I'm Sick of #metoo (let me explain)

Before you get your pitchforks and cattle prods, I have to detail why. It's not for the reason you think. I'm not a cro magnon cave man. Or a Tim Allen fan. 

Here lately, I've gotten pretty tired of hearing the phrase #metoo. In the past week, I've been hearing it a whole lot more. Why? because of the Urban Meyer story at Ohio State. Meyer kept someone on staff who (wink wink) may or may not have beaten his wife on a regular basis, and Meyer knew about it. He also lied about it at a press conference. (side note: I could have told you what a piece of cow dung I think Meyer is over a decade ago when he was a Florida, but no one asked). 

Naturally, because this is the biggest college football story happening a couple of weeks before the season starts, EVERYONE is talking about it. And make no mistake, that is a good thing. I hope someone somewhere is saying, "wait, I don't have to put up with this? I'm leaving him". What bothers me is the context in which many in the media are using the term #metoo. 

• There's heightened sensitivity to the Zach Smith case because of the #metoo movement
• Did Meyer do all he was supposed to? It would seem that in the #metoo age, he could have done more
• You can't bury these types of transgressions, especially in the current #metoo climate

So let me get this straight, we should pay MORE attention to this victim because of the current client? If Harvey Weinstein had never happened, would Courtney Smith be branded a gold-digging money grabber? It's almost as if I could imagine someone saying, "Don't worry, all this #metoo nonsense will pass and we can go back to the good old days of keeping your women in line. But this damn #metoo movement means we actually have to deal with an entire coaching staff (and their wives) knowing that someone is being abused and OK, gosh I guess we should do something about it, but I really need to keep this guy on staff because his grandfather was a legend at the school". 

If you're prefacing your dialogue about the Urban Meyer story with "with the #metoo movement", you are still missing the point. You're almost saying it used to be OK, but it's not anymore. Newsflash, it was NEVER OK. 

Trumpers......what else will it take?

I'm guessing that there are people who voted for Donald Trump because emails and Benghazi RAWR RAWR RAWR. Fine, you didn't like her, even though she was qualified. You were SURE that Secretary Clinton was dirty. And every time someone blasted Trump through the first year and a half of his presidency, you cried, "OBAMA STARTED IT". Whatever.

But I'm having a hard time today understanding why it would be so hard to say, "You know what we tried something new and it didn't work." Is it just about admitting you're wrong? Hell, you're not an adult until you can admit that you were wrong. It's a rite of passage for everyone except our commander in chief. I'm having a hard time understanding how, despite what literally every country in the world is saying, you want to defend this man. Ronald Reagan didn't even warrant this much loyalty.

I'm genuinely curious what it would take for any Trump supporter to reverse course and say, "I can't support this man any more". The only groups who benefit from a Trump presidency are friends of the Donald and comedians. If a man flying to Finland to meet with someone who engineered the greatest assault on democracy in recent history and then pulling down your pants to moon the very country who "elected" you doesn't turn your stomach, I'm going to have to assume at this point you are a racist, sexist, blowhard who doesn't give a shit about anyone but white protestant males.

The Beginning of Football Season

You can argue that college football starts the weekend before Labor Day, the first days of fall practice, or when rivalry games start. Me, I say it starts with Media Days. Which is tomorrow for the SEC. You know. The only conference that matters (of course I'm kidding).

Coaches of each team bring three representatives from the team to answer a myriad of questions. The good, the bad and the ugly. And even though all of these coaches and players have probably answered 75% of these questions before, they'll bite their tongue and answer them again with a smile. Before you ever poo-poo any of these coaches and players, follow them around for a full week and then ask yourself if you could show the same restraint.

Anyway, the Bulldogs are certainly in a better place this year than they were last year. You won't find many people who don't think the Dawgs will win the East, and that's even with the East getting better in the off season with coaching. I can't help but think we are in a good position to get back to playoffs, so let me reiterate what I tweeted out in January. Especially after reading this article.

