10/24/2003 12:49:00 PM by Rob

Sloth Manifesto, Part XLVII

The 47th installment of occasional attempts to either attract or segment an audience.

I think Roy of Seigfried and Roy got what he deserved.

So did Kobe Bryant. So, for that matter, has his accuser. Anyone who goes up, alone, to a professional basketball player's suite to check on the operation of his hot tub is either too naive to be let out of the house, or auditioning for a role in the sequel to the movie Fourteen.

No means no. It is wrong to believe otherwise. How effective your negative declaration is, however, in the short term, depends on the position you have placed yourself in.

We shouldn't spend another fruitless day in Iraq. How come we have to pour billions a week into this run-down Jiffy Lube when we pursue "diplomacy" with North Korea, and we play grab-ass with Saudi Arabia?

ESPN Sportscenter, like all good things, has jumped the shark.

I would never ask my wife, my daughter, my son's girlfriend, my sister, or anyone I really cared about to have an abortion, because I am blessed enough to where I have other options. But at the same time, I would never impose my will, one way or another, about this topic to the rest of you.

You show me a child who, at the age of two, has endured horrific abuse and neglect for every single day of his life, and dies at the hands of a "caregiver", because the mother was too poor, too young, too drug-addled, or too crazy to provide her child with the most minimal of rights, that of food, shelter, safety and an education, and I'll seriously wonder if this child was better off being born.

When you get right down to it, the clowns who parade around with pictures of fetuses, shouting Pro-life, bug me. But even more are the fem-bots who look equally selfish shouting about their freedom of choice, as if aborting a baby should be as simple as treating heartburn. Abortion should NEVER be an instrument of convenience.

So yes, I straddle the fence. Just like nearly everything else in life, there is a time and place for it. But it should be an extreme measure.

I am not in favor of handing out so many death sentences to grown people, either. But, there are those who desperately deserve a ride in Ol' Toasty, for particularly heinous compound or habitual crimes that involve murder, to crimes against the helpless of our society, the young, old, and infirm, and for jaking it after signing a lucrative three-year contract with the Cubs. (Yes, Danny Fucking Jackson, I mean YOU!)

I think the national deficit is wrong, that there will come a day when we simply will be in default to certain parties, and our government will come crashing down, beholden to the Chinese, the Russian Mafia, Matushita Corporation of Nippon, Al Qaida, or something else like that. In college, I interviewed with the NSA, and the theme that they repeatedly drummed was "never leave yourself vulnerable", lest I would then fall prey to some party hell-bent on obtaining national secrets.

Well, then, why are we as a nation making ourselves financially vulnerable? Is this why we can't take on the Saudis, when it is pretty clear that they are the wellspring of most of the terrorism in the world? Are we beholden to those which seek to destroy us? And, why CAN'T we just let Israel take care of themselves? They seem pretty good at it, and tend to kick and scream whenever we ask them to play nice.

Maybe isolationism was a bad thing in the early 1900's, but that is no longer really possible anymore. Maybe we need to pull back, take care primarily of ourselves, and let everyone else fend for themselves. Well, you say, we're here to prevent Hitler from ever coming back....but that hasn't stopped what has happened in Bosnia, Afghanistan, any number of the 'stan's in the old USSR, half of Africa, and we sure as hell aren't going to be able to solve anything between the Israelites and the Palestinians.

We need to take our best minds away from trying to figure out where the next nutcase might be hiding, and put them to work figuring out how we can be more self-supportive, and we can start in figuring out enforceable ways we can get our people to use less oil.

Of course, if the Cubs would have just managed to get the Marlins back in the dugout in the 8th inning of Game 6, all of this would be for naught. It's the truth. It would all still be there, but I wouldn't give a shit less, and neither would you.

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