This is actually very simple. The reason why people are up in arms over which bathroom you use is because they’re worried that a sexual predator with a penis (typically a heterosexual male at birth and/or now, in this case) could dress as a woman & enter the ladies room & rape a woman. Forget about the other women who might enter the ladies room & report the rape occurring — that’s the real fear here, so let’s assume that another woman might not be there to come to the rescue or maybe she might get raped next.

Most guys don’t care if a woman they don’t know wants to come into the men’s room & look at what they’ve got — it’s the only place they could possibly show her what they’ve got (whether she likes it or not) & not get arrested for it. So the real concern is the protection of women in the ladies room.

You couldn’t rape a woman with your penis if you didn’t have one, so getting uptight about transgender women (a woman who was born a man & no longer has a penis) or a cross-dressing woman (a woman who has no penis dressing up as a man) using the ladies room is no big deal if he/she never had a penis or doesn’t have one anymore.

We’ve also established that men have no problem with women seeing them naked, so women using the men’s room is fine with us now or anytime. We don’t care if you were born a man or woman or turned into a man or vice-versa or have both — you are welcome in the men’s room anytime, whatever you are.  The men’s room is the true unisex bathroom.  Go to a concert or sporting event where the bathroom capacity is inadequate & you will see ladies in the men’s room, I guarantee it.

So the solution is simple — if you have a penis, use the men’s room. If you don’t, use the ladies room. How you dress & what sex you “identify” with means nothing — if you’re in the ladies room & you’ve got “gear”, then get outta here.

Why is that so friggin’ hard to figure out?

Critics/judges are losers who didn’t make it doing what they wanted to do, and somehow decided that THEY know how others can be successful at what THEY THEMSELVES couldn’t do well, so they start a career criticizing what other people do who, in virtually every case, do a better job than the critic/judge ever did.

The word “critic” alone is a negative, as it’s related to “criticism”, which is generally always negative, and when it’s not, it’s generally always condescending & patronizing fluff meant to cater to the masses so that the critic/judge is liked, because all that matters anymore is not whether you’re good or bad, but whether you’re liked by enough people.

Regardless of what they say and regardless of what they actually think in their own deluded minds, critics do not come into an event with a neutral, wait-and-see attitude — they know in advance whether they will like the event or not, and that always clouds their judgment. If they don’t like the event, even if it’s the best event that could ever have happened, it will get a lukewarm review at best, with a lot of “finding faults” in the criticism. If they expected to like the event, it will be the most fawning B.S. where they can’t possible be objective & impartial no matter how bad it actually went.

The point is, don’t listen to reviews or critics or judges — try things out on your own & use your own brain for something more than a pleasure point you continually press for your own enjoyment, you narcissistic hedonistic bastard/bitch you.

A huge majority of fans want Pete Rose reinstated.  A majority of baseball writers don’t, especially those who are the gatekeepers to the BBHOF.  I believe that the writers feel that way simply because many of them are too young to remember & appreciate Pete Rose, and because younger people in today’s society tend to be more hostile than previous generations were at their age.

Another issue that has come up lately is that the new commissioner & others are criticizing Pete for his personal matters such as continuing to gamble.  Gambling is a legal activity in many states.  If Pete were betting on baseball right now, it wouldn’t make a difference even if he were working in the front office of a team, as I’m sure many team employees gamble on sports & probably even bet for or against the team they work for.  It means nothing as long as their employment position doesn’t affect the team’s play.

Regardless of whatever Pete has done, he’s been banned for some 25 years now and has lost a quarter of a century that he could have been associated with baseball, and his image has been tarnished permanently regardless of whether he gets back into baseball or the HOF.  He’s also lost millions of dollars as a result of this, and I don’t mean a pun about gambling per se, except that he gambled that he could do anything against the rules & not get caught or have to pay for it, and he lost (as I’ve heard he always does), as most gamblers eventually become net losers unless they’re really good & do it for a living, and even some of those guys (and ladies) go bust as well — heck, many of them will tell you that they’ve routinely gone bust in their gambling careers only to get a stakehorse & come back time & again.  FYI, I used the term “stakehorse” incorrectly as most people do nowadays — a stakehorse is actually the horse/person/thing you bet on, not the one placing the bet or backing the player.

