The SoapBoxers

There is a lot of news from the Middle East about people overthrowing dictatorships to have personal freedom. I applaud this effort and support them at least in emotion and praise. I have heard complaints from commentators that President Obama is not doing more to support these efforts. I disagree with that criticism. We (Americans) had to fight for and earn our freedoms. If the French had come in with superior weapons and force and beat up the British, we would have had a lot of problems. First, we would have had an obligation to support everything French for eternity. Secondly, we would have had a fifth column within the country ready to overthrow our government as a puppet of the French. Third, there would have been a certain segment of our society that would have hated everything French just because they interfered with our sovereignty.

The President should always support, verbally and emotionally, any efforts to advance freedom around the world. That is what this country stands for. Our willingness to help, including the sacrifice of our own blood and treasure, without hope of territorial gain, is what truly sets us apart from the rest of the governments that have ever existed in the world. But getting actively involved is another question. We have tried and failed several times to create new nations in our image. Iraq and Afghanistan are the two most recent examples. Both will eventually emerge as some sort of hybrid of what we think is a free and democratic nation and what the Afghans and Iraqis choose to implement.

Should we be bombing Colonel Gadaffi and his forces? Sure he is a bad man, but who will step in if we knock him down? The people toppling him will be better off without us so that they can choose their own leadership. We may not like what they come up with, but that is part of what freedom is all about, the freedom to make mistakes.

No I am not equating Iraq and Afghanistan to Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Iran, Syria, and Morocco. In the current round of uprisings, it is the people fighting their tyrannical governments. When the people of Iraq and Afghanistan rose up in the 1980’s we did not interfere directly. When Iraq invaded two neighbors, we responded. When they broke every condition of the cease fire, we conquered them and attempted to establish a new, democratic government. When Afghanistan harbored a group that had publicly claimed responsibility for a deadly attack against us, we conquered them and attempted the same nation building.

In the cases of what is going on now, it is internal to each country and should be handled by each country without some bully forcing what decisions are made. Just as I supported President Bush in his decisions with regard to Iraq and Afghanistan, I support President Obama in his current actions with regard to the freedom uprisings. I find the verbal cannonade by professional talkers obscene. One group claims that these uprisings are a direct response to a speech President Obama gave in Egypt last year. The other group claims the credit should go to President Bush for establishing democracies in the region. Both accretions are ridiculous. The uprisings are the result a people fed up with governments that have failed the people they are responsible for. They have risen up against the bullies. There was a fabulous headline in the papers this weekend that I feel captures the whole story, “The Walls of Fear have Fallen.”

Tiffany Butler took a moment to consider how lucky she was to be in this situation. At mid-season, her record had stood at a mere 5-10. She had wrestled better in the second half of the season, but had also been the recipient of some good luck. An upset had knocked the top wrestler out during the regional tournament, and she picked up another win when her opponent was forced to forfeit due to injury.

Tiffany’s record for the season was unspectacular 15-16, but she found herself on the mat, getting ready for a state tournament match. She was blazing a new trail for girls everywhere. As the lowest seeded wrestler in the tournament, she had drawn the state’s top 112 pound wrestler as her first round opponent.

Garrett McCormick relished the opportunity to defeat Tiffany. Some guys were reluctant to wrestle a girl. All Garrett saw was an easy victory that would put him one step closer to his third consecutive state championship.

Thirty seconds into the match, Garrett had affirmed his initial thought – he would have no problems controlling Tiffany. He saw opportunities to pin her, but decided to draw things out in order to make the loss more humiliating for her. Garrett toyed with Tiffany for the entire first period before scoring a takedown at the end up the period.

He took the down position in the second period and quickly escaped, running the score to 3-0. They danced around the mat before he scored another takedown. Garrett allowed her to escape a moment later. He could have easily pinned her again, but played catch and release with Tiffany, taking her down four times and allowing her to escape each time.

A quick escape from her down position at the beginning of the third period allowed Tiffany to close the gap to 11-5. Garrett decided to put on a show for the folks in the crowd. He scored seven takedowns in rapid succession, each time allowing his prey to escape – running the score to 25-12. He had to give the girl credit – she had a lot of fight in her. The match would be over in a moment – he needed just one more takedown to force a technical fall.

