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There was an interesting poll on ninemsn recently asking if Australian cricketers would choose money (ie 20/20 cricket) over an Ashes series. iMost people attacked Paul Collingwood for his comments that international cricketers need to get paid closer to what the IPL players get otherwise cricketers will choose to play 20/20 more than for their country. This argument is nothing new and we should stop pretending that Aussies are all about loyalty to country when cricket history tells us otherwise.
How quickly Aussies forget that over 30 years ago Australia's best cricketers chose cash over loyalty in the form of World Series Cricket and again in the mid 1980's (twice) when players turned their backs on the board by becoming rebels and going to an isolated South Africa. Why attack Collingwood over what is a simple matter of truth and of history? History has shown that not only Australian players have chosen the cash so have the English, Sri Lankans and West Indians.
So now that this extra cash flow is all legitimate what's to stop Australians (or any other nationality for that matter) from heading off to play 20/20 and leaving loyalty to country behind? If the recent history of Australian cricket is anything to go by then when money talks then the bull**** walks!
When was the last time you sat down and tried to fit a jigsaw puzzle together? You find that sometimes the pieces just seem to fall into place or they seem to follow a pattern. Let me see if you can work this out. If a guy makes a racist joke one time about African-Americans not usually being in a certain area, you might be able to forgive him, right? I mean look at Michael Richards. His racist rant went on for a good couple of minutes and we've forgiven him, right? Right?
Imagine then that Brad Garrett who according to TMZ " a photog from the FAME photo agency questioned the "Everybody Loves Raymond" star about a joke he made about black people earlier in the week. According to several witnesses and FAME, last month Brad noticed a black photog taking his picture, and in Kramer-esque fashion quipped, "I didn't know there were black people in Malibu. Go back to where you came from."
"The next night, where the 6'8" behemoth reached his boiling point when the same black photog questioned him about the alleged comment. The photog told Garrett that there were "more black people here this time," to which the actor replied, "Yeah, I know ... when did they let you out?" "
Two times, and we start to get a little suspicious of this guy who is starting to make a habit of being demeaning to people of colour, don't we? We sure do, but we watch because we think of an excuse like "Hey maybe because he's a comedian, he just sees stuff that doesn't necessarily seem funny to make a tense situation a litle lighter" I mean Carlin was the king of that kind of stuff, wasn't he? I had Carlin's book, "Napalm and Silly Putty" and I laughed all the way through. He said that anything could be funny depending on where the emphasis is placed. Black comedian Patrice O'Neal has said the same thing. Maybe Brad works along those lines. We'll work with that and believe Brad is a nice guy. Like Robert on ELR.
So then, in doing research for this blog, I came across this little nugget. Brad was on Ellen about two years ago and started singing about "one little, two little, three little Indians" whilst talking about American Indian casinos. Are we seeing a pattern here? So far he has abused the black community and now it's the American Indians turn! The guy that we loved so much on "Everybody loves Raymond" is now feeling a little less love from at least two sections of the community. To make up for it, what does Brad do? He waits and fire off another verbal.
This time it's the Muslim community. Brad this time decided to entangle himself with a man that looks like he's of arab/muslim descent, and Brad can be seen circling his hand over his own head saying "Wear the turban! Wear the turban!" I'm sorry Brad but that's what now, four racial slurs?
Let me add all of this up now. Two against the African-American community, one against the American-Indians, and one against the Arab/Muslim community. That's beyond a simple Michael Richards slip-up, goes further than Carlin's or O'Neal's comedic expression. It adds up to ignorance and bigotry. The good news at least we know who he is and what he stands for. The bad news is that he really stands for nothing worthwhile.
The only reason that he isn't wearing a white hood is because he wouldn't be accepted by the Klan simply because he's Jewish. Ironic isn't it? A bigot can't join his like-minded "friends" on account of them hating his religion.
Maybe because Mr. Garrett is a Jewish "comedian" he feels that his heritage and his occupation overrule decency and decorum, and his off-the-cuff remarks fall under the vague notion of free speech. I understand how the PC people are sometimes too much and the loss of the freedom of speech seems to threaten our way of life everyday, but where do we draw the line? What is now acceptable to say publicly?
The trouble is, we don't know. Nobody knows. To some like Brad Garrett and his bigoted ilk there are no boundaries. I think therein lies the problem. Instead of ill defined limits, to him there are none. Perhaps if he loses his career, it may help him to find what the boundaries are and if he hopefully loses that part of himself, he may find something much more important inside of himself to find others.
I, just like everyone else, am swept up in the emotion over the lady from Scotland who took on audience condescension and won. I got an email from a friend a few days ago before Susan hit our hearts that I have reproduced down below. It relates very much to how we treat others.
