The SoapBoxers

This Friday will mark the debut of a new column, as Princess Kate joins us with her monthly article about the world of art. To get us in the mood, I’m re-running a short story of mine that originally ran on June 18, 2010.

On this particular evening, Sylvester Barnes traded his palette and brushes for a different set of tools. He stopped for a moment to collect his breath, and then swung the maul with all the strength he could muster.  The door resisted the first blow, but when Sylvester’s second blow landed on target, the lock yielded and the door sprung inward.

When Barnes stepped into the gallery, he was tempted to use the maul to smash every single piece of so-called “art” that had found a home in this third-rate gallery.  He’d be ashamed to use any of the statues as door stops and most of the paintings were worse than the garbage kindergartners brought home after a day of finger painting.  Certainly, all of this deserved to be destroyed, but he could not lose focus from the true mission.

Barnes came upon a door marked “Staff Only” and once again presented the maul as his key.  This door, too, allowed him entrance, and he strode into the back room studio.

Upstairs, above the Cherry Tree Gallery, Kailey Bell awoke from her deep slumber.  She was fully awake when Sylvester battered down the second door.  Kailey grabbed the pistol from under her pillow, slipped on her pink bunny slippers and snuck down the stairs.

When she arrived at the foot of the stairs, she saw the intruder plunging a hunting knife into the heart of one of her favorite paintings – Farm Pond By Full Moon.  She gasped with pain, as if the dagger was plunging into her own heart.

The man heard her and wheeled around to face her.  She recognized the man as Sylvester Barnes – an impressionist painter with a massive ego and a miniscule amount of talent.

“It’s for the best,” he shouted.  “These paintings deserve to be put out of their misery.  Moonlit lakes?  A sun setting behind mountains?  A boat adrift in the ocean?  Where’s the substance to this?  Where the creativity?  Where’s the meaning?  I’ve had piles of vomit that were more important to the world than these paintings.

“Get out, Barnes.  If you’re not out the door in ten seconds, you’ll regret it.”

“Regret it?” laughed Barnes derisively.  “What are you going to do – make me hang one of your paintings on my wall?”

Kailey pulled the gun from behind her back and pointed it at Barnes.

“Get out, or I shoot.”

“Kailey, you don’t have the balls. Go ahead, shoot me.”  Barnes laughed again as he lunged at another painting and cut it to shreds with the knife.

Kailey pulled the trigger and was devastated to hear a click as the hammer fell on an empty chamber.

She pulled the trigger again and the click was deafening amid the silence..  Barnes brandished his knife and took a menacing step toward her.  “Stupid girl.  The gun’s not even load –“

His words were cut off in mid-sentence as the hammer hit home on a live chamber.  An instant later, the bullet exited the back of Sylvester Barnes’ head, depositing a chunk of his rather small brain on the back wall.

This story originally ran on July 24, 2009.  I’m re-running it today because I’ve always liked it.

Dramatic poetic license has been taken with this story.  The dinosaurs featured in the story would not have interacted with each other in real life.

General Al Osoris paced the corridor of his military headquarters in a bunker at the base of the canyon.  The great general had won many great victories, and the superior Allosaur race had captured vast amounts of enemy territory under his leadership.  Nearly half the land had once been controlled by the Tyrannosaurs, the archenemy of the Allosaur people.  The Tyrannosaurs were now a beaten and bloodied race, now controlling just a small fraction of their previous territory.  The Allosaurs had become the unquestioned leader of the dinosaur world.

In the east, however, trouble loomed.  It seemed that one nation was indeed questioning the leadership of the Allosaurs.  The Raptors, led by General Velo Seeraptor, were attacking Allosaur strongholds.  The fortress at Dinosova was currently under siege.  Dinosova, like many Allosaur fortresses, was defended by Apatosaur soldiers.  The Apatosaurs, with their massive bulk and lethal tails, had been the soldier of choice for many generations of Allosaur generals.

General Seeraptor had been able to threaten the fortress by weakening the Apatosaur army with attacks by Stegosaurs and Triceratops.  These mercenaries, previously aligned with the Allosaurs, had taken money from the Raptors and had switched allegiances.  They suffered significant losses during their attacks upon the Apatosaur defenders at Dinosova.  However, they greatly outnumbered the Apatosaurs, and many Apatosaurs were being killed or seriously injured by the attacks.  Dinosova was in danger of falling into enemy hands within days.