If the commissioner reinstates Pete, it’s likely that the Reds would want to hire him for their front office or broadcast booth.  I doubt anybody would hire him as a coach at any level, and I seriously doubt that he will make into the BBHOF anytime soon based on the BB writer’s current attitudes who have a vote.  What would change for Pete is that he would then be able to be in baseball on a regular basis (if he landed a job as such) and that would draw more writers toward his corner by just seeing him on a regular basis & knowing that baseball & an overwhelming majority of fans have forgiven him & that he has done his fair share of time for his transgressions — many murders & rapist get less time than Pete has done on the ineligible list.

One solution, and probably the best solution to the situation is that the commissioner could create a new category of suspension that’s similar to parole — Pete could get “conditional reinstatement”, whereby Pete could be at ballgames & even be employed by teams or networks, but on a case-by-case basis with the commissioner’s approval & have his activities monitored, and he would also be eligible for the BBHOF.  Part of that condition should be that Pete come completely clean to everything he’s done, which he would probably not do anyway, but it’s worth a try.

Another lesser move would be to allow the Veterans Committee to vote on players who are on the ineligible list, such as Pete Rose & Shoeless Joe Jackson.  This gives them the opportunity to be in the BBHOF without being reinstated.  This only affects Pete’s work opportunities since Joe is dead, but I don’t think it will help as I don’t think writers will vote for banned players even if they could — it would be like hiring a convict vs hiring a parolee.

This “parole” would help Pete tremendously & give him a chance to acclimate back into baseball & reintegrate into baseball society just like paroled felons, which Pete is actually.

When a Federal judge rules on a case, it’s automatically the law of its jurisdiction, which may include more than 1 state, unless the judge issues a stay on its own ruling or if a higher Federal court issues a stay.  A Federal judge will typically issue a stay on its own ruling if it appears that an appeal will be forthcoming, which is usually the case in most Federal civil case decisions.  A Federal judge’s ruling trumps any rulings in a state court at any level, including state laws passed by voters, and to not uphold the ruling is essentially anarchy, though it usually results in less severe punishment, like the removal of state judge or governor who doesn’t honor the ruling.  Though there are a very few legal experts who claim that a Federal District Judge’s ruling has no effect on a state until it’s heard or denied a hearing by the US Court of Appeals and/or the US Supreme Court, the vast majority of legal experts agree that once a Federal District Judge issues an order, it’s binding unless stayed by the judge.

In the case of the Alabama same-sex marriage ban, a Federal District Judge ruled that it was unconstitutional, but issued a stay in her own ruling to give the state time to appeal the decision.  The state of Alabama appealed it, but the appeal of the ruling was denied by the US Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case & refuses to extend the stay.  Note that the US Court of Appeals in Atlanta also declined to hear it or extend the stay, which is why the US Supreme Court reviewed it.  Alabama was hoping to at least get the stay extended until the high court hears a case in June 2015 that should decide it for the entire land.

Therefore, Alabama now has to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.  Right now.  By Federal law.

For Roy Moore, the Chief Justice of the State of Alabama’s Supreme Court, to tell anyone to ignore this order is completely preposterous, akin to anarchy in my opinion & he should be removed from office — yet again.  Moore is bucking to set what may be an infamous record — to be removed from the office of the Chief Justice of ANY state’s Supreme Court TWO TIMES!  I can’t imagine this has ever happened twice to the same person.  I believe he does it because he’s bucking to become the next dictator of the South after it secedes from the Union once again.  At the very worst, he’s getting a ton of free publicity & lots of backing from Alabamians for his incorrect, morally-wrong decision & his twisted logic, and I believe he intends to get thrown out of office & use that as a springboard to be the next Governor of Alabama, which office I believe he would win if he tried, especially after this move, which I equate to George Wallace’s infamous “stand in the schoolhouse door” in the 60’s.

And for Alabama Governor Robert Bentley to not step up & tell people that Roy Moore has no authority to order Probate Judges to ignore a Federal District Judge’s ruling (and a US Court of Appeals & US Supreme Court’s denial of appeal) & not rebuking Moore for doing so is essentially anarchy also in my opinion.