Garrett glanced up at the crowd and saw his girlfriend in the midst of the mass of humanity. Alycia was zooming her camera in for a shot. Garrett smiled broadly and struck a pose that he knew would look great in the school newspaper.

As he saw the camera flash, he felt himself lose control of his opponent. Before he could fully focus his attention back on the match, Tiffany had complete control of him and he felt his shoulders touching the mat. He struggled in vain to free himself. His dreams of another state title were over – he had been pinned by a girl.

No one thing is grabbing my interest today, so I’ll talk about a lot of stuff.

First of all, the shin is not broken.  The x-rays confirmed it.  Good news, although a deep bone bruise isn’t much fun, either.

A revised version of the Kindle edition of Mountains, Meadows, and Chasms has been released.  I fixed a few small issues that had crept into the book during the Amazon conversion process, and also added the cover art and a clickable table of contents.  I will likely be revising the cover art in the next few days, at which point I’m not going to make any more changes (unless someone finds a serious problem).  If you want to give it a test drive, try the absolutely free “send a sample” functionality.  You’ll get about 10% of the book, at no cost to you.  If you like it, you can buy later.  Buyers can also lend the book to their friends for 14 days, free of charge to the friend.

Don’t have a Kindle?  You can buy one on Amazon for as little as $139 (or as much as $379) or download the Kindle viewer for your Mac, PC, Droid, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, or Windows 7 phone (download a viewer here).  Personally, I still prefer paper and ink to e-readers … but it’s pretty cool that you can download free Kindle version of classics.  I paid about $50 for my copy of the Riverside Shakespeare when I took English 370 back in the mid 90s (it will set you back almost $90 these days) – you can nab a Kindle version of the complete works of the bard for $2.99 (there are also free versions, but the $2.99 version has good reviews).  For fans of works that are in the public domain, e-readers could be great.  I’ll be covering the whole Kindle authoring experience in another place and time (on another site, in other words).  More details later.

Sadly, there won’t be a print edition at this point.  If I were to use Amazon’s print-on-demand service (CreateSpace), I’d have to set the price in the $15-$20 range (for a paperback) in order th make the same profit I make on the Kindle edition.  That seems too high for a new author.  if you want the non-Kindle format, you can buy it from my store in PDF format (also just $3.49).  You can probably print a copy for less than I’d have to charge for a print edition, if you really want the book on paper.

In the world of sports:

Bryce Harper says that he’s trying to make the Nationals team in Spring Training.  That’s a nice thought, but it’s not going to happen.  Even if the Nats thought the 18 year old was ready, they’re not going to start his free agent clock ticking yet – delaying a call-up until June would keep him under their control for another year.  I really doubt that he gets more than a token call-up this year, though. As good as Harper is, I’m sure there is a lot he needs to learn about the game, especially as he moves to a new defensive position (outfielder).

Fans of the St. Louis Cardinals are holding their breath for news about co-ace Adam Wainwright, who injured his elbow.  While nobody is yet saying that Wainwright is done for the year, GM John Mozeliak said “things do not look encouraging.”  Most often, you’re going to see a GM make a neutral statement when there is a degree of uncertainty about an injury – seeing a negative comments makes me very concerned.

Trevor Bayne won the Daytona 500 last weekend, while Tony Stewart won the Nationwide Series race.  Interesting, neither racer is the points leader.  A new NASCAR rule this year allows drivers to pick up points in just one series.  You can still win races (and money) in any series, but only contend for the title in one series.  The main reason for this was drivers from the top level Sprint Cup dropping down the Nationwide and winning titles.  Even with the change, you’re going to see the stars run Nationwide races – because it gives them more experience with live competition and allows them to gain familiarity with the track.  Cedar Rapids native Landon Cassill pushed Stewart to victory in the Nationwide race.  He finished 3rd in the race and is atop the points race.

In the world of food:

I’m in search of the best canned chili.  I love chili, but it has to be in a relatively thin band of the broad chili spectrum.  Surprisingly, Campbell’s Roadhouse Chili is pretty good (and, oddly, you can buy it on Amazon).  I’m planning to try about a dozen differnt types of chili in my quest to crown a king.

ON WISCONSIN!