If that news was not bad enough, yesterday General Osoris had received news of light attacks against the fortresses of Jurassia, Cretalion, and Triasso.  In these locations, the Stegosaurs and Triceratops were attacking with far fewer numbers than they were using at Dinosova.  While some officers under Osoris’ command felt that General Seeraptor’s supply of mercenaries had been stretched thin because of the massive attack upon Dinosova, General Osoris felt that the Raptor leader was simply using these attacks to gauge the strength of the defense before lunching a full scale attack.

The General’s radio crackled with static.

The United States Open Championship is being contested at Congressional this week. Congressional is not one of my more favorite venues for an open. It has your usual long rough, fast greens, super long golf holes, and lots of trees, but it is a fairly boring golf course in Johnny’s opinion.

There are some nice historic moments here over the years. Ken Venturi staving off heat stroke to play 36 holes in 110+ degree heat and win an Open here. Tom Lehman playing his normal right to left draw but drawing it into the water to lose an Open.

This year it appears early on to be a boat race.

Rory McIlroy, aka Spaulding from Caddyshack (Judge Smailes Grandson) is playing like a man possessed. The kid has probably more overall golf talent than anyone on the tour other than a healthy Tiger Woods or a Phil Mickelson. Problem is Tiger is wearing a leg brace right now and Phil is over thinking his way to not keeping a ball in play on the planet.

At the time end of his second round, McIlroy has taken it to 11 under, which is rare air in a US Open Championship. Even par normally wins. Shooting under par is unheard of. Rory is making it look easy. He shoots a routine 6 under in day one to lead by three and has added another 5 under today to get to 11 under par.

Granted the course is a little soft, they have had some rain, the greens are not as fast as the USGA demons would like them to be. But…no one else is within 8 shots of him early on. Spaulding is doing what he has done before. He smoked out of the gate at The Open Championship last year at St Andrews with a 63 – the lowest ever first round score in the 150 year history of the Open Championship, and tying the course record in the process….Then the wind nailed him on day two and he ballooned to an 80, effectively shooting himself out of it. He rebounded nicely to still finish 3rd.

Until Next week…

Stay Classy Northern Ireland!

Here’s the deal, boys, I know that politics is a boys club. My first political job was canvassing for the Iowa GOP in 2002. Since then I’ve been a Communications Director for a US Senate Campaign, served as Secretary and then Co-Chair for the Polk County GOP and volunteered on countless campaigns. So I get it, it’s a boys club. Which is probably why I got such a high tolerance for beer. If you can’t drink with the boys, you can’t play with the boys. At least on the campaign staffer level in Iowa.

But after Arnold’s little Schwarzenegger he has running around, John Edward’s “love” (ew) child with his former staffer (while his wife was battling cancer), Bill Clinton and the infamous blue dress and Weinergate, maybe we should look at who we have in office.

I warned you I was a feminist. So here we go. When you lost something as a kid, who did you ask? Mom. Because Mom always knew where it was.

When you had a problem, who did you ask? Mom. Because Mom always knew the right answer (and to do what was right).

When you thought you forgot Grandma’s birthday, who informed you she sent a card from you last week? Mom. Because Mom remembers.

I’m not saying women are infallible. Look at Eve (although I’m still partly convinced that Adam just threw Eve under the garden on that one). But women know better than to do things that get themselves into trouble. Women consider the risks, weigh all of the options (it’s how our brains work and why we talk so much) BEFORE they act. And talk (for the most part). And women rarely send naked blackberry pictures of themselves (not just because they don’t like the way they look, but because they know it will get out).

I was thinking the other day about how excited I was getting to get a new copy of the Madden 12 game when it comes out in early August (like it does every other year). But wait, will there be a Madden game this year with all of this NFL lockout nonsense? I’m not going to get into the gritty details of what’s going on with the lockout, because honestly I haven’t taken the time to figure it all out. I’m a huge NFL fan, and I enjoy playing sports games. This is simply the “sports game playing” side me saying JUST KNOCK IT OFF AND PLAY….preferably on time.

So, I started doing some research….and the first thing I find says the game won’t be released until August 30th this year. What?!?! August 30th. That’s almost THREE whole weeks we’re all going to have to wait to see the new game. Will this hurt sales? I really don’t think so. There is no other true NFL game on the market for any system, so it’s not like the competition is going to take advantage of the “late” release date. EA may not have the stellar sales that they’ve had in years past, but I personally don’t see the release date being a huge problem….just keeps guys like me waiting a few more weeks to play it!

