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I was really pretty shocked to have read that Henry Louis Gates Jr., professor extraordinaire of long standing at the venerable institution Hahr-Vahrd, was arrested two days ago.
But I wasn’t shocked to have read the context and circumstances of his arrest. Sure, there’s the easy explanation of racism in America (you really will never convince me a white professor would have been treated the same way), but then there’s the even easier explanation that no one seems to be talking about and it is this: the arresting “officer” in the affair is yet another example of a douchebag cop with a Napoleon Complex.
Sure, I have no doubt the cop behaved in a racist manner, but that is an action coupled with a personality trait and that trait being that the he is yet another douchebag cop with a Napoleon Complex.
A professor here at school is a retired cop and relayed to me the different types of people who become police officers:
1. The Fitness Nut: the guy or gal who somehow relives their high school athletic glory days by being a cop. They are all about how they look in the uniform. Being a good or bad cop is strictly a matter of happenstance.
2. The Gun Nut: I think this speaks for itself. The Gun Nut, who is almost always male, is also closely related to the Penis Insecurity Nut.
3. The Righteous Nut: this person has an overwhelming sense of self-importance and truly thinks that the worse they behave towards the general public, the better cop they are.
4. The Drunk Cop: who is actually a pretty okay person who took the job as a way of redemption but at the same time, does not know how to handle the stress better.
Now according to Professor Cop, a police officer can actually be a combination of these varying traits but one is always more dominant than the other. Like the thing about Elvis and the Beatles: you can like both, but you always like one more than the other.
With regards to incident involving Professor Gates, my money is on Cop #3. Then again, I’m not at all familiar with the inner workings of cop-hood and the public perception I have garnered of them over the years is really just boils down to the simplicity of the douchebag cop with the Napoleon Complex scenario.
Sailor Man arrives in town in exactly three hours and while I am thrilled he is coming home, this harkens the cessation of secret single behavior for the time being.
No more moody Easter European piano music at all hours on the stereo. Trashy books will be hidden on the shelf. Seriously, there’s just no explaining to him how I got sucked into this “Twilight” book saga. Dinner time will mean actual dinner again instead of my nightly fare of peanut butter and crackers with a glass of wine. And watching TV and movies online will be limited to just Sunday mornings.
About the only thing I don’t change that irritates Sailor is my tendency to read three books at the same time. Drives him mad, I know, but there’s simply no other way for me. The one thing I don’t compromise on.
And I’m not complaining and this isn’t a “forbidden” type thing, it’s just part of the general compromises one makes when one becomes a “pair”.
Likewise, Sailor has made the same sacrifices. No singing in the house. I love him, but the boy sings off key. No computer games until all hours of the night. No leaving clothes all over the damn place. And a slew of certain boat behavior I’m sure he shelves for the sake of this marriage.
But like the change of the seasons, Sailor will be back on boat at some point, and all those hidden quirks will come raging to the forefront.
I prefer now to simply think of them as hibernating for the winter.
So finals are over and I’m sitting here a little numb. Crazy amounts of information is still pin-balling around inside my noggin. I’m now in a place where I find myself mentally performing the post-mortem of the term.
The strange thing for most adult students I know is that we all tend to go overboard in the amount of work we put towards school. And at the end of every term, we all promise ourselves not to be so crazy about things next time. Not to take it all so damn seriously.
Yeah, right. Even I don’t believe that one.
Regardless, the brain will calm down. Eventually. A healthy pour (or two) of Red Breast 12 year whiskey that fantastic human being gave me to celebrate the end of term will certainly rectify that situation. As will sleeping in, reading a trashy book that is NOT about Azerbaijan or anything relative to the Caucasus region, seeing some films at the dollar show, and waiting, patiently, for Sailor Man to come home next week.
The dog is getting a bath, the house is getting a good scrubbing, laundry will be done, and grocery shopping will commence. In a word, life will go back to relative normal.
And it all starts right now as I file all my papers from the term and sit and stare at the wall for awhile.
Hell, yeah.
So I voted this morning. The lines were non existent, the parking was ample, plenty of people were on hand, but yet it still managed to take more time than it should have.
The problems begin with the location. I voted at Trinity Lutheran Church on 38th Street, which just felt wrong. Plain wrong. But aside from issues regarding the separation of Church and State, there were no signs – anywhere – telling you that this was the place, this is where you enter, or this is the room to where you go to vote.
