rants

first topic: snitches.



not sure where i stand on this one, really, but i'd like to bring attention to two old-news snitches that have very similar MO's. first up is Jose Canseco. after his tell-all book "juiced," the baseball-and-steroids story came to the spotlight. it's obviously still going, what with A-Rod's confession and 'roid-dealing cousin.



according to this article, Canseco broke one of the unspoken (ok, it's actually spoken) rules of the clubhouse: what you see here STAYS HERE. the clubhouse obviously isn't vegas, but there is still that expectation that if you step into the territory, you accept what is in the territory, like it or not.



the second is Mike Jones, a man with a very unassuming name for an escort. while not the only professional sex worker to expose one of his high-profile clients, Jones is an interesting case. most scandals we hear about involve political figures with extramarital proclivities. Jones had the unpleasant task of bringing down a prominent pastor. that's i'll say about that story, except to say Mike Jones must have been one good-looking son-of-a-gun back in his day, because he's still an attractive man. (irrelevance abounds... my apologies.)



obviously, what these two whistle-blowers have in common is the fact that they went against a strict rule of their profession: you don't talk about what happens behind closed doors. i know Jones, at least, faced persecution and rejection from both the gay escort community and the Christian conservative camp. i'm not well read on Canseco. i'm sure he's dealt with much of the same. here you have two guys doing what they think is "right," and finding no one who really agrees with them. most people only care about what they have to say because it's dirty gossip. (and we all know how much both the Christian right and the gay left LOVE dirty gossip.)



the question(s) is/are this: was it worth it? and was it actually the right thing to do? in Canseco's case, wow, that snowballed. President Obama, bless his rambling heart, even talked about A-Rod in some speech i saw him give on TV. (actually, it's one of the only things i remember him talking about ever, i don't pay much attention to a man once the majority likes him and elects him president. wasn't he the guy who took creative liberties with Chavez's/the United Farm Worker's slogan "Si Se Puede," except in english?) Jones, on the other hand, probably hasn't had a minute's peace since he first mentioned his relationship with Ted Haggard. is it worth it now to him? he's going after one man; Canseco brought down a bunch, and there's still more heads rolling.



the second question is hard to answer. was it the right thing FOR THEM to do? probably. for crying out loud, Mike Jones' book is called "I Had To Say Something," a testament to the fact that, in his mind, something needed to be set right. i whole-heartedly support the notion of making things right. however, the way he did it... maybe not so great. Canseco? same thing. i believe they both were right to listen to what their innards were telling them. the way they did it is debatable.



now, was it RIGHT for them to break that rule? i don't know. i'm inclined to side with people who say, "hey, if you can't roll with the rules of the game, don't play." however, i think someone should raise this question: are those good rules to have in place? for the escort business, i'm sure a lot of spouses/parishioners/citizens would love to know what their husband/wife/pastor/priest/congressman has been doing with who and where. maybe it's best we all don't know all those dirty details. maybe it would be better. we'd have a clearer picture of the dark reality of who these people we trust are. for the baseball world, no, that is not a good rule. i hate the sports industry passionately. it's ridiculous that people who can manipulate objects and move their bodies a certain way are paid MILLIONS. it's shameful that millions of Americans (men and women) watch their TVs (or sit in a stadium) with all the devoted attention of a spectator of the gladiator fights. because, deep down, that's really what sports are: a nicer way to enjoy the brutal sport of death and pain. obviously, the pressure to perform is enormous; otherwise, there would not be "performance enhancing drugs" out there. and we, the spectators, create this little world of drugs, pain, lies, cheating, underhanded dealings, and destroyed humans. at what cost? i can't begin to fathom. so yes. i advocate the return of the unadulterated human flesh to the sports arena. let the body show what it can do, not what muscle-altering, life-sapping drugs can create. i applaud Canseco for breaking the rules; Jones did what he felt was right, and in the end, that's all most of us do anyway. you can't blame him. he just shouldn't have been an escort.



(see, two rants for the price of one!)



second: (and really, last, because i'm out of rants after this... although i didn't see that sports rant coming... maybe i'll rip on politics. i was a little tipsy when Obama won the election, though, so i guess that shows how much i give a rat's-arse about politics.) the chair.

you know what that is, right? yep, that's the effing TWENTY-EIGHT MILLION DOLLAR CHAIR. (image from here) holy moses. there are a FEW other things you could have bought for $28,000,000. like, a small country in Africa. or circuit city (or at least take care of their closing costs for a month).

seems this piece of crap belonged to Yves Saint Laurent. WHO?! seriously people. come on. mania is one thing. outright ludicrous stupidity is intolerable. why DO stupid people have that much money?

it is stories like this that make me wonder how the hell the human race survived more than a few weeks after inception. how are there several billion of us creeping around when we will do shit like this? economic crisis or not, dropping that much money on something is unforgivable. (seems that was not the biggest buy of the auction; however, it was on TV, and then i saw the web article, and blew a fuse.) this was, of course, at the infamous Christie's, and the sale took in over 200 million. wow. maybe that helped stimulate someone's economy. i hope so. the fact that we have poverty and starvation here in the good old US of A tells me, though, that we need to start learning how to survive--no, live--as a race. i don't even want to talk about the congressional hearing to help stimulate major corporations' pocketbooks while they "fly private jets" and take their VIPs on posh vacations. i worked in a restaurant that entertained VIPs, and trust me, it's a sickening thing to see people treated as higher life forms just because they know how do something like put money in someone's pocket. for crying out loud, learn what a BUDGET is, people.

can anyone FATHOM how much money 28 million dollars is? i just came back from *little Central American country*. let's say, for argument, that the 1.5 liter bottles we bought at the store there were 50 cents. (they were, i think.) yeah, you could buy 21 million liters of water with that. that's enough for about 3 liters of water for every human in *little Central American country that has a little more than 7 million people living in it*. and they don't all need water.

according to babycenter.org, it costs $418,702 to raise a child born in 2009 from 0 to 18 in a city in the NE making over $64,000/year as a two-parent home. you could RAISE 67 kids with 28 mil. NO JOKE.

and motherfucker went and bought a fucking chair.

good job, buddy, next time, give me a call, i could direct you to some dying kids that could use about 10 cents a day to live. no, really.

i think BSG/Adama raised a good question: does humanity deserve to be saved? do we deserve to survive? what the hell have we ever done to validate our existence in the cosmos?

nada, nothing, nil.

i'm done ranting and raving. i'm going to write an e-mail to the dean of the school asking her how i can help raise funds to help repair a little village clinic in *little Central American country with country clinic that fall to pieces*. just trying to make a dent in our cosmic debt.