psyche, a long build up, giving you time to chat and eat/drink, a brief spurt of action for a few seconds, long enough to cheer but (crucially) not long enough to get bored and then another long break while the teams change and the coach chats on the radio.

Rugby is a running game, the aim is the same as American football, get the ball to the other end for a try (touch down) or a field goal. It's a game of tactics but all the tactics are decided on the field, specifically by the captain, the game is split into two halves of 40 minutes with a ten minute break. American football has become a series of set plays and the coach calls the shots. The uniforms are garish and the players are padded and helmeted. All this is set to a musical backdrop (in college games at least) provided by team bands that would make a gay pride march seem drab in comparison.

But the one thing that I really don't understand is the lack of consequence for the season as a whole, have your worst ever season, lose every game and no matter, you're back next year, playing the same teams again. One thing I admire about Americans is their "stand on your own two feet attitude", "Sink or swim" except in Football, crap this year? never mind, next year we'll give you the pick of the college crop. Having a bad college season? No sweat, you'll just keep playing in a series of more and more meaningless games until you win something. It's just so un-American, everyone's a winner? it's practically communism.

Now goodness knows Americans love their minority sports, Baseball, Basketball, Women's Basketball??, Lacrosse??? but to take a beautiful game of power, grace and fearless aggression, dress it in helmeted gold skintight lurex, supported by gay bandsmen and say "don't worry no matter how crap you are we'll be back next year" is just plain wrong. It's a classic case of the triumph of style over substance. The football season itself is mercifully short but the lead up to it, the hype, starts just after the previous season ends, there's even a lead up to the draft which in itself is a microcosm of what's wrong with the whole game. Instead of having a draft season, allowing all involved to figure out who goes where, everything is settled within a few hours. This allows the marketing people to build the event up, sell lots of advertising and thus create an event out of what is actually an administrative exercise.

College Football, oh dear, where do I start? I often hear, "It's the true game, they are playing for the love of the game". Nonsense they are playing for an NFL contract and don't tell me they wouldn't take a pay check if it was offered. Personally I think they should be paid because the vast majority won't make it in the Pro's and an average degree in hotel and leisure management isn't going far in Mississippi. There is far too much hype surrounding college football programs and not enough on academics, It's no surprise that Harvard and Princeton don't have famous football teams, they do however produce some of the brightest stars in law, engineering, business and medicine.

Which brings me back to my first point, deep down, nobody really cares, you can buy a package on cable that plays six games at once, I follow real football or "Sacker" as it's called here and when my team is playing that's all I care about. I have zero interest in a any other game, I may be interested in the result of another game because it may impact on my teams destiny, but not the game itself. I am passionate about my team, don't get in the way, don't talk to me. I know when the game starts, when it finishes and what the consequences of every possible outcome will be. I don't have to wait on the outcome of a committee meeting to see where my team is "ranked" (not that it actually matters) because we play for points and the consequences of not accumulating enough points over a season are truly terrible, relegation to a lower division, loss of key players and a huge loss on TV revenue. So when it comes to the last few games of the season, I care, I really do.

Rant Over.

It's only weather!

Here's a shock, if you have a weather channel that pumps out information on the weather 24/7/365 and the forecast for 99% of the time is "Warm and Sunny" then don't be surprised if they talk themselves into a frenzy when something actually happens. We are currently experiencing the outer reaches of Hurricane Irene, It's a pretty big storm, about 600 miles across and 115 mile an hour winds in the centre so you can imagine what the weather guru's are doing right? Running around in circles yelping like puppies.

The gist of the advice is, 1. Leave the area and don't come back until the FEMA trailers are in place or 2. Stay put, tie yourself to the bed and drink lots of water?? So where are our intrepid studio pundits? Standing on a *&^%ing beach with an iPad each, an iPad? What are they playing at, Farmville? It's BEHIND you, you don't need a friggin computer and a 1st class ticket to ground zero, try opening the curtains and looking out the window, better still use one of those satellites you have looking down, They're amazing, I can see my ducks on my pond with Google Earth (seriously, I can) I'm pretty sure you can see a 600 mile storm. What am I saying of course you can, EVERYTIME you turn on the TV.

