The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for July 2007

Israel & The Palestinian Authority

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Dave at Israel At Level Ground links to an interesting opinion piece that was written by Khaled Abu Toameh the Palestinian Affairs correspondent for the Jerusalem Post.

  • Within a few months after Abbas came to power, Palestinians started realizing that he was not delivering. Instead of fighting corruption, he surrounded himself with the same Arafat cronies. There was a decrease of perhaps 30-40 percent in the level of corruption but an upsurge in internal violence.
  • The January 2006 election that brought Hamas to power was mostly about: “Let’s punish these Fatah thieves.” Hamas was building schools and kindergartens and clinics, while the PLO was building a casino and villas for its leaders. I believe some 30-35 percent of the Palestinians who voted for Hamas did so as a vote of protest because they were unhappy with the way the Palestinian Authority was running the show.
  • Let Mahmoud Abbas and the PLO and Fatah start rebuilding their institutions, reform themselves, get rid of the corruption, and come up with a new list of candidates. Then run in another free and democratic election and offer the Palestinians a better alternative to Hamas.
  • The Palestinians do not need more guns and military training. If the U.S. has $86 million and wants to help the Palestinians, then help them build civil institutions, help them build freedom, educate them about good things. What’s the point in taking 200 Presidential Guards to Jericho to train them? Who are they going to fight at the end of the day? In Gaza they were defeated.
  • What should Israel do at this stage? Nothing. There is no one to deal with on a serious basis on the Palestinian side. Abbas doesn’t even have control over his own Fatah militias. Israel should just sit and wait. Don’t repeat the mistake of unilateralism, when Israel left Gaza to Hamas and Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda-affiliated groups.
  • It is ironic that the West is supporting the guys who are suppressing the moderates and people who want democracy. The West is actually undermining its own goals.

Crocs

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I think that I am going to give in and get a pair of Crocs for myself. I keep hearing/reading stories about how comfortable they are and that has my attention.

Fads don’t interest me and I don’t care much about style, but comfort is of major interest. And comfort seems to be the one thing that is always associated with these shoes.

Do any of you own Crocs, and if so, what do you think about them?

Barry Bonds

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In a past life I had a dream of becoming a sports writer. In part it was due to the influence of Jim Murray. The man could take words and make them sing and dance in such a beautiful way. I am not half the writer he was, not even close to one quarter. But the nice thing about writing is that is one of those skills that can improve with age and with practice.

The same is not necessarily true of hitting a 90 MPH fastball. There comes a point in time in which your skills begin to diminish and you are no longer able to do what you once did. Most baseball players begin to see this change some time in their mid to late thirties. Rarely do you see their skills begin to improve.

Barry Bonds seems to be the exception to the rule.

As a fan of the game I’d like to celebrate this. I’d like to look at Barry with a mix of awe and envy and wish that I could do what he does. The problem is that I cannot.

I cannot because he plays for the hated Giants and as a Dodger fan that is not something you do. Ask a Sox fan if he’d like to get a Bucky Dent jersey and see how he responds and you’ll get a sense of what it means. As an aside most Sox fans I know never speak of Dent without using the middle name they gave him, Bucky F*ing Dent.

But it is more than team loyalty that prevents me from trying to appreciate Bonds. By all accounts he is a surly and often obnoxious man that walks around like he has a chip on his shoulder. The persona he portrays to the public is not one of affection.

Still, that is only part of the equation. When I add in another factor it becomes even tougher to really get behind him.

Steroids.

And the truth is that part of me feels badly about that because I don’t see it as a black and white issue. Bonds played during a time that can be called the steroid era. It is a given that the explosion in home runs we witnessed is not just due to bigger players, league expansion or other soft ball explanations.

Bonds has never admitted to taking steroids and to the best of my knowledge no one has proven that he has taken them either. In theory one should be innocent until proven guilty, but that doesn’t apply everywhere.

And here is what we know. Major League Baseball hasn’t embraced him. He is on the verge of breaking one of the greatest records in the game and people don’t want to talk about it. Hank Aaron refuses to attend or acknowledge it and until recently the commissioner has refused to discuss whether he would try to be in attendance when Bonds breaks the record.

The lack of support from within the MLB bothers me. I think that it speaks volumes about this. It is just disappointing to see Bonds do this. I had always kind of hoped that Junior would do it.
I suppose that it is still possible that he might, but that seems like a bit of a stretch now.

The one thing I know for certain is that records are made to be broken. Bonds will have his time in the limelight. Regardless of whether he took steroids or not he is one of the great players of the game, I’ll grant him that. But sooner or later someone like A-Rod will come along and take the record away.

I just hope that whoever does it has more to show for themselves than Bonds.

Reader Feedback- I Don’t Care Edition

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It is time to dig out the old mailbag and share some of the feedback that I have received.

Dear Jack,

You shouldn’t write posts about grammatical mistaiks because you make plenty of your own….

Regards,

Sheri
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Dear Sheri,

I am still wondering if your mistaik was intentional or not.

Thanks,

Jack
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Dear Jack,

You used to provide more original material. What happened?

See you,

Trina
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Dear Trina,

It is probably on the new blog.

Thanks,

Jack
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Dear Jack,

I really don’t care what music you listened to Saturday night.

Singingly yours,

John,
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Dear John,

You sound just like a rabbi I know, but funnier. Right now I am listening to an ’80s CD. In particular the song is Talk Talk by the band Talk Talk.

Rocking out,

Jack

Thoughts About Cell Phones

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Just some random thoughts about cellphones.

Is there a proper etiquette for handling a dropped call? That is, if you are having a conversation with someone that is abruptly ended by a dropped call what are you supposed to do?

Do you immediately try and call them back or do you wait for them to call you back. Here is a slight variation on that. You’re in the middle of a call when someone beeps in for the person you are speaking with. They click over and while you are waiting for them to return the call is dropped.

What do you do then?

You have probably noticed that some people have a habit of yelling into their cellphones. As you can imagine I have as much interest in their conversation as they do in mine. Sometimes I’ll react to their actions by singing quite loudly.

Other times I may respond by asking them if they still beat their wife or how do the neighbors feel about living next to a sex offender. I know, it is juvenile behavior and not very nice but sometimes …

Actually if I could I’d respond the way that these musicians did when someone began speaking during their concert.