In most elections it seems to use South Park as a reference, you have a choice of a giant douche or a shit sandwich. Unfortunately for the people of Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker seems to be both of them all rolled into one. Unless you have been hiding in a cave the past week or so you know that there have been daily mass protesting State Capitol building in Madison. This in reaction to Walker and his partners in crime bringing forth legislation to start the destruction of organized labor. That is what the legislation is plain and simple. Now it is being done under the guise of cutting spending and balancing the budget, but now that is a complete lie.

The legislation calls for most state employees to see cuts in pay and benefits, as well as seeing a large increase in the amount they pay into their pensions and health insurance. The other part of the legislation calls for unions to lose almost all their rights, by only allowing them to “negotiate” for pay increases that are fixed to the rate of inflation. There would be no other collective bargaining as it is referred to for work conditions, benefits, performance or longevity based pay increases and so on. Basically making unions be that in name only as they would no longer have any real function anymore. The legislation also denies members from having their union dues directly taken out of their paychecks as a way to try to prevent unions from receiving funding as well as requiring a closed vote to be taken place to whether the unions are to continue to exist on an annual basis. Now the latter two do not seem highly important to me, but the first causes them to become that way down the line. If the union becomes a union in name only, why would anyone voluntarily pay the membership fees or vote for the union to be in.

I guess Walker and his political advisers from Koch Industries and other of the like did not see this backlash coming. They figured there would be a little fuss and that would be it. Instead they got a mass outrage to deal with that has now spread to other states with Republican led legislative and executive branches wanting to adopt measures of the like.

As I mentioned this is all being done under the guise of budget cuts. For 2011-2013 the state is projecting about a $3.6 billion dollar shortfall. What is not discussed as much is that around $2 billion dollars of that is from the effect of unpaid for tax break for businesses. A new normal? Really!? Sounds like more of the same old same old to me. The same old same old mentality is also evidenced that Walker left police, firefighters, state troopers and inspectors and their unions out of the legislation. It is easy to deduce that this is because these are the unions that to varying degrees of extent supported his candidacy for Governor. However all these unions have come out on the side of the protesters basically stating why should us and our families be any better than the rest of these unions.

Also because of this legislation, the 14 Democrat members of the Wisconsin senate have gone on the lam to undisclosed locations to deny quorum to be able to vote on the legislation. In reaction to this Walker has sent out state troopers to find the “missing” Democrats and drag them back to the statehouse for the Republicans to be allowed to shove this legislation down the throats of Wisconsinites. Also Walker stated he would not be bullied into things based on these actions. But who is the real bully Governor Walker? I would say it is undeniably you. The unions without any ask to sit down to negotiate terms have given into your monetary demands to solve your budget crisis. However that is not enough for Walker. He says there will be no compromise on this unions need to be broken. In this Walker stating that things need to be taken from the haves as the have-nots businesses have been paying the bill for too long. No besides being a completely ludicrous statement in whole, when was the last time anyone considered a teacher a have or well off person.

Also Walker has threatened to starting next week start to fire public employees if his legislation is not passed as he wants it to be by then. Saying it will be the Democrats fault if he does not get his way. Like the legislation, I think Walker is miscalculating where the public will lie the blame if people start to lose their jobs over his dictatorial style of rule.

As for the protestors at the statehouse it is amusing how they are being portrayed by the right. The are almost all in state people fighting for their rights, while those on the opposition side of the demonstration are being bused in from around the county by political “subsidiaries” of Koch Industries and the like. The former are being referred to as bottom feeders and worthless people by the right while the later are the true patriots. It is quite sad, but amusing to see. Also sad is the commentary coming from the right on what should be done. Most notably a former Deputy Attorney General in Indiana, another state facing the same political backlash, now saying that live ammunition should be used to take out the demonstrators (the official was fired after making the comment). After all, he says they are their political enemies and deadly force should be used to take care of them in his opinion, Now he isn’t the only one on the right who has been thinking this way, numerous jokes have been made of the sort on taking them out, it’s just he is an official that actually is on the record stating that this is what should be done.

