Solicitation Cards

The other day, as I witnessed yet another slew of solicitors handing out miniature bibles to passersby, and as I hurriedly put on my headphones and ran past hoping to avoid being accosted, I got a brilliant idea. I'm going to make some cards, and on them, they will say:

"I come to this school to learn. I do not come here to be solicited for someone else's political or religious views."

Now, in the future, if I am accosted by some political group that by golly thinks giving me a piece of paper will compel me to action, or some religious group that thinks that tiny green bible is going to save my soul, I can take it, smile, and give them a card of my own. I'm a hardass on this type of issue but it's with good reason. My time is valuable to me, and so is my intelligence. And my intelligence is insulted, and my time wasted when I am solicited for a cause on campus. If there's a cause out there I feel strongly enough about to take action then I'll do so in advance. And please, don't get me started on religion. Suffice to say, don't even think about trying to 'rap' with me about Jesus, or give me the 411 on Allah. Stow it. I believe what I believe about higher powers/creation/etc. and the fact that you (the solicitor) would think I am gullible enough to be swayed by a 5 minute spiel on the merits of whatever organized religion you support, is indeed an insult to my intelligence.

"There's nothing wrong with having a belief. I just think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea...a belief, well that's harder."

-Rufus the 13th Apostle

I heard recently that David Lee Roth got into an altercation with Zakk Wylde at a soundcheck a couple weeks ago and was getting in his face, threatening him, and basically being an ass. Then I thought...he has more balls than brains because as much as I love both of them, Zakk would absolutely pulverize DLR if they ever got in a fistfight. He's got some arms on him, man.

So then I got to thinking...there are plenty of music star fights I'd pay to see.

Don Henley vs. The rest of the eagles in a multi-way brawl

Rick James vs. MC Hammer (Can't happen now unfortunately)

(I'd have to go with Hammer based on youth, and less cocaine usage more than likely)

The lead singer of REM vs. George Michael

(Don't think I need to explain that one too much...I think it'd be entertaining)

And there are tons more. For what it's worth they are legitimately considering having Tommy Lee fight Kid Rock in a boxing match on the undercard of the Mayweather/Hatton welterweight title fight in December. God, that'd be great. Tommy Lee's got the reach advantage but honestly I think Kid Rock would kill him.

Chuck, Shogun

Chuck...how could you lose; are you getting mentally deficient in your old age? You stood and traded when you were getting the worst of the exchanges. You hardly checked any leg kicks. You thought you were coasting to an easy decision. You deserved to lose. You could have won but Keith wanted it more and he TOOK the win.

Shogun. Why did you underestimate Forrest...why didn't you train hard? EVERYONE has a shot to beat you in MMA, not just the top guys. Forrest took it seriously, you didn't. You got CTFO. I hope you're happy, you just got choked out by a guy with sub par Jiu Jitsu who couldn't even finish Stephan Bonnar and got KTFO by Jardine. Welcome to the cage, pal. You let me and all your fans down.

Politics

While doing a little looking at the editorials page today in the daily (which I never do but I thought I would in order to get some info for my letter to the editor assignment), I saw an opinion piece about how it should be no surprise that college professors push a liberal agenda in the classroom. Call me a wet blanket but I was under the impression that unless your political ideas are relevant to teaching me the class, you ought to just stick to the basics there, professor.

Don't get me wrong, politics have their place in college classrooms. Political science, sociology, these are classes where a political discussion, including the professor's views, are not out of place. But please, do not interrupt your lecture on cellular biology to go on some kind of tangent about the current presidential administration to get some laughs and comraderie out of those who share your views among the students. I have a philosophy about going to college, and the bulk of it consists of my daily doctrine: go to class, sit down, learn, take the test, and get out. I didn't come to class to hear your opinions on politics. Quite frankly I don't give a damn what they are anyway. I came to learn, and you came to teach. That's what I am paying exorbitant sums for anyway, right? To pay your salary and to get a quality education. I missed the part of my billing statement where it said "political diatribe fee."

Perhaps the most galling of these offenses in my mind is when the professor explicitly states on the first day of class "my opinions are not going to be aired in this class." What a load of shit that is...first of all, most humans love to air their opinions and putting that in check is next to impossible to do. I consider myself pretty reserved in that regard and I still do it once in a while. Secondly, if you ARE going to be so committed to impartiality, then you have to make a conscious effort to not be a hypocrite. The moment you say your political stance on an issue, you've already violated your personal doctrine. C'mon...teach me the material and don't make me lose respect for you. It's one of my least favorite things about attending college.

Remember when the bad guys actually died in cartoons?

I got to thinking about this the other day: throughout my entire lifetime, all the cartoons I have watched that were produced for my generation contained no villain deaths. Back in the day, cartoons like Johnny Quest featured the bad guys snuffing it in almost every episode (save the ones where Dr. Zin was involved). Nowadays, and in my childhood, the enemies hide behind legions of henchmen who are conveniently either robots or some other construct that allows the protagonist to kill them without actually 'killing' anything. Then, in the final confrontation, the villain escapes, though battered. So consider this then: for every superhero/hero, we have an army of masterminds out there all bent on revenge who have not died, but simply gone into hiding. That is a completely unbelievable concept as far as I'm concerned. For example, let's say Spiderman somehow saves the city from Mysterio once again, but of course, he escapes. Now Spiderman has to worry about him coming back again, and again and again. Which is great for the people actually writing the cartoons because they have a ton of 'go to guys' to use as villains without inventing new ones, but as far as realism is concerned, it's laughable. I mean now, you have all of these villains ready to wreak havoc at any second and our hero has to constantly fight them off for his whole lifetime, ultimately making the city no safer than it was before.

Which brings me back to my Johnny Quest example: in Johnny Quest, the villains usually died at the end. True, Dr. Quest never usually directly killed anyone, but the fact remains that the old man in the Turu episode and the keeper of the giant lizards got absolutely killed, definitively. And this forced the writers to actually be creative and come up with some awesome plots and new characters in each new episode. In the rare instance they had nothing, they went back to Dr. Zin, the default bad guy, but like I said, that was a rare occurrence. My whole point is, cartoons have really hit the skids...heck even since I was a kid they have. I mean you would NEVER see a cartoon like Mutant League on anymore.

A Book Review

Beyond Glory is the tale of Louis/Schmeling, and for those of you not as in love as I am with combat sports, Joe Louis and Max Schmeling were two heavyweight prizefighters in the depression era who had two legendary fights, one in 1936 and one in 1938. The fights themselves became huge political affairs being that Schmeling was closely assosciated with Nazi Germany and was a close personal friend of Hitler, whereas Louis was America's best shot at beating Schmeling, but was a black man in the middle of a still invariably racist America.

This book delves deeply into all of the political, racial, and social turmoil surrounding the clashes between the two and all of the fallout for both men from each encounter. The money, deception, politics, and manipulation at hand are gripping tales by any description. I really enjoyed the book and I recommend it to anyone interested in the time period, even if you aren't a boxing fan. David Margolick does a fantastic job of citing sources from the actual time period, as it is obvious he must have spent an insane amount of time researching it from old newspapers, newsreels, and firsthand accounts.

My rating: 5/5 stars. Cannot go wrong with this one.