I've said repeatedly....

Note: I have tried to keep politics out of this blog but this isn't a political post so much as a post about veracity and personal integrity.

Impressionists, cartoonists, and even historians rely heavily on identifying and amplifying the physical and verbal idiosyncrasies of public figures, especially presidents.

Their constant presence in the media means that their pet phrases and mannerisms become familiar to all (even against our will) as the inevitable caricatures demonstrate.

There was Reagan's "Well..." and a shrug of the shoulders, GHWB41's slow-motion karate chops on the top of the lectern, Clinton's raised index finger, etc.

Obama is a special case, however, as he rarely has anything to say of substance (or truth, if you like) beyond the verbal window dressing.

His "Let me be clear..." has already passed into legend for its annoying frequency of use and its contradictory nature - for what he says after rarely contains one iota of clarity.

Less frequent - but more insidious - is Obama's reliance on the pet phrase "I've said repeatedly." He occasionally changes it to "I've said in the past" or "I've said all along" but it is his go-to phrase especially in one-on-one interviews.

It sounds harmless enough until you realize several things:

1) He will claim to have said something in the past when no evidence of same can be found.

2) He believes that use of this phrase somehow confers a continuity of purpose, philosophy, policy or action when we know full well this is not the case.

3) He believes that an inherently wrongheaded idea or plan somehow gains validity if it exists for an extended period of time.

4) He uses it as a sort of after-the-fact clairvoyance. When the market dips, when home prices fall, when jobs are lost, Obama will claim to have "said repeatedly" that action X, Y or Z should have been taken. Of course, he never gets round to identifying or taking that action BEFORE negative consequences occur.

At the risk of drawing further attention to the more maddening aspects of this intellectual lightweight, I have reached the breaking point with this particular verbal trip hammer of his. It is his umbrella, his shield, his front porch. Count (if you can stand it) the frequency and quantity of "I've said repeatedly." This man cannot stand to be in the wrong. And if he is in the wrong (that is to say, most days), he will claim to have been in the right, safe in the knowledge that nobody within a 100-mile radius of the White House has the nerve nor the initiative to challenge him on the most rudimentary of facts.

Steelers/Jets AFC prediction/analysis

Hero: BR7

Goat: Roger Goodell, the media and the officials. The media have devoted 75% of airtime to 25% of the AFC/NFC finalists i.e. the New York Jets. Steeler fans may welcome the lack of intrusions but what about the Bears & Packers who are the NFL's two oldest franchises both with incredible histories and a storied border rivalry all of it played in mostly brutal weather? All we're getting from reporters in Chicago are a load of by-the-numbers pregame updates. Meanwhile, extended segments on the Life And Times Of Rex Ryan, Mark Sanchez And The Rest Of God's Chosen People Including The Fans Most Of Whom Are Wearing Chrebet #80 Jerseys are on heavy rotation.

Goodell and the NFL earn goat horns for putting a game in the CENTRAL time zone ahead of a game played in the EASTERN time zone. Who cares if it's a New York team? It's preposterous to believe that all four sets of fans won't be watching regardless of kickoff time, especially when it's 8 ****ing degrees out across the northern US and everyone is indoors already. Further proof that Manhattanites view the large landmass beyond the bridges and tunnels as a foreign land full of rubes who deserve what they get and are lucky to get it.

There's no need to wait until gametime to decry officials' bias. Think they don't know the NFL along with Jets TV, er, ESPN, is absolutely dying to get the Jets to the Super Bowl?

Let's all take a moment to remember Tim Donaghy. Sleazy crooked basketball official who was in thrall to the bookies, they said. The NBA and its media partners did their level best to discredit and destroy him but they could do nothing about his claims that the league demanded and engineered desired outcomes of certain games and playoff series - probably because the claims were true! David Stern lost his permanent smirk for a few weeks while he worked feverishly to stifle coverage of that subject. Several years on NBA fans (hands up, both of you) are supposed to believe that, gee whiz, the Finals matchup is just a one of those flukes (again)!

The NFL does its outcome-tilting with a bit more style due to the larger audience involved but there are a host of issues such as advertising (read: big markets come first) that are higher on the list than objectivity. The replay system, ostensibly designed to aid officials and 'get the call right' has become another tool for the league office to influence results from afar while providing cover for the on-field officials since all parties can blame an inanimate object - deus ex machina. NFL referees don't make calls; they make speeches. But if the rulebook - lovingly cared for and modified by the competition committee (themselves inherently biased since they attempt to alter the rules to favor their own franchises) - is unambiguous why the need for the Hamlet soliloquy? It's because trotting out a load of codswallop enables the 'neutral' NFL to make a show of claiming the referee 'interpreted the rule correctly/incorrectly' - all after the fact of course and if your team took it in the shorts better luck next year. Shouldn't they all get together BEFORE the season to agree on interpretation of rules?