I know that Madden 12 has been developed or is currently in development as several new features have been announced (I’ll save talking about those until I play the game). But if there ends up being no season in the NFL this year, what does that mean for the game? Some critics are saying that it could hurt the game’s sales by as much as 50%. Really? I get the correlation of NFL fans to the Madden game. But I don’t see millions of people not purchasing Madden because of the NFL lockout. Madden really has nothing to do with the lockout….it’s not like the game developers are on the same side as the owners, or the players for that matter.

Frankly, Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner is in a lot of hot water these days.  He sent racy photos (of his, well … use your imagination) to several women over the internet and lied about it when he was confronted.  (His acting was definitely not Oscar-worthy.)  When he finally came clean, it turns out that he was having online relationships with six women.

The media frenzy around the scandal has reached a boil, and many inside the Washington power circle are attempting the skewer the congressman.  The Republicans are relishing this opportunity, pushing Weiner to resign.  Members of Weiner’s own party are turning against him, joining the Republicans in the chorus, in an attempt to distance themselves from the congressman.

The most likely situation is that Weiner will resign, a special election will be held, and the democratic candidate will win.  The Democrats will continue to represent New York’s 9th congressional district.  They’ll lose Weiner’s seniority, but also distance themselves a bit from Weinergate.  It’s possible that a Republican can would, but it would be an uphill climb in the left-leaning 9th district.

My question is this:  why are the Republicans in such a hurry to see him go?  Time and time again, the opposition party tries to force someone to resign when they become embroiled in ethical issues.  Wouldn’t it be better to allow Weiner to keep his seat?

Here’s my logic.  If Weiner resigns and is replaced, the scandal will eventually fade, another Democrat will be elected to represent New York’s 9th congressional district, and the country will forget about Anthony Weiner (since the vast majority never knew he existed before this scandal).  The lasting impact will be minimal.

However … if Weiner stays in office, the Republicans have an albatross to hang around the neck of President Obama and the rest of the Democrats.  Find a photo of Democratic Senator John Doe giving Weiner a high five and use it in a commercial to support Doe’s opponent – painting Doe as a friend of Weiner, and painting the Democrats as the Weiner party.

The best plan for the GOP: keep Weiner in the House!

Work – Home Life balance is a buzz phase in today’s business world. What does it actually mean? For a company, it is the idea that employees need away time to be more productive. That idea is preached and repeated at every major corporation. The problem is that to stand out as an achiever, the employee still has to sacrifice family time to perform those extra tasks that cannot fit into a normal work week. This truth has a very negative effect on one specific class of workers, those who are raising children.

Early in the average career, before long term relationships and children, the only competition for time is entertainment. Entertainment includes the various mating rituals of young people as they try to pair up, for a night or a lifetime. Late in a career, after children have moved on to their own lives, most couples are actually looking for activities apart from each other. I am not suggesting that children hold all relationships together, it is just that by the time the kids are gone, most couples have matured enough that time apart is not detrimental.

Those people who are early in their relationships, especially when children are involved, are under so many more stresses; the stress of developing the relationship, the stress of child rearing, the stress of financial insecurity. Most people believe they are giving the most in a relationship, much more than their partner. Any other distraction only magnifies that perceived disparity of effort. When those stresses or life choice and events result in a single parent situation, the stresses are only worse. There is no support and yet the employer still expects the effort that will make you stand out among your peers.

Most corporations truly believe that they are helping in the work – home life balance. They have training, support seminars, even policies in place. The reality is that the final decisions cannot be based on how well you family is doing, but on the individual contributions to the corporation. Many people believe that corporations have a civic duty to take care of their employees. The best way for a corporation to fulfill that duty is to remain a viable company. That goal may actually be detrimental to individuals, but overall is beneficial to most of the workers.

I personally am in the category of children moving on. I have the capability of travelling whenever the need arises. I can work weekends or evening without causing a scheduling catastrophe at home. As a result of this freedom, I am being given opportunities at work that were never available before. I am also trying to help the younger people I work with understand that patience and dedication are the best ways to move up in a company. So many of the young people entering the work force today have an entitlement attitude. As a result, they believe that any single exceptional effort should be instantly rewarded and considered for all future compensation. Although instant compensation is available at most companies, these perks seldom add to the base compensation. Consistent excellence is what is rewarded in the long run. Patience is the trait, along with focus, that creates the best path to success.