This brings me to my next point, PANIC, having started warning us about the end of the world 10 days ago and worked the entire east coast into a water hoarding frenzy, having dispatched our finest iPad wielding Farmville land barons to the front line of the apocalypse, you expect us to turn over and watch the next episode of X Factor or whatever. No chance, we're glued to it, every raindrop has a name and my name is insomnia, I woke up at 1am two days ago when my wife turned on the TV to find out where Irene was, I shit you not, we didn't turn the TV off until 11pm and it was 400 miles from Bermuda then, it's called Irene not Concorde, Jesus. But this is what we're reduced to, it's pathetic.

Now the predictions, apparently New York is gonna be under 6 foot of water and civilization as we know it is going to break down, all on Saturday night, which should be fun to watch, they're going to evacuate 600,000 people, where to? I know, try South Carolina, there's no-one here and god knows we have enough bottled water.

Rant Over.

I'm with Stupid.

Now I'm no genius, I deeply admire those who are, our great engineers, physicists, cosmologists etc. Unfortunately most of us are stupid and I'm not exaggerating. I bought a pair of flip flops yesterday, from Walmart, cost me a mere $5 and I was pretty pleased with myself I can tell you. As I was sitting out later, relaxing with a cold beer I had a closer look at them and noticed that the was an "L" stamped on the bottom of (coincidently) the left one. I mused over what this might mean until I wondered, it couldn't possibly stand for left could it? It was almost with trepidation that I turned over the next one and sure enough it had an "R" it wasn't a coincidence it was a set of instructions!

Now call me elitist, but if you need your shoes labeled then perhaps you don't need to be out alone. I am seriously worried that the human race is getting dumber. All the wrong people are having too many children and the gene pool is getting dangerously shallow in some parts. Take a look around, no, I mean it, take a look around, see what I mean? Politicians know this of course, and it suits them, economics is a tricky subject who has time to study all that stuff? so they simmer a complex interrelated soup down to a few basic catchphrases and bingo, everyone's an expert.

The corporate world plays this game well, in the US at least, the golden triangle is formed between corporate, politics and religion, you want your business to make obscene profits so you need a friendly legislature to pass corporate friendly laws (tax exemptions etc) unfortunately for big business we live in a democracy so you need to convince a sizable chunk of the population to vote for big business which is inherently against their own interests, the way you do that is to align your party of choice with the church. This bits easy, you make life easy and profitable for your churches, using the same legislature, then you tie your party to religion by running with one or two basic religious messages, "Pro life" anyone?

Most of us are intellectual misers, we need to be, there is far too much general information to absorb which is why we go to third parties for most of our information. If you want to get the gist of a subject you go to an expert on that subject and that is the important bit. Too many people go to the wrong source for their information and they are encouraged to do that by the very people the information will directly benefit. It's not your fault if you are given wrong information that leads you to a wrong conclusion, but it most definitely is your fault if you don't go to the right source or at least make some effort to validate the source. This argument from authority technique is widely used in advertising, celebrities regularly endorse products from completely unrelated fields.

So, you take a poorly informed large swathe of the population all of whom have one thing in common, the church. You then align your party to that church, and sit back as the preachers do the job of selling your party to the great unwashed, simple. Now it's actually illegal to preach politics from the pulpit but don't tell me it doesn't go on, indeed I had the misfortune to witness a Baptist service (it was a work thing) and what did the pastor call those who didn't believe the miracles of the bible? Non believers? Atheists? nope, he called them "liberals" and I'm not kidding. If you want to know about climate change, ask a climatologist, economics? Try an economist, Bill O'Reilly is neither but millions of Americans form their opinions on these subjects by listening to this man, why not? We buy grills from a boxer!

So the depressing education figures that we are constantly bombarded with are music to the ears of the corporate world, they get enough decently educated graduates to run their businesses and make enough money so that they vote corporate anyway and a poorly educated mass who live paycheck to paycheck and still vote for them because "It's what Jesus would do" What I can't work out is why the education stats are so bad, I can only put it down to low expectations, generations of stupid are breeding stupid, which brings me back to instructions on flip flops. By the way, I tried them on the wrong feet and it was pretty obviously wrong, so I am smarter than the average idiot, but if instructions on flip flops are a test, then the bar is set pretty low.

Rant Over.

Pick it up!

