WINNERS AND LOSERS

I had previously mentioned that I had been watching the Little League World Series. It has been very enjoyable. As of today it is over for another year and the winner is Hawaii. This essay is not about Hawaii however. It is instead my observations of the entire event.

As you watch these youngsters on the field and at bat it doesn’t take much imagination to see big league ball players. They emulate all of the mannerisms you would see in their adult counter parts. They scratch and spit just like the big guys. Their uniforms betray their young years. Some of the plays I have seen on defense would be the envy of any big league team. I have seen home runs, sacrifice bunts, lay out catches of impossible line drives, and double plays. Sometimes I had to blink and remember that I was watching twelve and thirteen year olds. The pitchers were throwing curve balls as well as fast balls. Many also had change-ups in their arsenal. What’s more, the kids could hit them.

I tried, as I watched, to recall when I was twelve or thirteen. It is hard to imagine that I had this kind of maturity or prowess. I might have still been trying to tie my own shoes.

Little League is for a certainty a marvelous way to bring kids together for a team sport. It teaches team concepts. Everybody has a job and success is dependent on everybody doing their job well. Little League teaches respect for rules, authority, and the opposition. It teaches sportsmanship.

Little League also teaches how to win but more importantly, it teaches how to lose. Remember the old Wide World of Sports slogan “The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat”? I saw both at these games. As a father and a grandfather I must admit I had a difficult time watching young kids crying their eyes out when their bone-headed play or pitch caused their team to lose. Such is the agony of defeat.

I am sure you are aware that there is within this country a group of people who don’t believe in competitive sports for youngsters. They don’t believe in keeping score or having winners and losers. They think that these kids would suffer irreparable harm to their psyches if they didn’t win every time.

This then is the issue of this essay. Childhood is training for life. Little League is a school for adulthood whether as a ball player or as an engineer. I have this information for the group who would deny these competitive lessons to youngsters, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. Sometimes you commit a bone headed error that loses the sale or the account. Life goes on. You may recall as a youngster when you made mistakes during a game and when your screw up cost your team the game. How did you handle that then? You probably survived the event and went on. That lesson may very well have been the spark that caused you to do better the next time.

I mentioned how it affected me watching kids cry at a loss. I wanted to cry with them. Then I remembered that some day those kids will remember not the loss, but the experience. They will remember their teammates. They will remember their coaches. They will remember the pizza they had after the game and how it all washed the tears away.

Life and a baseball game are full of uncertainties. We have no guarantees of success. What we have as Americans is opportunity. Opportunity to succeed and opportunity to fail. The lessons we learn early in life serve us as we continue to grow. The marvelous thing about life in our great free country is that we can define our own success.

Contrary to the line once uttered by Tom Hanks in a movie, there is sometimes crying in baseball.

Ron Scarbro August 25, 2008

YOUR CHEATING HEART.....WILL TELL ON YOU

I can remember when cheating was a shameful act. My earliest memories of my childhood included that admonition from home as well as from school and church. You just don’t cheat. What has happened? The reports that John Edwards had an affair have been filling the news. But, he replied, the affair occurred when his wife’s cancer was in remission, as if that made it more palatable. He joins a myriad of politicians and others whose arrogance causes them to believe that they don’t have to play by the same rules as everyone else. From Bill Clinton to Elliot Spitzer and who knows who else? Edwards has been reported to have said that he still has a political future and that this one little digression will not hurt his chances for national office. Wanna bet?

Have you been watching the Olympics? Have you heard about the Chinese gymnastic team of young girls? How old do you think they are? It has been reported that the Chinese government takes these little girls from the earliest ages and puts them into a military style of barracks and indoctrinates them into their sport. They don’t see their home or their parents. One little girl, when asked by a reporter if her parents had seen her perform, replied that she didn’t know. She hadn’t seen them. Winning medals is apparently so important to the Chinese communists that cheating is perfectly okay. The end justifies the means. I am sure the Chinese are not alone in their practices. I will not even discuss the judging by the Chinese officials except to say that it is pathetic.

I have also been watching the Little League World Series of late. Call me crazy but I find twelve and thirteen year olds with beards a little disconcerting. I suppose it is plausible that some are early to mature but I remain a bit skeptical.