The point is: if there is a close call it will favor the Jets. The Steelers should be prepared for it and brush aside any feelings of surprise, anger, injustice, etc. In fact, they should assume that they are down 7-0 at the beginning of the game and make no less than a 14-point margin their target in order to mitigate the tinge of green that will be visible on the black and white striped officiating crew.


Outcome: 23-17 Steelers. The only problem with advancing so far in the playoffs is that Bruce Arians looks at himself in the mirror and convinces himself (again) that the team is winning due to, not in spite of, his trickery and guile. Like Robert Stack in 'Airplane!' who orders the runway lights turned off because 'that's just what they'll be expecting,' Arians will serve up a contrarian game plan that uses the most talented players as decoys and ignores high-percentage plays regardless of down and distance. Everyone is obsessed with the matchups between the Steeler starting WRs and the Jets DBs but that will likely be a stalemate. Loads of passes underneath to the sure-handed Heath Miller seem to make eminent good sense but Miller will find himself ignored again. Arians will pass even when the defense is ripe to give up running yards simply because he views it as a contest of oneupmanship with Rex Ryan. Let us not forget that last week's offensive game-changer came about because BR7 vetoed Arians' original playcall.

The Arians/Tomlin axis will settle for field goals and make the game closer than it should be - a regrettable Pittsburgh 'tradition' since Chuck Noll was in charge and certainly continuing during the Cowher era. The Jets will get a TD from an INT, PR or KOR which will give them a huge emotional lift in addition to the free 7 points. LeBeau will make extensive use of the nickel as he attempts to prevent Braylon Edwards et al from running streak patterns all day while relying on a 3-man rush and his trusty LBs.

Intangibles: the Jets' reaction to finally vanquishing their division mate Patriots was somewhat over-the-top and one is reminded of the Arizona Cardinals' giddy reaction to winning the NFC title game especially in contrast to that of the Steelers who, after winning the AFC, symbolically shrugged their shoulders on the way to packing their bags for the real prize. Perhaps only Barack Obama has enjoyed better PR from the East Coast press than Mark Sanchez but he is still a 2nd year QB and facing a defensive coordinator with, oh, only 50 years' more experience in the game. Let's hope the virus known as false confidence infects both Sanchez and his offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer.

The TSA are not 'serving with honor.'

To the TSA worker quoted in this Techdirt article:

If something doesn’t change in the next two weeks I don’t know how much longer I can withstand this taunting. I go home and I cry. I am serving my country, I should not have to go home and cry after a day of honorably serving my country.

Er, no. People in the ARMED FORCES are serving their country. At a stretch you could say that FBI, CIA and certain other groups are serving also. You simply took a job with the federal government with an eye on the inflated pay for menial work, ridiculously extravagant benefits and retirement, and where being fired is virtually unheard of despite the incompetence and sloth on display. You're no different from a GSA slob mowing grass somewhere.

There is no honor in what you are doing. You have been brainwashed along with the rest of your TSA brethren. Forget all the PowerPoints, videos and paperwork that DHS/TSA handed you when you signed up. Snap out of your personal Stanford Prison Experiment and try to remember that these are your fellow citizens and beyond that they are human beings with rights, personal space and dignity which you are violating under the false pretense of providing security.

The passengers are REASONABLE persons reacting to UNREASONABLE searches and INEXCUSABLE transgressions against their person and their rights guaranteed under the Constitution. Stop pretending to be the injured party and if you really want to quit then do it now. And take as many of your colleagues with you as you can manage.

On 'underage' drinking

The most effective way to combat underage drinking is to lower the drinking age to 18 (or possibly 19) again.

Simple? Silly? Self-evident? Perhaps. But it will work.

All of the bluster about alcohol (binge drinking etc.) ignores one fact: for 3/4 of an undergraduate population alcohol is forbidden fruit due to the 21 age restriction. Yes some bars will allow 18-and-up in and we all know that (wink wink) these 18+ customers MIGHT have a tipple or two.'

But prohibition and an arbitrary age limit simply increase demand. In the case of college students the demand and the prohibition set up a challenge, a game to be won at all costs. Consumption of alcohol in moderation is, or was, a rite of passage into adulthood. Social drinking is called that for a reason. When alcohol becomes contraband then access to that contraband can become an obsession. When the object of the obsession is obtained the next logical (?) step is to go absolutely hog-wild. Overconsumption becomes the norm because in the back of the mind of every underage drinker is "when and where will I have access to alcohol again?"