There was ample room for the bake sale the church decided to have, but you could not turn around in the room where the actual voting takes place. The ladies running the show (and don’t get me wrong here, I have the highest respect for poll workers) where at best unorganized and discombobulated.
No matter. I voted. Made my voice heard. And then got the hell out of there.
With regards to the after work voters though, I can see this process getting long and ugly.
Sailor has a Work Spouse. And I’m glad for it. I don’t speak “boat” very well and often glaze over when Sailor, for the umpteenth time, talks about boat things I clearly do not understand. Work Spouse speaks this bizarre jargon and fills a void. It’s actually pretty fun to watch when they get together and go all “tallship” on each other. They are like evil twin siblings. They amuse me.
I have a type of work spouse only only we’re more like Androgynous Life-Partners. Where Sailor’s spouse share the thing of boats, my Work Spouse and I share the love of all things sick, twisted, and animated. And World War II. And drinking. And blowing things up. And making fun of the world at large….
Anyhoo-I am visiting Sailor this weekend and his Work Spouse is coming with me. There’s boat festival in a town we used to live in and frankly, this spouse (not the work one) needs to get laid. And Work Spouse is travelling with me for the unrelated purpose of a potential job opportunity down there.
But we’re going to be in a car together for eight hours and that will be strange. She is also going to be in the next cabin on the boat (yeah, I’m roughing it on the boat) and that just feels weird. Like “Little Darlings” summer camp weird. Sailor and my relationship with Work Spouse are kept pretty separate for no other reason than she is in town when Sailor is not. So this group thing will be unusual.
The problem, however, really is that Sailor is failing to recognize my job function by attending this event. As Real Life Spouse, my job is to look good and shag him stupid. Neither of which can be achieved by staying on a boat that has no electrical outlets near mirrors and when boom-chicka-wow-wow can be heard through flimsy walls four cabins down.
Still, I’m looking forward to the trip. Even the car ride. I like Work Spouse, even though we couldn’t be more different, and the ride down should be fun. I’m hoping to impose upon one our friends in the town to provide us with a place to stay, so we’ll see how that turns out. Meanwhile, I’m loading up the iPod for the trip.
I hope Work Spouse like Tom Jones…
If you want to explain the effed-up spectacle that is American Politics to a Viking, it is best explained via the Prose Edda, a collection of poetry about Norse Mythology.
In one particular understanding fo the world, there is the World Tree, Yggdrassil, which is inhabited by several beings: Veðrfölnir, a hawk residing at the top of the tree, and Níðhöggr, a dragon who resides at the bottom eating the roots.
The most interesting character residing there however, is Ratatosk, a red squirrel whose sole job is to ferry insults between Veðrfölnir and Níðhöggr and spread gossip.
So as we enter the final two weeks of this election season, and tempers flare hotter, and the attack ads get nastier, I think it is safe to assume that despite whomever one takes for being either the hawk or the dragon in this election, I think we can all agree who is Ratatosk.
I’ve never been more thankful to not have the TV hooked up.
One person’s news blip is another person’s major revelation.
Iceland, my dear, dear, Iceland has taken a loan from Russia in the amount of $5 billion dollars to help offset its potential banking collapse.
Dayamn.
Now let’s be clear that this was an option of last resort for Iceland since its Western Allies weren’t ponying up some dough. And this is a HUGE mistake on behalf of the US. I won’t comment for the UK or the rest of Europe, but if we are in fact, and I think we can all agree on this, on the verge of brand spanking new Cold War, then militarily speaking, we should have found a way to help out Iceland. Period.
A quick review of the facts for a moment, shall we? As I’ve been writing about for over a year now, Russia has launched illegal flights over the island nation, claimed sea floor for Russia dangerously close to Iceland’s territorial waters, and they’re building a scary new submarine not all that far from the most strategic point of the North Atlantic. And now Iceland has been put in the position of having to borrow money from them?
Where the hell is the US strategic policy on this one?
As I previously quoted, Iceland is like a revolver pointed at the back of the head of the person not holding the gun.
And since America stepped out of Keflavik air base in Iceland in 2006, they are wide open. I hope that when Iceland is need of as second loan, and it is looking as thought it will be necessary, I hope the US smartens up and finds a way to help them out.
Among all the other things we can’t afford right now, this is another item on the list.
And of course I speak as an American on the topic and what Iceland means to us strategically. Hildi, I hope you’re out there. I’d love your input on this.