Some professional athletes seem bent on self destruction with the use of performance enhancing drugs in violation of all rules. They believe it gives them an edge over the competition. Do they not realize that the unfair edge they think they get comes with a very high price? Just ask Lyle Alzedo. How about the pro wrestler who killed his family while ripped on drugs? How does their use of these enhancers affect the other members of their teams who play by the rules? This particular form of cheating seems to be somewhat accepted by the ownership of pro teams because the souped up athletes draw more fans to the games. Baseball fans love to see home runs. Football fans love to see the big hits. Team owners love to see huge box offices and big TV contracts. Any way you look at it, any way you try to justify it, it is still cheating.

With all the cheating going on, is it any wonder that students would cheat on their school work? They see the results of cheating and that the cheaters seem to win. Why not get a good grade? Why not go to the internet and download the test and the answers?

Well I have some thoughts for those out there who cheat. Would you like to have your surgeon graduate from school as a cheat? Would you like it if your attorney who is defending you in a big case is only there because he cheated to get his law degree?

If you would cheat to win a Little League game when would you not cheat? If you would cheat on your wife while she is suffering from cancer, when would you not cheat? If you would cheat in the Oval Office of the White House with a young impressionable intern, when would you not cheat? If, as a country, you would cheat to win gold medals, when would you not cheat? Finally if you would cheat to win an election, when would you not cheat?

I am reminded of the old country song that goes something like this. “Your cheatin’ heart will make you weep. You’ll cry and cry and try to sleep, but sleep won’t come, the whole night through. Your cheatin heart will tell on you.” Cheaters never prosper.

Ron Scarbro August 18, 2008

LAWYERS AND LEGAL STUFF

You’ve all heard some of the lawyer jokes, like “What do you call a bus load of lawyers going over a cliff? A good start.” Of course there are many more because lawyers are easy to make fun of. If you need one however, you cannot have a better friend. The minute he has the retainer in his hands, he is your advocate. You can be the vilest of the vile and he will stand by you through thick and thin.

This essay is however, a criticism of some recent antics I have witnessed by lawyers.

Just last week the trial of the driver of Bin Laden concluded in a military court. He was found guilty of many offenses and is to be sentenced soon. His lawyer went ballistic. He couldn’t believe that his client could be found guilty of anything. His lawyer is, by the way, a military officer. A law school professor also screamed to the press that such trials were going to put our country in a very poor light with the rest of the world. As a sidebar, this particular professor will soon be defending another one of the detainees at Gitmo. He must believe that he needs to try the case in the press and have world opinion with him before he gets to court. He seems to care very little if his comments and cries are picked up by our enemies and used as propaganda against us. Another thing to consider is that if wartime combatants are expected to be tried in American courts with all the rights of American citizens, many more of them will probably die on the battlefield.

The trial of the woman who ran a stop sign and hit a school bus killing four school children in southern Minnesota has also concluded. You may remember this case. I wrote about it previously as the woman is an illegal alien and had given a phony name at the time of the accident. She was cut out of the driver’s seat by the “jaws of life” and her foot was stuck under the gas pedal. Her lawyer made it clear to the press before trial that she wasn’t even driving the vehicle. He said it was instead her boyfriend who had since disappeared. The jury found her guilty of all twenty four counts and she still has to face federal charges. Her lawyer held a press conference crying that she was innocent. He criticized the trial, the jury, and anything else he could think of. He looked for all the world like an idiot.

So, what to make of these antics. I thought that lawyers were supposed to make sure their clients got a fair trial and that their rights were protected. I wasn’t aware of the fact that they were supposed to determine their guilt or innocence. I thought that was the job of the jury. Today’s lawyers seem to think that to be successful they must get their clients off. Anytime they don’t they see that as a failure. I have a bit of news for them. Sometimes their client is guilty and is deserving of the punishment they are dealt. Just because they are found guilty doesn’t necessarily mean that they received poor representation.

I think lawyers need to back up and remember what their job is. Their canons of ethics forbid their lying to clear their clients. That should extend to press conferences as well. Issuing misleading and critical statements are not a part of their job. They represent by protecting their client’s rights.