The 21 drinking age has failed on two fronts: it has failed to prevent or even reduce consumption; indeed, it has increased it in many cases. Worse, it has created hundreds if not thousands of unsupervised speakeasies in the form of dorm rooms, apartments, off-campus houses, etc. where social drinking i.e. a public display of being able to consume and still function as a rational human being is nowhere to be found. Instead, interaction is limited to drinking-oriented games (e.g. beer pong) and constant exhortations to consume stupor-inducing quantities of alcohol (beer bongs, shots, etc.).

In sum, the 21 drinking age is an overreach that stands the process of socialization on its head and forces students who choose to drink into a state of arrested development. They remain children but they are children with easy access to oceans of beer and spirits rather than young adults who frequent licensed venues in order to drink, yes, but also to (hopefully) continue the process of maturation via interaction.

Requiem for a friend

A friend died. A friend I haven't seen in months and who might not even consider me a friend since he treated so many like friends upon meeting them. But maybe that's why he had so many friends...real friends.

This poor bloke was born with a variety of congenital heart defects and suffered through surgeries and frequent trips to specialists and out-of-town clinics. It's a horrible cliche to employ but he dealt with it a hundred times better than I ever would have. His poor mother and father employed gallows humor by the truckload but obviously they worried...but not enough to exempt him from the family squabbles that served as live entertainment for me and other patrons of their restaurant/bar business.

At one point the friend's heart was reported to be operating only at 10% of capacity. He was put at the tail end of the transplant priority list if he was listed at all due to a variety of other factors.

One night he was working like mad behind the bar and turned literally white as he fought for breath and sweated profusely. It scared me almost as much as it must have scared him.

I'm ashamed that so much time passed since I last was able to see him in person and I'm gutted that I will never have a pint and a chat with him. Even more distraught for his family, of course - two brothers and a mother and a father who must perform grim duties no parent should ever have to face.

I don't believe in ghosts but I do believe that hearing about someone's death causes us to think intensely about that person...where we saw them last...what we talked about or did together. This concentration, I believe, causes us to 'see' the departed whenever we go to a certain place, hear a certain song, or engage in certain activities.

Farewell, Matt. I won't forget you and while I'm on this earth I will no doubt 'see' you quite often, such is your positive and lasting impact on me.

British Virgin Islands: Service With A Shrug

A true story

The scene: Road Town, British Virgin Islands (BVI)

The time: present day, early afternoon

The location: The Batcave/Spaghetti Junction - a bar/restaurant catering (?) to the boating/cruising/tourist crowd.

Actual facts and conversations:

2 PM
Myself: "I would like a Carib lager."

Waitress: "We only have the regular." (note: Carib Lager IS 'regular'!)

2:05 PM
Myself: "I would like the chicken fajitas."

2:30 PM
Food arrives. It is a chicken (?) kebab on a bed of rice. No fajitas visible. No iron skillet, no tortillas, no sizzling vegatables, etc.

Myself: "I'm sorry but I don't think this is what I ordered."

Food taken away without comment.

2:35 PM
Waitress: "I didn't hear you. I didn't know you wanted the fajitas. Anyway we are out of chicken."

Myself: "OK - how about shrimp fajitas then?"

2:55 PM
Waitress: "You can't have fajitas because we are out."

Myself: "But didn't the person sitting at the next table have fajitas (iron skillet, etc.)?"

Waitress: "Yes."

Myself: "Was that the last batch or something?"

Waitress: "(Latching onto an excuse) yes that was the last batch!"

Myself: "Can I order something else please?"

Waitress: "No because it's 3 PM and the kitchen is closed."

You rang?

We all go to Wal-Mart even if some of us don't admit it.

Have you ever loaded a basket or a cart up with purchases only to see 24 checkout lanes - with a grand total of 3 of them open? Have you ever waited for an eternity at the returns counter while the clerks play Sherlock Holmes, investigating each item and each person in depth?

Whether you love or hate Wal-Mart, here is the quickest way to get personalized attention from the top dog store manager: take a video camera. I watched two girls shooting a student project in front of a Wal-Mart (they were simply using it as a backdrop). In 20 seconds or less the name-badged manager was fairly sprinting out to the front of the store to challenge the girls and ask how they dared to use his precious front wall as a backdrop.

At that point they had mostly finished their shoot but it's obvious that the fear of God has been drummed into Wal-Mart managers where PR is concerned. Yes it's private property and yes they have a right to rules and enforcement but I did find it ironic that such an immediate response could be elicited from such an innocuous stimulus.