I have found people to be so caught up in appearances instead of who we are. The looks on the faces of the audience before she sang summed us all up as society. We all lack tolerance for those who look or act differently by means of colour, class, weight, age or looks except for when they then turn out to have some amazing talent like Susan does. Right up until last week, kids teased her and people mocked her for what she looks like and the life she lives. I'm quite sure some of them knew she could sing and sing well.
Is that who we are as a society? Is that what we wish to teach our children? That it's okay to exclude someone for their looks and then when they are "discovered" to have a talent, to then find them acceptable? We are very much superficial. Before we start to judge others let us remember the story of the clay balls.
CLAY BALLS
A man was exploring caves by the seashore. In one of the caves he found a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls. It was like someone had rolled clay balls and left them out in the sun to bake.
They didn't look like much, but they intrigued the man, so he took the bag out of the cave with him. As he strolled along the beach, he would throw the clay balls, one at a time, out into the ocean as far as he could.
He thought little about it until he dropped one of the clay balls and it cracked open on a rock. Inside was a beautiful, precious stone!
Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each contained a similar treasure. He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had left.
Then it struck him ... he had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves. Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have taken home tens of thousands, but he had just thrown it away!
It's like that with people. We look at someone, maybe even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel. It doesn't look like much from the outside. It isn't always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it.
We see that person as less important than someone more beautiful or stylish, or well known or wealthy. But we have not taken the time to find the treasure hidden inside that person.
There is a treasure in each and every one of us. If we take the time to get to know that person, and if we ask God to show us that person the way He sees them, then the clay begins to peel away and the brilliant gem begins to shine forth.
"I just hate stupid people.
They should have to wear signs that just say I'm stupid.
That way you wouldn't rely on them, would you?
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Here's an interesting myth...old people apparently smell. How do they smell? Well, when I was growing up, and with my limited contact with the aged I always thought they just smelled of must, mothballs, medicine and antiseptic. Not since 2001 or so the myth goes.
I bring this up because some kind of Japanese research (in 2001) found out that older Japanese smelt greasy. I don't know too many elderly Japanese to test this theory, so I'll just take their word for it that old Japanes people smell until I get the chance to sniff one close up. "Excuse me Sir, may I sniff you to see if you have a greasy smell?" That line's sure to work like a charm and elicit excitement on any elderly Japanese person who doesn't get to be sniffed often
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There was a little read article that Germaine Greer wrote in regards to Michelle Obama's dress to her husbands election declaration. She described it as a "butcher's apron" and went on to say that it was "all black with an eye-burning red panel that splattered itself down the front like a geometrical haemorrhage". Obviously Ms Greer pulls no punches. Why would it be any of her business what Mrs. Obama wore?
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It was during the summer that one of my worst nightmares came to pass. New Kids on the Block were reuniting and putting out more music after fading away sometime in the 1990's. Yes it was a sad day for all of us when these almost middle aged men chose to come back and haunt us with more of the same stuff they used to torture us with when they and we were younger.
It came to me because there has been a rush of bands to reunite and try and capture some of the glory days from their past. Sometimes you think "Wait, this could be interesting!" Here are some bands and some singers that need to stay out of the studio and in retirement. Permanently
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"If you look at the Australian system, by the time a player comes into the Australian team he has played umpteen number of matches in the Sheffield Shield cricket which is very good quality...so he is ready to play internationally. The quality of regional West Indies cricket is nowhere near the standard of the Australian structure, and is generating players that are unprepared to play against international teams. At this level it's about trying to win matches, it shouldn't be about trying to teach the players how to play international matches. Our newcomers will have to learn the basics of international cricket, other countries have strong systems and have very very strong basics, so they are doing well."
West Indies cicket coach John Dyson
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Did anyone notice that the lame duck US President was cold towards Ruddy when he went to the White House recently? Should Kev give a damn? Why would he, he knows that Bushy has only a limited time left in office. I would think that Ruddy just would have blown it off. If I were him I'd have just thought to myself "At least my popularity rating isn't the same as my IQ!" if I were Ruddy I'd have made myself known to Mr. Obama to start building a better future for both countries.
The issue of the split between the two revolves around a "did he say it or didn't he"? moment when Dubya apparently asked what the G20 is. It was leaked by someone in Ruddys office who thought it'd be important to let people know how embarrrassingly ignorant Bushy is. They didn't need to do that, we already knew.
Wanda Sykes says she's proud to be gay. Hmmm...proud to be gay. Interesting. Don't worry people this isn't going to be another gay bashing piece, I am just so tired of people saying that they're proud of their emotions, body or their parts like they're a great achievement.
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Comment by jamoz
on Is love for everyone?
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