Currently, over 75% of the state’s Probate Judges are denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples in defiance of the law, but I believe that once Moore is removed from office yet again & once Governor Bentley steps up & gets wise to the fact that the last Alabama governor who denied a Federal Judge’s ruling was the infamous George Wallace, I believe that the Probate Judges will do an about-face & honor the Federal Judge’s order.  I fully believe this is simply political posturing & a case of Moore & Bentley “playing chicken” with the Feds.

Once again, Alabama ends up on the wrong side of history, but Alabamians have a long huge legacy in doing so on many issues, including the Civil War, civil rights, evolution, school prayer, school segregation, mixed-race marriage (41% of Alabamians voted in 2000 to continue outlawing mixed-race marriages even though the US Supreme Court had ruled that stance unconstitutional in 1967 — it was on the ballot simply to clean up the state constitution, and luckily that 41% lost), and now same-sex marriage.

If I were the Federal judge who issued the order, I would send US Marshals to serve a notice upon Moore & Bentley to not engage in any more rhetoric & to make a statement that they do indeed support the Federal Judge’s order, or place them under arrest for violating that order.  The Republicans of Alabama (and anybody else who doesn’t get it) need to understand that it doesn’t matter how many people of a state want a law to be a law — if a Federal Judge says it’s wrong, it’s wrong, and if it’s inherently wrong, it doesn’t matter how many people want it to be right, it’s still wrong.  If it weren’t for Federal Judges/Courts doing so, we might still have slavery, no voting for women or minorities, segregated schools, no bi-racial marriages, and we’d be signing “Dixie” at ballgames.

I’ve actually found a shooting that black people & Hollywood have a right to be upset about; in fact, everyone in America should be upset by this one.

I had no problem with the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson.  All you have to do is read the facts of the case and you know that there were many black eyewitnesses who said that Michael Brown had just committed a strong-arm robbery of a convenience store, willfully ignored the commands of a police officer to get out of traffic while walking down the the center of the street, attacked the officer in his car, ran away, then turned around & charged the officer like a bull and his hands were not raised at any point.  That’s when he was fatally shot by the officer.  Keep in mind the officer had already tried to shoot him when Brown was reaching into his car & trying to get the officer’s gun & attacking him, but that shot only grazed his thumb.  Michael Brown was nut case & he deserved exactly what he got.

Her’s another guy I don’t have a lot of sympathy for, but he did get a raw deal to degree — Eric Garner — habitual criminal, albeit petty crimes.  He died because he verbally resisted arrest by telling the cops he would not allow himself to be arrested, as though he were special & had a right to loudly question officers in the performance of their job rather than simply peacefully submitting to them, then when they tried to arrest him, he then physically resisted arrest.  He’s a large guy, so they took him down using a partial chokehold.  It was not a true chokehold as he could breathe, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to speak, but I agree it was the wrong maneuver to use.  He stroked out on them because he was in such poor health due to being incredibly overweight, which is his own slovenly fault, and because they caused him to have an asthmatic episode & restricted his breathing while piling on top of him on the ground.  A chokehold could kill anybody depending on how applied & for how long, but a big fat guy could get killed easily, and they should have known that they were preventing him from breathing properly & that he was in distress.  Chokehold takedowns of any kind & piling up on a suspect causing compressive asphyxia should be illegal in all law enforcement situations, but if Garner hadn’t resisted arrest in the first place, it never would have happened — Garner himself was the catalyst in his own death.

But John Crawford, who was shot by a cop in Ohio in a Walmart, did nothing at all to provoke being shot, at least nothing anybody else would do if they were buying a toy air rifle.  He picked up the air rifle & was swinging it back & forth, pointed at the ground the entire time, never interacted with anyone, and was browsing the shelves for something else to buy while talking on his cellphone.  Some idiot named Ronald Ritchie, another shopper in Walmart, called 911 & told them that Crawford had an ASSAULT rifle & was walking around & pointing it at people.  Ronald Ritchie should be in prison for what he did, as he was an accomplice to what I believe was a police homicide, and he later recanted & said Crawford didn’t do anything he said he did, and the Walmart video proves Crawford didn’t.  When the cops arrived, they snuck up on Crawford & told him to drop the weapon & didn’t give him a chance to do much of anything before Officer Sean Williams shot him twice.  Crawford never pointed the gun at the cop & only told him it was a toy gun.  The only problem you could possibly have in this case is that Crawford didn’t react quick enough to drop the gun & tried instead to explain himself, and he was walking around the store with a toy gun, BUT the hyper cop didn’t give him a chance to do so or a chance to drop it & instead killed him, AND if Walmart doesn’t want people walking around the store with toy guns, don’t put them on the shelves.