Here’s another bit of counsel for attorneys. If you don’t like being the butt of so many jokes, quit acting like a clown. Remember your ethics. Practice law, not propaganda.

Ron Scarbro August 11, 2008

FERAL YOUTHS

Sadly the events I will be discussing today are becoming all too common. In many of our major cities gangs of roving feral children are terrorizing the residents. I am not over-stating the problem when I refer to them as feral. They are for the most part young, often minorities, vicious, uncaring, and deadly. They are totally devoid of any human compassion.

Just this past week in St Paul, MN., a lady was walking in a public park. She happened to be a terminal breast cancer patient who had just completed her chemo therapy. She usually walked in the park after her treatments to settle down. She was confronted by a gang of these feral youths who, without saying a word, proceeded to beat her with bats. No reason. No robbery. Just beating a defenseless woman for kicks. She suffered two broken hands and many broken bones. At this point we do not know her prognosis. There have been no arrests as yet.

Unfortunately when and if arrests are made, these animals will be treated as deprived, misunderstood children and will no doubt be unleashed back on the community to terrorize again and again. Make no mistake, they are terrorists.

This is not exclusively a minority problem. Very recently two young girls from an upper middle class neighborhood in Lake Worth, FL. felt the need to rob a nine year old Girl Scout of her cookie money. It was $164.00. You can read this story from this site. http://www.wpbf.com/news/15194935/detail.html

You can also view the response of these girls by going to my daughter Heather’s blog and clicking on her video of the interview of the girls. http://lessonsforliving.blogspot.com/ dated Friday Aug 1^st, “Teens from good homes steal Girl Scout’s money”.

I was saddened and shocked by their reaction to being caught. There is no doubt in my mind that these young ladies will make the news again. They will probably become wards of the state and live on prison food for most if not all of their lives.

I am sure that we could present case after case of these kinds of stories. So why is it happening? Having been accused of simple mindedness, I offer a few thoughts.

First and foremost I believe these are prime examples of rotten parenting. I suspect that these children have been seen by their parents as interruptions of their otherwise selfish lives. I also suspect that in many cases the father is absent if he is even known. These parents are usually members of the “me” generation, and “me” doesn’t include anyone else especially a child with all the responsibility that entails.

Secondly the judicial system is failing these children miserably. In their zeal to show liberal leniency they delay and defer judgment and punishment. They prove time and again that not only does crime pay it also does not cost.

Schools have lost all authority in dealing with miscreants. Truant officers are things of the past. Dress codes and decency have been thrown out of the window. Students reach graduation without even the most basic education. After all we are told you cannot give a failing grade to a child for fear that you hurt his self image.

To all the so-called elite liberals who believe this is a societal problem I say possibly, but, the solution I believe is far simpler than they advocate. Spending more millions on their ridiculous fixes will continue to offer the same results. We just need to get tough. There must be real punishment for real crimes. Parents must be held to account for their delinquent offspring. If they don’t make sure their kids are in school, they should be liable. There should be a cost to the parents for the misdeeds of their minor children. Being able to procreate doesn’t make anyone a mother or a father. Today I am told that over seventy percent of black babies are born to unwed parents and most of them are teen-agers themselves. This is a recipe for disaster.

We have tried it the ways the liberals wanted and it has obviously failed. It is now time for a different approach. Swift and sure punishment for crimes and misdeeds. Tougher educational standards. Holding parents responsible for their offspring. Maybe even re-institution of the draft. It worked when I was a kid and it would probably work now. You screw up and you either go to jail or into the military. Trust me, the military would know how to handle these young thugs.

It is past time for some of these simple solutions.

Ron Scarbro August 4, 2008

THE NEW NORMAL?????

Where will it all end? When New York City passed an ordinance forbidding trans-fats usage in private restaurants owned by free private citizens I thought, oh well what else can you expect from a bunch of northeast liberals? The state of Minnesota has passed a law forbidding smoking in any public facility regardless of whether it is a private business or not. Again, just another bunch of lefties with no regard for the Constitution of The United States. I am sure that other states have also passed such laws. Of course there are the seat belt laws and the cycle helmet laws that pervade our culture. In Mississippi a lawmaker has proposed a law making it illegal to serve fatty foods like french fries and hamburgers to obese people. After all it is for their own good.