Coming back to the work – home life balance, when an employee is in those stressful years of relationship building and child rearing, the aim is to do both. Work on your skills and you home life. Expect to grow, but do not expect to be the youngest Vice President. The consistency that you develop both in your career and in you home life will make you the most valuable employee that you company has when you hit your stride.

Bubba Starling recently graduated from high school and has committed to play quarterback for the Nebraska Cornhuskers.  Starling is also one of the top baseball prospects and was selected 5th overall in this year’s baseball draft.  The kicker?  He was picked by his hometown Kansas City Royals.

Starling has a decision looming.  He can choose to sign with the Royals and spurn the Huskers.  He can spurn the Royals and stay with the Huskers. 

Or he can do both.  The NCAA allows an athlete to participate as a professional in one sport while retaining amateur status in a different sport.  The football/baseball combination is by far the most common due to relatively small season overlaps.  While it’s not exactly common, it’s also not particularly rare.  For example, Clemson starting quarterback Kyle Parker was a first round pick of the Rockies in 2010 and continues to play both sports.

However, either the Huskers or the Royals could give Starling an ultimatum and force him to pick one sport or the other.  The football injury to Bo Jackson may be fresh in the minds of many in the Royals organization, so they may not be eager to see Starling lining up at quarterback.  The Huskers, too, would prefer to have Starling focus on just one sport – but as an outfielder, his injury risk is relatively low.  (Conversely, if he were a pitcher, he’d be more prone to arm injuries, which would hinder his ability to player quarterback).

Of course, the one thing that the Royals can offer that the Huskers can’t is money.  (Hey, this isn’t Ohio State!).  How much?  I wouldn’t be surprised to see an offer in excess of $5 million, considering the leverage that Starling has as a two sport athlete.

My advice?  Take the money.  If you can balance both sports, great.  But there is no guarantee that Starling will ever make a dime from football.  There are a lot of highly touted high school quarterbacks who never make it to the NFL.  If Starling choose to forgo college at this point, he can negotiate inclusion in Major League Baseball’s College Scholarship Program and pursue his degree at a later date.

If Starling doesn’t sign with the Royals, he wouldn’t be eligible for the draft again until 2014, unless he transfers to a junior college (JUCO players are eligible after their freshman and sophomore seasons).

The Royals wouldn’t be left completely high and dry if Starling doesn’t sign.  They would receive a compensatory pick in 2012 immediately following the pick of the team with the 5th worst record.  This most likely would be pick #6, but could be lower (if players picked in the top 4 spots don’t sign with their teams and thus yield compensatory picks for those teams).

In other draft news … teams really seemed to be shying away from injured players.  TCU pitcher Matt Purke was picked #14 overall out of high school in 2009.  He actually agreed to a $6 million bonus with the Rangers, but Major League Baseball had veto power because of the Rangers’ troubled finances, and they nixed the deal.  Purke eventually opted to go to college.  He was 16-0 as a freshman for the Horned Frogs.  This year, he has been fighting bursitis in his shoulder.  He was a draft-eligible sophomore (due to the fact that he was 21 before the draft) and slipped all the way to #96, where he was snapped up by the Nationals.

I understand the concern about the injury, but this is clearly a guy with elite talent.  Sure, he might not make it to the majors because of injuries, but it’s quite likely a lot of the guys ahead of him won’t make it simply because their talent level isn’t high enough.  Why are teams willing to take a gamble on a guy with a lower talent ceiling and no injury history than guys with higher ceilings but some injury history?  To compound the situation, a lot of the “healthy” guys will encounter career-ending injuries.

And, off the diamond, former Major Leaguer Lenny Dykstra is in the news again.  This time for his arrest on grand theft auto and a variety of drug charges.  Dykstra was always a guy who colored outside the lines, but his life has been in a tail spin for several years.

Your smartphone breaks.  You take it to the shop.  Do you care if the guy who fixes it has an addiction to lesbian porn as long as he fixes your phone?  You have the flu and go to the doctor.  Do you care if your doctor is having an affair on their spouse as long as they get you the appropriate treatment within the proper safety protocols?  I’m sure some of you will say you care, but I’d bet most of the people you say they would get upset about that actually would.  Think about it, if someone came up to you and said, “The guy who fixed your iPhone has gigabytes of woman-on-woman action on his home computer.”  The vast majority of people are going to say, “ummm … so?”