I'm lucky enough to live in a particularly beautiful part of the world. For those of you not familiar,
South Carolina is divided into two major regions by the fall line that runs through the center of the state from Augusta, Georgia, to Columbia and thence to Cheraw, near the North Carolina border. The area northwest of the line, known as the upcountry, lies within the Piedmont Plateau; the region to the southeast, called the low country, forms part of the Atlantic Coastal Plain.  I live on Johns Island, which you may have guessed is in the Low Country.

We are blessed with a lovely climate and an amazingly diverse flora and fauna, Johns Island is densely wooded and many of the roads are lined with grand oaks that drip Spanish moss so that a mundane drive can feel like a walk on part in Gone with the Wind. Until you look down and to the sides, trash, everywhere. It's so depressing, 90% of it is alcohol related, bottles and cans, a direct result of the stupid open container law that I've touched on before. In the UK the drink/drive laws are designed to dissuade people from drinking and then driving, here the problem seems to be that people drink while they are driving which means they get rid of the evidence as soon as possible by throwing it out the car.

I know exactly how long it takes to eat a McDonalds meal purchased at the intersection because the debris is thrown out about 2 miles down the road (that's about 3 minutes) I don't get it, it drives me crazy. I live in a cul de sac which means most of the trash thrown out in my road, is thrown out by people who live there. What the hell? And people seem oblivious to it, I stopped at a particularly bad spot a couple of miles from my house and my daughter and I got out to spend some time clearing up. It was a Sunday, I remember that because the church across the road (god knows we have enough or them) suddenly opened it's doors and the faithful tripped out and climbed in their cars (off to IHOP no doubt). They saw us and paid no heed, I mean I'm clearing up across the road from their stupid church and they don't see a problem with that.

I called the county, asked who to speak to about getting the roadsides cleared up, only to be told it's not their responsibility, it's the landowners. This is despite the county having all rights over all the land 25' from the roads edge. Here we have a direct consequence of "small government" It's all very well banging on about "personal responsibility" but when the weakest link fails (in this case the majority of the public) then the system collapses. When I say "the majority" I mean it because if you're not out there picking up then you are part of the problem, have some pride people, when I have visitors from out of state I'm embarrassed and I'm out clearing the crap up all the time.

This week the county cut the verges, not sure why as they profess non responsibility but nonetheless the tractors were out and what a mess, bottles and cans that were at least hidden by the undergrowth are now smashed up and scattered all over the place, every road for miles around looks the aftermath of a major traffic accident. There are few sights more depressing than an egret wadding in the storm ditches after a downpour looking for a stray frog amongst the fast food containers and empty beer cans. What is wrong with people, who are these people? Have they no pride? No self respect at all? It makes me SO mad, such a beautiful place, such an ugly species.

But if you want to see real filth drive down some of the dirt roads. These trails look like a public dumping ground, old furniture, tires, fridges, you name it and often these roads lead to low end trailer parks which themselves are like a cross between a refugee camp and a crack convention, talk about shitting on your own doorstep? There are children living amongst you, I know you don't have much money but you have plenty of time, get out there and have some @*$%ing pride.

Rant Over.

Driving me Crazy!

I am 51 years young, I have lived in the US, Europe and Asia, I have driven on those continents and Africa. Some countries have a reputation for poor driving, Italy springs to mind for some reason. Before coming to live in South Carolina I hadn't really thought about driving here, after all I had been here plenty of times on vacation and I had driven all around the US over the years but I can honestly say that after 4 years of living here and plenty of time in the car, the drivers in South Carolina are easily the worst in the world.

The first thing I noticed in 2008 when I arrived was that cell phones had just been invented, what other reason could there possibly be for every other person behind a wheel talking on the phone? Now the smart phone has arrived and everyone is downloading, texting and surfing while trying to get from A to B. I was living in the UK when cell phones became popular and there were no laws regarding their use while driving and I was there when it was realized what a distraction they were and hands free became your only legal alternative, people moaned at first but very quickly became used to it and it was practically self policing. There was talk of restricting cell phone use for teens here a while ago but it died before becoming law because of objections about civil liberties! Do what you want to yourself but lets face it, if you cause an accident while driving there's a very good possibility that someone else's civil liberties are going to end up wrapped around a tree.