An interesting new note that has come up is that Walker will actually continue to experience shortfall in the budget if he continues his desire to bust unions. The state would be set to lose $46.6 million in federal transportation money this year and other federal money allocated in other areas as well. This is because of a provision in federal labor law that states risk losing federal funding should they eliminate collective bargaining rights that existed at the time the funding was granted. Then again it really isn’t about the budget is it Governor Walker?

Nothing big in the world of sports for me to devote an entire article to this week, so I will touch on a number of topics as we “span the globe”

Nascar
I am not a racing fan. Never have been, never will be. But when a rookie driver wins in just his 2nd Cup start and it is not just any win but a Daytona 500 win, that is pretty special. Almost as speical as his reaction to his crew on the radio as he crossed the finish line. “Are you serious?” Yes, we are serious and now you have seriously altered your career and future in the sport. Congratulations Trevor Bayne.

Basketball
Carmelo Anthony gets marquee billing as he is traded to the Knicks. Horrible trade for the Knicks. While Melo is a go to guy, he is playing with Amare Stoudamaire who requires a point guard to get him the ball, (well I guess they did also get Chauncey Billups in the deal). Carmelo is a full time shooter, mid range jumper take it to the rack occasionally type of guy … sounds a lot like Amare. I guess the Nuggets are the real winner here as they would have lost him to Free Agency and now they at least get something to show for it.

Golf
Yani Tseng wins her third straight tournament on the LPGA tour and has firmly grabbed the #1 spot in the LPGA world golf rankings. She is young, playing well and appears to be poised to dominate in 2011 on the women’s tour.

The Accenture match play starts this week for the guys on the PGA tour. With no one playing dominant and the ever crafty guise of match play it is a wide open – anyone can win event. I filled out a GolfWeek entry pool, and my pick was Paul Casey, which coincidentally appears to be the pick of the golf writers for the USA Today.

Who is #1?
What a crazy week in College Basketball, Kansas, Texas, Ohio State and Pittsburgh all have a shot at being ranked #1 and all promptly go out and lose. Duke claims the top spot with exactly 2 wins over teams ranked in the top 25 on the year. This is called a paper tiger folks … Duke is over-rated and hopefully will see an early exit from the Tourney this year, but the lofty ranking will likely get them a #1 seed and the easiest road much as last year.

NBA All Star Game Weekend
This all star event has officially jumped the shark, or in this case a Kia Optima. The slam dunk competition needs to go “old school” and get rid of all the props and added features. How about just dunking…what a novel concept.

The game itself is almost as big of a joke as the NFL All Pro game. When is the last time a home town player did NOT win the MVP award? Seems like it happens every year. I bet Vegas had the Black Mamba at 2/5 to win the MVP before the game was played.

Until next week, stay classy Austin Texas … and pass that bill that is going to allow anyone on a college campus to carry a concealed handgun. Remember folks, it is not a state … it is a Republic!

I did not have an article last week. Instead I was at a funeral. Such an event tends to make you look at life and try to evaluate what is actually important. Does it mater that the Green Bay Packers beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl? Does it matter that the U.S. congress still hasn’t passed a budget for this year? All in all, probably not.

This funeral was for a friend’s (my best friend’s) mother. I drove from Iowa to Texas on Friday, attended the funeral on Saturday and drove back to Iowa on Sunday. The funeral itself was actually nice, capturing her personality and life. The drive allowed me many hours with my wife, talking about our own parents, our children, our lives. We spent most of our time in Texas with my friend who happens to be married to my wife’s friend. That chance to re-connect, share grief and remember our youth.

I realize that I have possibly a disproportionate amount of good in my life. Good family, good job, good friends, and a chance to express myself in writing. I try to appreciate all of these gifts. I have never complained about my compensation at work, mostly because it would make no difference, but also because my various bosses have treated me (on balance) fairly. I try to praise and correct my children in proper order. I make every effort to let my wife know how much I appreciate her. I try to respect my parent’s decisions and support them in any way that I can. I try to be dependable to my friends and all of my obligations. I am also indebted to all of you who actually read my articles and hopefully will read my books once I make them available.

Am I successful with all of this? Well certainly not every day and not in every circumstance. The important thing is to try, and actually think about it. It is a shame that it takes a funeral to reinforce the need to appreciate what we all have. A life perspective is something we should have every day.