In that same way, I really don’t care that Anthony Weiner had inappropriate contact with women online.  I do care that he lied about it, though.  Had he come clean from the start, said that he used the internet for strange sexual purposes, he probably would have been ok.  I’m sure there would have been some outcry from Republicans.  We all know how they’re the moral bastions of politics – heck, they like marriage so much that the most prominent righties often do it two or three times. I think he’s a good politician, he seems to genuinely have the interests of his constituents in mind (being from NYC, he represents a large number of lower and lower-middle class folks), but at this point I just can’t get past that lying part.

When did America become the uptight prude of Western nations, anyway?  Was it the founding by the puritans?  Europeans laugh at us every time we make a huge deal over some political sex scandal, they practically EXPECT their leaders to have an affair or two while in office.  Heck, the leaders of France and Russia are married to supermodel class women, as far as looks go, and as far as I can tell are more popular for it.  Holding our leaders to some sort of moral standard that hasn’t evolved since slavery, smoking, bloodletting, and World Wars was in vogue just seems dumb.  We all have our unique perversions, even if we don’t admit it to ourselves or talk about it with others.  I honestly don’t care that Bill Clinton likes creative cigar use, he gave us some amazing years of prosperity and knocked a huge chunk off the country’s debt.

So … back to the lying thing.  Why is it ok for politicians to outright lie, but they have to be the modern equivalent of Beaver Cleaver’s parents when it comes to “adult” issues?  Ronald Reagan was involved with and lied about a secret deal that sent weapons to Iran (yes, THAT Iran) in return for money that was used to fund drug-selling rebels in South America.  We have politicians giving no-bid contracts to questionable companies and we care more about Anthony Weiner doing what at least 50% of all men have done.

Maybe a lot of people out there want to care about sex and personal lives, but that seems to be a lot more like the way they live in Afghanistan and Iran than here.  Well, we sold weapons to Iran to fund people that sell drugs to our youth, so maybe we do want a harder line on morals.

Several weeks ago, I mentioned that Nintendo had announced a successor to the Wii. Nintendo gave no details on the new gaming system, but rumors obviously had already begun. Thankfully, we didn’t have long to wait until the annual E3 Expo to get more details. Yesterday, Nintendo announced the Wii U, a system that is “different from anything you’ve played before”.

To prove that quote, Nintendo came out swinging, announcing a new type of controller…..one that has a 6.2-inch touchscreen, a Wii-style D-pad, dual analog sticks. The new Wii U controller will also have a motion sensor and front and back facing cameras. I admitted in my previous Wii article that I wasn’t really a Wii guy, but this has my attention. In a world where seemingly every mobile company is introducing some sort of a tablet computer, Wii U goes one step further and gives you something of a tablet controller!

While Nintendo did say that you will not be able to play games on the tablet controller alone (the controller “speaks” with the console), you can play games by watching the controller touch screen and using the dual analog sticks…and some games will most likely require some sort of tilting/moving of the touchscreen controller. The original Wii remote (and I assume the Nunchuck) will still be used in the same way with the new Wii U. The new touchscreen controller will not support HD graphics, but Nintendo did announce that the console will run in HD 1080p. Given the PS3 and Xbox 360 released HD graphics several years ago, this was a requirement (in my opinion) for the new Wii U.

In the one preview video I watched, 4 people were playing a Mario game on the new system. 3 of the players were using the original Wii controller, and 1 player was using the new touchscreen controller. Each person was a character, and the touchscreen controller player was being chased with a goal of reaching the finish line of “board” before being caught by any of the other 3 players. The chasing players played by watching the television, and the player being chased watched on the 6.2-inch touchscreen. VERY cool!

There are still quite a few remaining details surrounding the new Wii U, but Nintendo did exactly what they needed to do. Sales are hurting with the current Wii console, and its shelf life is coming to an end. With the new Wii U, Nintendo has rebuilt the excitement that once surrounded the original Wii. While they have not announced what other capabilities the new controller will have, it seems as though the possibilities are endless. Will the new tablet style controller have Wi-Fi and internet capabilities? That seems like a stretch, and would probably be too much of a cost to what could already be an expensive console. Will the Wii U console play dvds? Seems like it will need to to remain competitive with other consoles, but there are still lots of questions to be answered.

What do you think? Are you excited for the new Wii U?