If you’ve read any of my blog work, you come to the swift conclusion that, 1) I’m more concerned with speaking about the cold hard facts as they are more than I’m concerned about how I’m perceived for what I say, i.e., I don’t have any socio-political fears about how what I say may be accepted in the world of public scrutiny.  I’ve made plenty of enemies in my lifetime because I dared to speak the truthful facts and/or my opinion when virtually no one else would.  Obviously I don’t work in a corporate or gov’t job, and 2) I don’t care about an overwhelming tide of public sentiment landing on the opposite of the table from me — I typically go against the grain in most cases simply because I believe the average American is stupid & ignorant, and that’s a majority opinion I don’t want to be a part of if I can help it.

I’ve read all the evidence in the Michael Brown case that occurred in Ferguson, MO, and there are a number of conclusions I’ve drawn from them.

1) Michael Brown committed Robbery 2nd Degree when took the cigarillos using force, as proven by the video.  When you simply steal something surreptitiously, or grab it off a shelf & run without taking it from somebody’s person or causing any injury to them or threatening them, that’s simply theft or shoplifting, or it’s burglary if you break in to do it & they’re not there (people confuse theft, burglary & robbery quite often).  But if you take an item openly AND use force in doing so, but you don’t use a weapon, that is Robbery 2nd Degree per Missouri statute 569-030, so he’s not a simple shoplifter or thief, he’s a STRONG-ARM ROBBERY suspect, and I don’t mean an “alleged” suspect, as we have video that 100% proves he’s a perpetrator, not an “alleged suspect”.

2) The blood evidence shows that Michael Brown had reached into the cop’s car when he was shot in the thumb by the cop, this due to Brown’s blood being on the cop’s leg & in the police car, therefore, he ASSAULTED A POLICE OFFICER IN THE COP’S OWN CAR.

3) The blood evidence also proves that he was coming TOWARD the cop when he was shot later, not when he was running away, so this proves that he was ASSAULTING THE COP AGAIN and that he didn’t care that the cop was armed & would shoot him — he was NOT a “fleeing suspect” or running to get away from a deranged cop trying to kill him.

These are not the acts of a “gentle giant” or a “boy”.  He was a large strong-arm robber & cop-assaulting thug & he got exactly what he should have gotten.  A cop cannot allow a Robbery suspect to charge him and NOT shoot him, especially when he just assaulted the cop in his police car just a moment earlier.  The suspect could wrestle the gun from the cop, shoot him & others.  He’s a priority #1 danger to society if he would dare to assault an armed cop.  If he had lived, he probably would’ve gotten at least 30 years for the strong-arm robbery & assaulting a cop twice.  He would’ve been just like any other prisoner in any prison with the same charges — a thug, guilty as charged.

The moral is not a racial message — it’s a common-sense one, i.e., A) Don’t commit strong-arm robbery, B) Don’t assault a cop, and C) Don’t charge toward a cop, especially when he has a gun pointed at you and especially if you’re a wanted felon.  Doesn’t matter if the cop is white or black or the suspect is white or black.

If there’s anybody in America that knows & understands all the evidence & feels sorry for that thug or believes that he didn’t deserve what he got, THEY are the racists; in this case, it’s “reverse racism”, but in actuality, racism occurs anytime a person belittles a person strictly due their race, and that’s what is occurring in the press with those who support the strong-arm robber & cop-assaulter Michael Brown.

Also note that Ferguson is predominantly a black area, so they’re only burning down their own town, and many insurance policies don’t cover damage by riot or civil unrest.

If a person is attacking another person & the attacker is shot, why does it matter what race they are? Every time some black guy gets shot during a crime, there’s Al Sharpton & the rest of Black America & 99% of the celebrities saying it’s a racial thing & this sort of thing shouldn’t have happened. They’re partially right — these black thugs shouldn’t be assaulting people & committing the crimes they get shot for. That’s what shouldn’t happen. You rob a store, the cops will look for you, and you attack the cops or anybody else who you know has a weapon, you’ll surely get shot. Why is anybody having a problem with this?