I am making Mountains, Meadows, and Chasms available to the public.  The book contains more than 70 of my short stories – more than 80,000 words.  Most of them have appear on The Soap Boxers, but the book also contains the full versions of The Cell Window, Key Relationships, and Tip of the Iceberg.  This is the largest collection I have released to date.

I’m setting the price at just $3.49 – that’s 5 cents per story.  I hope you get a nickel’s worth of enjoyment out of my stories.

Mountains, Meadows, and Chasms is available in two formats – in PDF format from the Hyrax Publications store and in Kindle format at Amazon.

You can also check out my author page at Amazon

I also chatted with the guys at the Card Corner Radio show last night about the sports card book.  You can listen to it here – I jump in around the 10 minute mark.

	PDF Version
	Kindle Version

On Thursday, Harvey Almorn Updyke, Jr. was arrested on one count of first degree criminal mischief.  His bond was set at $50,000 and Updyke faces up to ten years in prison for his crime.

What was his crime?  Being too much of a fan of the University of Alabama.

Updyke is a die-hard Bama fan, but lives near the campus of the University of Auburn.  In November, he drove to the campus and sprayed some trees in the area known as Toomer’s Corner with the herbicide Spike80DF.  The herbicide, which is use to kill trees, is fatal in conentrations of 100 parts per billion (or 0.1 parts per million).  Tests of the soil around the trees found concentrations ranging from .78 parts per million (7 times the fatal concentration) to 51 parts per million (500 times the fatal concentration).  In other words, the trees will almost certainly die.  I don’t think you need to be a “tree hugger” to be appalled by the wanton destruction of century old trees.

I’m not an Auburn fan, nor much of a follower of the SEC as a whole.  I wasn’t aware of the post-game tradition of fans toilet papering the trees to celebrate wins.  Apparently, it’s a pretty big tradition, and Updyke was trying to kill this tradition by killing the trees.

After Updyke called a Birmingham radio station last month to brag about the stunt, it was only a matter of time before he would be arrested.  He identified himself as “Al from Dadeville.”  Dadeville has around 3000 residents.  I’m sure a handful are even named Al … and maybe a couple of them happen to be Alabama fans in the shadow of the Auburn campus.

Updyke’s court appointed attorney filed a motion to withdraw from the case.  The reason?  Seems that the lawyer had perviously been employed as a part-time professor at Auburn.

I guess Updyke thought he would be hailed as a hero by Alabama supporters.  He certainly doesn’t have the backing of the Bama athletic director.  AD Mal Moore commented, saying that the poisoning was “a terrible thing to do.”  I applaud Moore for publicly denouncing the act, so that there can be no uncertainly whether or not the administration would condone such acts.  Rational people would realize that Alabama wouldn’t condone this, but perhaps Moore’s words stopped one extremist in his or her tracks.  I’m sure a great many Crimson Tide fans put aside their hatred of the Tigers for one day to feel some sympathy for Auburn.

Updyke should have asked himself WWBBD – What Would Bear Bryant Do?  I suspect that Bryant wouldn’t have stooped to vandalism.

Sadly, this sort of thing is not completely unprecedented in sports.  Back in 2002, White Sox fans William Ligue Sr. and his son (William Jr.) attacked a completely defenseless Tom Gamboa, the first base coach for the Royals.  Gamboa suffered permanent hearing loss as a result.  Sadly, the younger Ligue bragged about the incident online later.

And who can forget the knife attack on Monica Seles in 1993 – by a fan of Steffi Graf would hated seeing Graf lose to Seles.  Seles returned from the traumatic attack two years later, but nor at the same level of consistent excellence she had achieved before.

I’m a huge sports fan, and I have intense dislike for a number of teams.  Johnny Goodman knows how much I hate the Nebraska football program.  However, I would never dream of doing something like this.  Sports are great, but in the end, it’s a game.  There are more important things in life.  Ratchet the rhetoric down a bit.

I first wanted to write about how proud I was with the Egyptian people and their handling of protests and their desire for freedom. The fact that they could protest in a non-violent manner and oust their leader was amazing. I’ll admit it. I had a few good laughs over the twitter hashtag #ReasonsWhyMubarakIsLate when they kept postponing his announcement. If you haven’t seen it, check it out. You’ll get a good chuckle. My favorites were “He just discovered the new board of Angry Birds” and “Keeps getting interrupted by Kanye West that “Cleopatra was the best Egyptian leader of all time”.