Granted, I wrote this still feeling bummed about being a play or two away from the championship, but reading about the officiating in that game only made it worse. Normally, I always feel like you should play the game so that the referees can't affect the outcome of the game, but that officiating hurt us at key times, all in the second half.

So I go into the 2018 season full of hope despite all the key personnel losses. I think losing Roquan Smith will hurt the most. But talent is just gushing into Athens right now and Kirby is probably a better coach that we gave him credit for in 2016. As is Mel Tucker, Jim Chaney, etc.

Yep, everything is going according to plan.......

Go Dawgs!

I'm tired of this

I started this little diary in July of 2006. It's a nice little outlet for me to rant.

However.....

Since that time, there have been:

• 190 school shootings in the US
• 243 students killed
• 343 students injured

The news yesterday from Santa Fe, Texas that 10 people had been killed at a high school seemed to overshadow the news that there was another shooting just south of Atlanta later that night in which one person was killed and another was injured after a graduation ceremony. 

I'm trying my hardest not to become numb to news of a school shooting. But it's very hard. I would imagine most are like me. We pay attention and we shake our heads in disgust. But we only seem to give our attention to the ones that happen when there are multiple fatalities. So my condolences to the families of those who were killed in Jonesboro, GA, simply because "only one person lost their life". 

I read a very poignant opinion recently (after another school shooting; God help me, I can't remember which one) that summed it up for me. Everyone wants to find a solution for this madness. However, most of the solutions offered up by liberal-minded people involve preventing a catastrophe from happening. Most solutions offered up by conservative-mined people involve minimizing the damage after the fact. I chewed on that for awhile and it's relevant. Most liberals would rather take away the option of having the ability to slay dozens of people in 30 seconds. Conservative approaches (more armed officers at school, equipping the teachers with guns) want to take out the shooter after it starts so they can prevent the shooter from killing even more people. That means someone still dies. 

My wife is a teacher and I still have a daughter in high school. I never imagined there would be a time when I thought I would say to myself, "Jeez, I hope they both finish so they can get out into the real world and be safer than they are at school." But that's the thought I have every day. How is it that my oldest daughter, who lives in the second largest city in the US, seems to be safer than someone who is in school seven hours a day? 

All this to say, I don't have all the answers. But thoughts and prayers are not, and never really have been, a part of the solution. But that's what we get. 

And I'm tired of it. 

Safe Spaces? Liberals didn't invent them.

I typed this over a year ago and forgot to publish. It still holds true.

Periodically, I hear conservatives talk about how ridiculous "safe spaces" are. You know safe spaces, right? It's those places we liberals had to escape to because Donald Trump somehow won the highest political office in the land, and we needed a place to cry. There were even stories about colleges shutting down for the day and offering counseling. Turns out, some of that was little exaggerated, but the point remained - these lefties just can't handle the real world.

What I find most interesting is that safe spaces weren't really first used by those who are more tolerant of others' cultures. The oldest and most widely known safe space was created by a group who just couldn't stand that other people were acquiring basic human rights - the KKK.

At some point a long time ago, a bunch of butt-hurt white people got together and were disturbed that black citizens (I use that word loosely, based on what they were actually allowed to do back then) had the gall to assimilate themselves into American society. They're trying to take our jobs, our homes, OUR WOMEN! We need to assemble a group of just us whiteys where we can't be bothered by a group of people who are barely allowed to cross the street without being lynched. I mean, they don't have anything, so it's important that we keep them down. So let's make a pact. We need to keep America whhyyyyyyte.

Lunch counters, public transportation, voting booths, schools. You name it. The Klan didn't want those people anywhere. And before you say that was a long time ago, A) that's my point and, B) Country Clubs were still under fire as late as the 1990's for not allowing black members.

What were they doing? They created safe spaces LONG before decent people wept at the thought of a man who bragged about forcing himself on women was elected to lead this country.