Because human beings, since the dawn of time, have found various ways to split people into groups & heap shame & despair on the group they’re not in.  Whether we use race, religion, tribal affiliation, familial affiliation, nationality, political differences, philosophical differences, sexual orientation, or simply differences in intellect, humans have always tried to separate people into groups that value one group over another.

If history is any indication, it will never change.  Social media is actually making it worse, or least more publicized.

We need to be educating our youth of all races to stay off drugs, stay in school & get a college degree or a valuable trade, not have unprotected sex or try to have kids until they can handle it emotionally & financially, and teaching today’s kids how to be good parents & raise their own children properly when they have them hopefully much later.  Michael Brown simply wasn’t taught to do the right thing by his parents or our school systems, so he didn’t have proper education & parental guidance. These events will continue to happen until we stop making people who are mean, ignorant & uneducated look cool in our kids’ eyes (a/k/a rappers & other people who spout ignorant language, actions & rhetoric) & we start teaching people how to do the right thing & why that’s important to society & not just themselves.

This simply underscores the general stupidity of the majority of the American public.

What we initially saw in the Ray Rice case was the video of him dragging his wife (NOTE: She was at that time his fiancee – can you believe she married him afterward??) out of the elevator and his admission that he had hit her, which was why she was being dragged out — because he knocked her out cold — he’s lucky he didn’t kill her or cause brain damage.  Not only did he get off light for it, his wife got nothing for her actions — well, at least she’s getting something now for them.

We didn’t need to see the 2nd video as it didn’t give us any new facts that SHOULD have changed the outcome of the punishment that SHOULD have been handed down to Ray Rice, but it did make a positive difference in that he’s now getting something closer to what he deserves, although once again, society has gone overboard, and on top of that, now Janay Rice is getting punished for HER complicity, albeit extremely harshly in my opinion, but hindsight is usually 20/20 & the public usually gets it all wrong anyway.

Her complicity?  She’s the victim, right?  Not completely if you know all the facts, which the new video allegedly clearly shows, and if you look closely in the old video, you can see it there also, and it was her actions that escalated the confrontation.

What I’m saying is, we knew A) Ray Rice hit his wife hard, and B) She was knocked out cold for a few minutes & was dragged out of the elevator by him (instead of picking her up).  What does it matter if we actually SAW the punch??  It doesn’t matter — he got off lightly and that was that.

But this is what the airing of the 2nd video did:

1) It was a jolt to actually see it happening rather than imagining it happening or hearing about it — we felt more enraged because we saw it, but the act nor the facts of the case against HIM changed ; only our collective experience of it changed.  The video ignited a new collective rage against Rice, but that rage should have been this strong BEFORE the video was aired — if it had been, he would have gotten something closer to a fair punishment instead of what he got first & what he just got handed down.

2) It rehashed the fact that Rice got off easy for this, and it made the NFL & the Ravens do what it should have done in the first place — give him a harsher sentence, only this time, instead of getting a half-season or a full season off without pay & mandatory education to reorient his thinking in how to deal with his anger, he’s now lost his job & is banned indefinitely from the NFL — the typical heavy-handed socio-politics of punishment in action.  It was no problem for many people to say that a 2-game suspension was OK; now many of those same people are calling for his head on a platter, and that’s as wrong as the original punishment was.  Draconian sentencing is better left for the Medieval Ages — we shouldn’t throw dirty people out with their bath water.  These are human beings & they deserve a chance to pay for their punishment, hopefully get rehabilitated & have a chance to reenter society on the same terms that they left.  This is one of the problems why our society is screwed up & why recidivism is high.

3) Let’s be fair — although Rice’s wife was a victim of his brutality, the video plainly shows she isn’t totally innocent — it shows her A) pushing Ray BEFORE she got into the elevator, and he doesn’t touch her in retaliation, and B) she SPITS on him once they get into the elevator, which started the physical altercation near the elevator control panel, then C) she approached Rice in attack mode after he slapped her and/or got in her face after SHE SPIT ON HIM as soon as they got into the elevator.  That’s when he hit her.  Wrong, yes, but she was wrong also — at least that’s what the police thought when they charged her.