I haven’t checked my 401k or any of my IRA’s lately. No need to really. They’re all in the hole to some degree or another, of that I can be absolutely sure.
I’ve also stopped listening to the news for a while. There’s only so much you can take with regards to the bail out, the election, and economy. We’re blind people wandering about a coat room looking for a green print jacket. And while the guy clearly has made a wad of dough in his time, I don’t believe Dr-Strangelove-Henry-Paulson is the guy to find the coat.
So here’s my thing as far as all this election hooey is concerned: I’m almost to the point where I don’t give a damn about the personal politics of either candidate. Just give me a freakin’ business manager already. Congress and the Senate can handle to other crap, just give me an executive who can keep a budget.
We’re in freefall here and I have learned to accept it. I don’t plan on retiring for thirty years or more so I’m going to hope that there’s time to build back the lost nest egg. I don’t believe in this bail out so I’m willing to see where the absence of one takes us in the market place. The worst thing that can happen is that we hit absolute bottom and I don’t know about you, but I’m fairly sure I can see it from here.
And the best part about hitting bottom is that you have no where to go but up.
Watching the Men’s 77kg class in weightlifting during the “snatch” portion of the event, I, like so many others, witnessed the horrific injury of Janos Baranyai from Hungary, when his elbow snapped backwards, dislocating, and bring the full brunt of the barbell above his head, down on top of him.
Yow! Damn! Ouch!
Being a weightlifter and having experienced those precarious moments when you’re not exactly sure what gravity has in store for you, I can feel for Janos, and know the absolute terror he must have experienced the millisecond he realized it was all about to go terribly wrong.
I’ve seen people crash weights on top of themselves before. It’s usually funny and terribly embarrassing for that person, but do it once and the fear of making an ass of yourself in public keeps you pretty honest to your limitations. Or at least it should. In theory.
Being a girl who does this sort thing, I most commonly encounter guys who are embarrassed at not lifting as much as I do, so they overstep their bounds and then suffer the further humiliation of me having to pull the weight off them.
I crashed my weight once. Once. Back when I was living on The Island and getting up at 5am everyday (I’m not a morning person), taking the 6:15am boat ashore (trying to wake up), walking to the gym by 6:35am (barely conscious now), and getting my workout in, there was that one morning where I just completely lost my focus. For no good reason either. Had the iPod on, classical music, nice and soothing, loaded up for my bench press. 160lbs for a warm-up. I could do it in my sleep. Hell, most mornings, I probably was doing it in my sleep. It certainly was the case that time.
But there I was, hands on the bar, un-racked, lowering the bar down to my chest, and then….well, nothing. I was stuck. I took my mind away from the process for a split second and there I was, stuck like a Mac Truck through a too-small an underpass. It took 4 people to lift the weight off me. And it wasn’t the fact that I had pinned myself that was so embarrassing, it was the fact that it was my warm-up weight. My warm-up weight that required 4 other people to lift. I learned my lesson. Focus on the task at hand.
I look at Baranyai in these pictures and I see the same thing. Anyone who does this knows that 9 time out of 10, when you fail the lift, it’s a mental reason over a physical. On TV, I saw him prepare his weight, get into position, perform his snatch and then lock out. But then, in a split second, you can see it on his face. When it is about to go wrong and he knows it. One millimeter too far and he lost all his mental control of the beast. There’s wasn’t anything his perfect body could for him at that point except let gravity take its course.
Luckily, he didn’t break anything. Just a dislocation that was put back in place. I hope he hasn’t suffered permanent damage, but only time will tell.
If anything, athletic perfection should be appreciated for the sheer amount of mental toughness it requires. Throwing a ball, running a lap, swimming a stroke, jumping a hurdle, diving off a board…those are the easy parts, train the body to do it often enough and muscle memory takes over.
But focus, strategy, concentration, not letting the stress get to you, controlling your doubts, fears and emotions, that’s the really hard part, the part that wins the game and gets you the medal. My hats off to all the Olympians because win or lose, it took so much for them to get there.
Since everyone seems to be trying to provoke me into commenting about Michelle Duggars, again, by emailing me the latest news on how this woman is pregnant, again, I will sum up my feelings as such and then this is it:
1. I think Michelle Duggars has a compulsive illness and continues to have children the way some old people collect cats, by the dozens. She very clearly needs psychiatric help.
2. And seriously, she has to be running out of “J” names by now.