Most of these morons believe that the laws that they conjure up are for the good of the people. What they fail to understand is that Americans have the constitutional right to smoke tobacco, eat fatty foods, or ride in their cars unbelted if they so choose. It is none of the Legislature’s business. These are not the matters that government should be dealing with.

The left coast, not to be outdone, has just passed a law recently signed by the Governator, to outlaw the use of trans-fats in any restaurant in California. We are going to be protected from ourselves regardless of how many of our liberties we have to give up. That seems to be the mantra of these liberals who are growing in numbers. We the people cannot be trusted to take care of ourselves.

My question is simple. What is next? How much of my freedom am I going to have to give up before I say no. My life is my responsibility. My choices are mine. I don’t smoke or use tobacco nor would I even think about getting on a motorcycle, but that is my choice. I do not need nor would I seek permission from any so-called elected leader. By the same token if my neighbor chooses any of these vices for their own pleasure it is none of my business.

What is happening in the new normal? How is it possible that laws are being passed with no regard to the constitutionality of those laws. I am sure that 9/11 had something to do with it. We are now expected to submit to extensive, warrantless searches just to get on an airplane. But Ron, you scream, it’s for our own good. If we don’t do these things the bad guys will kill us all. People will die of lung cancer. People will die of obesity. People will get heart disease from trans-fats. What other choice do we have?

I have a few thoughts on that issue. My grandmother lived to one hundred and died at three hundred pounds. My father smoked most of his life and is in good shape now at ninety. He also lived the majority of his life as did his mother on bacon grease and gravy. Everything they ate was fried. Do you think they are genetic mutations? No, they just drew the right genetic straw. How many people have you heard of who exercise regularly, eat the right foods, look for all the world fit and trim and then fall down dead during that exercise. It happens.

Now for a few final thoughts. Freedom is messy. I love that expression because it is so true. Freedom is allowing people to make their own choices even if those choices are, in your opinion, wrong. By the way, your opinion has no more or less value than theirs. We pass laws for sure and we should as long as they are constitutional, but the problem is we are far less inclined to punish those who would violate the law. We must punish offenders and if necessary take them out of the gene pool forever. This is where we fall down and fail in our responsibility to the American people.

As a free American citizen all I want is accurate, unfiltered information with no agenda attached. I will make my own decisions as I am free to do as an American. The absolute last thing I want or need is the opinion of some elected representative/lawyer who may well be on the payroll of a number of outfits who are trying to sell me something. Quit trying to take care of me. I’ll do it myself. That is my normal.

Ron Scarbro July 28, 2008.

THE LEFT WING MEDIA

I have said before that I wouldn’t wrap my dead rotting fish in the New York Times for fear that the fish would be contaminated by the process. Never has that been more evident than the latest antic this rag has tried to perpetrate on the American people.

Senator Obama wrote and had published an essay as a letter to the editor a couple of weeks ago. In it he criticized Senator McCain and his plan for Iraq. When McCain wrote a rebuttal piece and sent it to the Times, it was rejected for publication. Their comment to the McCain campaign was that they would have to re-write the piece to be more in line with the thoughts of Obama and, as it turns out, The New York Times. This was the ruling of the moron who is the opinion page editor. It is clear the Times doesn’t want any opinion on their opinion page except the opinion of the Times. So much for a balanced reporting.

Also this recent past saw Obama finally make his long awaited trip to the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. Accompanying him are the anchors of the big three networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS. FOX was denied permission to go with this group of intrepid reporters. It doesn’t take a mental giant to figure out what is going on here. The big three are in the tank with Obama. This act only serves to further alienate at least fifty percent of the American public.

The network news programs are losing viewers at a rapid pace. This is certainly one of the major reasons. The New York Times has had to lay off a large number of staffers due to reduced ad revenue and lowered circulation. I understand that there is serious competition from the internet but the response of theses so called news agencies is to further entrench themselves with the left wing of the Democratic Party. As a salesman in my former life, I can tell you that the way to certain failure in selling your product is to alienate half of your potential market. We may well be witnessing the demise of network news and hopefully The New York Times.