The video doesn’t clearly show the spitting or the knockout punch.  The surveillance camera was running at appx 3/fps in my estimation, whereas better cameras run 10x that speed, but you can tell he hit her nevertheless, and if you look closely, you can see she spit on him & the AP has confirmed this by their viewing of a better-quality video that hasn’t been made public yet.  Janay isn’t a completely-innocent victim, although the reaction she got from him wasn’t right either & was far & above what she did.

However, she had no right to attack him any more than he had a right to hit her, and his hitting her wasn’t a self-defense right; he should have simply restrained her if he thought she was going to hit him, unless she possesses some sort of self-defense skills that we aren’t aware of, like maybe she’s a mentally-unbalanced Tae Kwon Do champion who gets physical when she gets enraged & he knew that & felt threatened, but I highly doubt that scenario.  It’s easy for most people to say that she owed him payback if he hit her first, but the law doesn’t see it that way, and her pushing, splitting & approaching Ray in attack mode isn’t right, period.  It doesn’t give her carte blanche to do as she pleases no more than him having the right to punch her.

Now flash forward to today — Rice & his wife are unemployed because of what happened between them.  Once again, not trying to make excuses for Ray, but do you think Janay would have touched Ray before they got in the elevator or have spit on him or have moved toward him in attack mode in the elevator if she knew that it would cause not only the physical & legal problems they received, but also cause her husband to lose his job over the matter & jeopardize his entire career?  That’s why she’s mad now in my opinion — he just lost at least $4 million & probably way more when this is all said & done, and she’s JUST AS COMPLICIT in this matter as he is — 2 wrongs don’t make a right, and if she had been in self-control, he probably wouldn’t have hit her.  She’s also surely mad that people now know she spit on him & went after him before she was knocked out.  Not an excuse again; just an observation & a reasonable conclusion to make.  Going off half-cocked and excusing her actions & complicity is not truly objective.

Also note that Rice AND HIS WIFE were charged with Simple Assault, but the charges were raised against him to Aggravated Assault before the 2nd video came out (which was correct in my opinion) and the charges were completely dropped against her, which was very wrong in my opinion — the video clearly shows her complicity — moving toward a person and intending to strike them is clearly Simple Assault even if you don’t actually hit them.  If you hit them, then you’ve got Battery, hence the term “Assault & Battery”.  And spitting could be considered to be Simple Assault as well, especially if the person spitting were trying to communicate a disease or other sickness, which I know wasn’t the case here, but it isn’t something that should be overlooked, and she may think it’s perfectly fine to push, spit & attack people in the future because she got away with it legally.

Once again, because most people tend to stop reading the facts after they read a few things they disagree with, this is not an excuse for Ray Rice’s actions.  This is simply to point out the 3 facts above that the 2nd video showed us, and it also shows how wrong the NFL & the Ravens got it in the 1st place, and it shows the societal & legal dichotomy present in that his wife doesn’t have to answer for her role in the argument because she got the worse of it, and now they’re both paying for it in the end with his termination.  Letting people go easy for this type of behavior simply encourages it later — ask the families of Nicole Brown Simpson & Ron Goldman, assuming you believe that OJ killed them.

In closing, ruining this couple’s life over this matter is wrong.  He should have gotten a fair punishment, which should have been a half-season or a full season, and she should have to legally answer for her actions just as he’s having to do.

Our society today is so superficial & self-absorbed that people now invent reasons to call attention to themselves to make them feel way more important than they really are, which of course assumes they have any importance at all in this world, and 99.99% of them don’t beyond their own family or circle of friends.  They need this because their self-esteem isn’t necessarily low (though it usually is); it’s mainly because it’s not at the level they want it to be because they simply feel they should be looked upon as being important at all times, regardless of their true worth or contributions to society as a whole.

The latest stupid stunt to call attention yourself, and do so in a manner that makes it appear that you are actually NOT engaging in shameless self-promotion is (usually) called the Ice Bucket Challenge, which just goes to show you how stupid America is, as it always involves ice WATER, not just ice.  It should be called something that includes the words “water” and either “ice” or “cold”.  Simply pouring ice on you isn’t nearly as bad as pouring ice cold water over your head along with the ice.