Within 10 minutes of leaving my house in the morning, and this is every morning I will witness the following infractions; tailgating, weaving, undertaking, speeding and a complete lack of understanding of the functions of the turn signals. The problem starts with the DMV, the driving test is a joke, I know, I had to take it, a little quiz followed by 10 minutes driving around and a parallel parking practical that a blind man could pass. On filing the paperwork I was asked what my native tongue was, "English" "No" says the clerk, "What language do you speak in your own country"? "English" I said a little dumbfounded "No" says the clerk a little more forcefully "You don't understand" "I can assure you I do" says I, and my language is English because I'm from England. A little sigh and she gave up, it went downhill from there. So the problem is, you start out as a bad driver in SC and you then get worse. On discussing lane discipline with drivers here, it becomes apparent that they have no clue what I'm talking about, most drivers simply do not know that you are supposed to drive in the right hand lane and overtake in the left lane.

Tailgating is another terrible problem, 60 mph down the road with 6 cars no more than 10 feet apart, half the drivers on the phone and the others watching movies, it's insane I tell you. I've driven on dark country roads at night and the car behind me is so close I can't see his headlights! And we're the only two cars on the road. All of this would be bad enough but to top it off the roads and the street signs are a mess, who the hell hangs traffic lights off of wires anyway? In a state that gets hurricanes!

Part of the problem are the laws, the open container law doesn't stop people drinking while driving but it does mean that the littering law is ignored as the ditches full of empty containers will testify. They sell cans of beer in brown bags in filling stations for god's sake. Out of the town centers all the bars come with mall sized parking lots but that's ok because if you do happen to get a DUI you can buy your way out of it. My daughter gets a ticket for speeding, she's young and the ticket has implications for my insurance but thats ok because for $50 I get a lawyer that gets the 19 miles over the speed limit reduced to a seatbelt violation. Handy but definitely wrong, she was wearing her seatbelt.

Rant over.

Put up or Shut up.

You know, the internet is a wonderful thing, revolutions have been born and sustained on it, information is available at the touch of a button, what would once have taken weeks to research is now at the fingertips of even the most luddite amongst us, which is why I am constantly amazed at the amount of bullshit that people post. You know how it goes "Our way of life is under threat, faceless people in power are taking away our rights and demanding that dangerous communist ideas be taught in school" cut and paste to your profile if you're a real patriot.

A few days ago a friend posted a similar message to the above, along the lines of "schools are afraid to recite the pledge of allegiance for fear of causing offence" cut and paste etc. I looked at this and wondered, then I Googled, and guess what? Yep, no such story, no school that I could find had any problem at all with reciting the pledge.

So why does this matter? Well all the people who had "cut and pasted" obviously believed that this was the case, that schools were having a problem and that their way of life was under threat, it wasn't true but they believed it to be true and beliefs have consequences. Which is of course why it was put out there in the first place. You see, once the genie is out the bottle you can't put it back, ask anyone who's ever been defamed in print, no matter how many retractions are printed they never lose the stain.

Paranoia is running rampant throughout western society and the US has more than it's fair share. Thanks to an overabundance of lawyers (The US has more lawyers than plumbers) we have the most litigious society in the world and everyone is paranoid about being sued. this breeds an atmosphere like a tinderbox waiting for a match and one cut and paste could be that match. Beliefs matter, beliefs inform our actions, if I am convinced that child abductions are on the rise (they're not) then that may cause me to check out my neighborhood for convicted sex offenders but just what am I supposed to do with that information? A few years ago in the UK after a particularly tragic and very widely publicized case, gangs went on the rampage in towns and cities pulling suspected pedophiles out of their homes and beating them up. One case involved a Pediatrician being beaten by a group of morons who didn't know the difference.

Stolen kidneys, Facebook charges, compulsory Muslim holidays, foreign call centers, these are all recent and on-going BS urban myths doing the rounds and they won't go away, the stolen kidney one has been out since the 80's and I'm still hearing it! But the most insidious are the political slurs, everyone knows that Nancy Pelosi demanded a 737 to use as her personal plane right? Or that George W. Bush waved at Stevie Wonder? Except of course they never happened, but otherwise sensible people repeat these myths because it suits their agenda, they want it to be true so they just cut and paste, what harm can it do right?