But then I read the article about how CBS Reporter Lara Logan was sexually assaulted and saved by a group of women and the Egyptian military.

So much for non-violence. What is wrong with people?

I then wanted to write about how proud I was that the Egyptian people seem to have created a surge of Democracy. They want freedom. They need freedom. I heard a protester say, “We want what Iraq has. We want freedom.” and I laughed. That “War monger” George W. Bush was right. Oppressed people want freedom. They crave it. But the Liberals will never admit that Dubya had it right all along.

So I thought I had my column for the week. But then I saw this. “The U.S. informed Arab governments Tuesday that it will support a U.N. Security Council statement reaffirming that the 15-nation body “does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity,” a move aimed at avoiding the prospect of having to veto a stronger Palestinian resolution calling the settlements illegal.”

This is the last thing we need to do. We need to support Israel. We need to stand behind them and support the Israelites.

While I understand some believe I may have contradicted myself by congratulating the Egyptians on ousting Mubarak in one paragraph and saying we need to support Israel in the next…but that’s how I feel.

It’s been a crazy month in the politics of the Middle East. And I’m sure that it will get even crazier while the Egyptian Government scrambles to figure out who is in charge and other countries follow Egypt’s example of the power of people. Stay tuned. I’m sure I’ll have more comments about it all.

Once again, Albert Pujols is front and center in the world of baseball.  As I write this, we’re closing in on the deadline Albert set for striking a deal.  It seems increasingly unlikely that Pujols will sign a deal prior to the deadline – setting the stage for his possible departure from St. Louis.  While there are a lot of teams that would love to have Pujols in their lineup, are there any willing and able to pony up $30 million per year?  The Yankees and Red Sox have a franchise 1B locked up, and those are usually the two teams with the most cash.

Of course, Pujols played third base earlier in his career.  The Yankees would play him at 3B, move A-Rod back to SS, and turn their aging SS into a utility player.  (I kid, John, I kid.)

Speaking of Yankees … CC Sabathia showed up at camp considerably lighter.  That’s a relative concept for a guy who lugs around 300 pounds on his 6’7″ frame, but he claims to be down 25 pounds from last year.  Based on the photos, I can believe it.  The one concern I always had with CC was his weight.  I always thought that it would eventually cause him to wear down at the end of the year.  It hasn’t happened yet – with Sabathia winning at least 17 games, pitching at least 230 innings, and posting an ERA of 3.37 or better in each of the past 4 seasons – and the weight loss might make him even more durable.  With 157 wins on his resume at age 30, Sabathia remains a solid candidate to be come the next 300 game winner – especially if he can maximize his wins the next few years, before the Yankee core declines too much.  There’s also the possibility that Sabathia could opt out of his deal, but I don’t see that happening.

Off the field …

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama recognized former Cardinal Stan “The Man” Musial with the presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.  The greatest Cardinal of them all was a 24 time All-Star (note that there were two All Star games each year between 1959 and 1962, with one game benefitting the players’ pension fund).

The ownership of the New York Mets is in flux.  The owners are looking into the possibility of selling a 25% share of the team.  The owners are being sued by Irving Picard (no relation to Jean-Luc), the trustee for victims of Bernie Madoff.  Picard alleges that team ownership withdrew large amounts of false profits from their accounts with Madoff, and should have know that fraud was occurring.  This is the latest in a recent string of off-field issue affecting teams.  The McCourt divorce is still casting uncertainly on the future of the Dodgers.

Spring Training has begun, meaning that winter is officially over.  This means that any subsequent snowfalls will be in violation of federal law.

My picks for the World Series?  As much as I’d like to pick the Rockies, any team with Cole Hamels as their #4 starter  is going to make some noise – so I pick the Phillies from the NL.  In the AL, I’ll give the nod to the Red Sox, who added an extremely good player in Adrian Gonzalez.  My player to watch this season is Homer Bailey.  Although many have already given up on him as a bust, the kid won’t turn 25 until May.  I think he has enough experience under his belt to put together a breakout season in 2011.