One of the very few benefits at all that this activity brings to society is that most people, being ignorant of what goes on around them, will ask what ALS is.  Not that they can do much about it.  They will (hopefully) be contributing to the support groups that provide services for those so afflicted, but the funds to pay for research into finding a cure either aren’t enough (my research shows that at least over $100 million a year is going into this every year & there still is no cure — how much money does it really take to do research & what are these labs & groups & doctors who are getting the money charging for their services?), or the research is going slow-to-nowhere, as we are still no closer to finding a cure than we were 75 years ago when Lou Gehrig told us he had his own disease – read on), so dumping ice water on your head won’t help anybody find a cure, but it will temporarily help support groups to earn more donations than normal.

The next problem is that people are challenged to either 1) Donate to ALS (or some other charity — it’s not clear where the leap from the generic charity of your choice became definitely for ALS only), or 2) Dump ice water on yourself, video it & post it online.  So therefore, all these idiots out there dumping ice water on themselves are presumably those who DIDN’T DONATE TO THE CAUSE or DIDN’T DONATE THE SAME AMOUNT AS EVERYONE ELSE WHO DIDN’T DUMP ICE WATER ON THEMSELVES!!  THEY are the ones you’re supposed to be shaming rather than laughing it up with them when they do this in order to get attention to themselves, and if they want attention, it shouldn’t be positive attention and definitely not because they failed to donate or were trying to donate less than others.

I found out what ALS is as a young kid simply because I knew who Lou Gehrig was and why he died — it used to be called “Lou Gehrig’s Disease”.  There was also a 70’s Love Boat episode where a passenger was diagnosed with it by Doc even though all he seemingly had onboard were some cold compresses, sedatives and aspirin, and golf fans may be aware that Tom Watson’s longtime caddy, Bruce Edwards, had ALS & died from it at age 49, and baseball fans may know that Catfish Hunter also died from ALS.  How any adult in this age (even non-sports fans) can say they haven’t heard of ALS is not beyond my comprehension — it simply shows how ignorant & self-absorbed our society truly has become.  For you non-sports fans & those of you over the age of 15 who are surely expected to remember this, until 4 years ago, actor/comedian Jerry Lewis ran an annual Labor Day telethon for the MDA for 1966 to 2010, and as part of their public outreach, they also assisted and provided funds for people with one of the other 30+ neurodegenerative & motor-neuron diseases such as ALS.  Here’s a national telecast that focused at least a small part of their show every year to ALS for some 30+ years and there are people who STILL haven’t heard of ALS.  Ignorance in action.

Seeing this farce go onward in social circles is exactly why I don’t participate in the popular social media circles like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and anything else that’s social in nature.  It’s nothing more than a complete waste of time to invent reasons to draw attention to yourself, or whine about how somebody you know has died or is sick, or detail every little minutiae of your pathetic existence to the world, and anybody who would care about another person’s minutiae even if they’re family is beyond me.  Go back to work & also find something constructive to do in your spare time — like charity work.  I mean real charity work, not just dumping ice water on your head and calling it charity work.  Or start a blog complaining about society and why it’s so screwed up.

Have you heard about the 15-yr old girl in Ocala, FL whose parents allowed her to drive a race car?  Here’s the typical story of how anybody, no matter how smart or dumb they are, can be a parent, and what their thought processes are.

In her first time in a race car, she crashed on the 2nd lap & died.  Her family said it was her hobby, she loved it, and that it was a freak accident.

Losing control of a powerful race car that you obviously can’t control when you’ve never driven one & slamming into the wall isn’t a “freak accident” by any stretch of the definition.  I would say it was probably expected, and I’d call it a “freak accident” if it didn’t happen the 1st time.

Allowing a 15-yr old girl to get involved in a level of racing where something like this could happen, much less getting involved in any level of racing, was a bad move by her parents, which obviously was made either out of ignorance of the possible consequences, or sheer stupidity in blowing it off as though it couldn’t possibly happen to THEIR daughter.

Also, to have a hobby, it’s typically something you have to do more than once, so calling it her hobby at her 1st race was not accurate either.

This is the typical mindset of parents nowadays.  They think nothing tragic could ever happen to their kids and that the risks of everything are minimum and that unfortunate consequences happen to others, who are losers.  On the flip side, they overly worry about things that are of little to no risk.