While I am on the subject of the media, we recently watched as they dealt with the deaths of Tim Russert and Tony Snow. Personally I admired both of these reporters. Of course I didn’t always agree with them but I still admired them. Hell, I don’t agree with my wife all the time either. The point I wanted to make was to point out their response to the loss of these two men. To me, their response was shocking. These two news readers became more important than the news they were reporting on. This then points to another problem with the media. The anchors and the on air reporters become stars and take on a pseudo importance that mitigates their reportage. They become bigger that the news. It reminds me of Walter Cronkite who used to say “well that’s the way it was”. What he in fact was saying was that’s the way I wish it was, or that’s the way I want you to believe it was. He was saying that if I get to be a big enough star, you will believe that’s the way it was if that is what I tell you. What a sad commentary.

This brings me to my final point. It wears me out trying to watch network news programs because I have to spend too much energy trying to figure out which part, if any, is true. I long ago gave up trying to read the Times for the same reason. I can’t be the only person who just wants the agencies to report the news. I don’t want or need them to tell me what they think I should think. I will do that for myself. If all of the so-called big media disappeared overnight I would not be unhappy. Maybe it is time for these stars to go out and find a real job.

Ron Scarbro July 22, 2008

PROBLEMATIC NEWS

This week revealed some strange and at the same time problematic situations which we will soon have to deal with. This is a big world but it seems to be getting smaller with the twenty-four hour news cycles and the presence of news gatherers in every country on this earth. I will discuss a couple of situations which I believe may become a problem for us if we do not get a handle on them.

The first seems silly on its face, but a closer look identifies a dangerous situation. In merry old England a judge in his wisdom has decided that Sharia law is compatible with English law. What? Are you crazy? You may know that Sharia law is the governing law of fundamentalist Islam. While I recognize that England is not America, this ruling nevertheless has far reaching effects. I am not a Sharia scholar but I just know what I am told and what I see in the news.

In America a Pakistani living here just killed his twenty-five year old daughter. This was ostensibly a so-called honor killing. It seems the daughter, who had become somewhat Americanized, objected to the pre-arranged marriage her father had set up for her in Pakistan. Her punishment for this disobedience was of course death at the hands of her own father. This is apparently rather common in Pakistan and other areas of the world where Sharia law is practiced. He killed her by strangling her with his bare hands. Pretty nice, huh? He has since been arrested and is on trial for murder. So far we don’t accept Sharia law as our law. If he is found guilty he should be hung by his male reproductive parts until the buzzards pick his bones dry. That would be a true honor killing. Other so-called honor killings have happened in Canada and in South America. It is getting closer all the time.

The next problem I want to discuss has to do with a cab driver in Atlanta, Ga. He and his wife are green card carrying Pakistanis. They have two boys who were born here and are therefore American citizens. The father decided to send his children to Pakistan to a Madrassa school. He apparently believes, according to the purveyors of this news, that if his children memorize the Koran, he and his wife will be guaranteed a place in Heaven. Madrassa schools are notorious for indoctrinating students into fundamentalist Islam. They are taught that infidels, all those who are not Muslim, must be eliminated. They are also taught that the only law is Sharia law. Well it seems, again according to the purveyors of this news report, the boys wanted to be brought back home. They were homesick. A huge effort was begun with publicity and pressure on the Pakistani Government. At last the precious little future terrorists have been returned to America. I have a simple question. Why? Why do we want them back here? We will have to deal with them soon enough.

It also has been reported that there are hundreds of American kids in these Madrassa schools in Pakistan and in other parts of the world. They are dutifully learning at the feet of Taliban instructors. They will graduate with degrees in murder of women and children. They are learning the fine art of beating defenseless women for improper dress. They are learning the reward of honor killing and of becoming a martyr.

These American citizens with non-citizen parents will return here unfettered and prepared to carry out their missions.

Is this what we want? I suspect not. At best these children are not being educated in any way to prepare them for a life in this country. They do not learn even the most basic of our educational requirements. They will also have to be monitored for the rest of their lives because they will return as explosions ready to go off at any time. It is time we put a stop to this practice. If people from other parts of the world want to come and live here, they had better be prepared to live as Americans. That includes preparing their children for life in a free country. There already are enough of these young terrorists in training for us to have to deal with without creating ones with American citizenship.

Ron Scarbro July 14, 2008