Well it does a lot of harm. We live in a society with a very limited attention span, politics is a sound bite game, a bumper sticker is about the maximum amount of information that Joe the plumber can assimilate so, "Pelosi demanded a 737" fits, as does "No more Taxes" or "Don't tread on Me" The truth "Well it's a bit more complex than that, we have to start....zzzzzzzzzzz" That's not gonna cut it, so cut and paste a few non truths, a few on the button phrases and we're away. Make people scared, make them think they are under threat, keep the paranoia bandwagon going, don't encourage critical thinking, turn on the tube, relax, eat more chips, you know the Canadians are just lining up to take advantage of the US health system, yeah, I heard about this one guy....

Next time someone tells you something that sounds like you want it to be true, check it out, Google it, don't be a part of the problem, check your facts before you publish! Above all don't believe everything you read.

P.S. There aren't more lawyers than plumbers, it just feels like it.

Rant over.

It's tragic, not magic.

OK, the gloves are off, I am so sick and tired of the religious right in the US I no longer even pretend to offer the simplest of courtesies, indifference. Nope if you approach me with any kind of superstitious explanation for anything you will get short shrift. The last few days have seen an outpouring of grief and stupidity in equal measure over the downing of an American helicopter in Afghanistan and the tragic loss of 38 men, 31 US special forces and 7 Afghan soldiers Helicopter Downed Facebook status's are overwhelmed with prayers to Jesus and demands for retribution. I cringed as I listened to relatives and friends assert with absolute certainty that their loved ones were with Jesus and that the evil doers would get what they had coming.

I understand that there is a coping mechanism at work here, I understand that if you have been brought up in a family and community where people claim divine knowledge with no evidence and are never challenged on their view then superstition is your first port of call when grief arrives out of the blue in the form of a visit from a Chaplain no less. But lets get real here. The reason your loved one is even in a far away country fighting an enemy that loves death more than life is precisely because God wills it, Inshallah.

The US is in Afghanistan because it was attacked by a group of people so certain that God is on their side that they were literally prepared to die to prove it. This level of certainty is beyond the understanding of even the most devout of Christians. So in the world of demons and angels, a world where natural disasters are attributed to magical interventions the most pious are surely those closest to god, in that case we may well be on the losing side, it may be the Christians who are ferried across the Acheron to start their journey following death.

Unless of course you think as I do that it's all nonsense, if you live in a natural world, a world explained by natural law then you would never be persuaded that it would be a good idea to spend your only life practicing to be dead, never mind hastening your own and others toward that splendid sleep because it said so in a holy book written and plagiarized by persons unknown at an undetermined time, translated and edited by further persons unknown in a desperate attempt to control those around you and fleece the flock.

It is entirely because of crazy superstition and circular reasoning that those men were even in that helicopter in the dark sky over Afghanistan in the first place, your god, my god, good god, it drives me crazy! And don't forget it was the US who financed and trained the Mujahedeen in the first place to fight the godless Soviets. Apparently God had a plan for the poor bastards torn apart and scattered over the mountain that night but getting home to their loved ones wasen't in it. But his is a win/win game, your husband survives he wins, he dies, he wins, what a game, is it any wonder everyone plays it?

Well almost everyone, not me, no sir. Whipped into a frenzy the crowds crush into the churches to be reassured it will all be over soon, that the savior will be coming soon. All our trials and tribulations will come to an end when Jesus returns, soon, it's always soon, like a rainbows end  the day never seems to quite arrive. When our elected officials throw up their hands and declare that they cannot fix the problems they were elected to fix and instead call upon divine help holding prayer days, you know we are in trouble. Texas Governor Rick Perry is expected to announce his candidacy as President of The United States of America "soon" this man, this joke who freely admits he can't sort out the budget deficit in Texas wants the whole can of worms, he wants to be in charge of the most powerful country in the world and then hand over the running of that country to a bronze age mythical sky fairy! You couldn't make this shit up.

Such is the grip that the religious right has on this country, behavior such as Governor  Perry's barely raises an eyebrow, stupidity on that scale ought to raise serious concerns about a mans judgment, but no, here in the US along with such enlightened societies as Iran and Pakistan this craziness is seen as a virtue. We are in trouble alright but we need to address our problems with full and frank discussion and a large dose of reality, there is no room for bronze age philosophy in 21st century economics and politics. Stand up, stop being polite, nothing fails like prayer and next time your elected official mentions Jesus, tell him to get on with his job and leave off the Kool-Aid.

Rant over