10/03/2005 11:15:00 AM by Rob

Let us be brave in the attempt

The Cubs lost, the season is over, Dusty Baker is coming back, whoop-de-damn-doo.

Saturday, for the second year, I assisted with the Starved Rock Special Olympics bowling trials, and I am pleased to announce that I won 50 when Horizon House out-pinned Ottawa Friendship House and Grundy County Co-op.

Just Kidding.

This is the start with what I intend to be a long-term association with helping the developmentally challenged. I don't have a lot of spare time or money now, but I envision the day when I may have both, and when I do, I will be a lot more involved with the day-to-day for these folks, not just the Special Olympics. I'm just trying to build a relationship, because for both the members and the staff that care for them, it helps to start out slowly before you jump in feet first. It's a trust issue, and I try to be sensitive.

The way I see it, the priorities in this country are completely backwards, and there just aren't enough good people helping with the people who need it the most: children, the elderly, and the developmentally challenged. Well, kids are cute, and out of the three groups, help tends to gravitate towards them. And I'm not saying that there is any type of sufficient care for the elderly, but the situation is even more grave for the last group, who aren't "cute", who aren't necessarily the beloved parents or grandparents.

The first time I did it last year, I was all full of myself, "congratulations, me, for actually going and doing like you always said you would." This year, though, I didn't come away with the euphoric high. I recognized some of the bowlers, and what's more, THEY recognized me. I came away thinking that these folks really don't need much; and it's truly a shame that even their simple needs are not always met.

For some reason, I came away feeling guilty that I couldn't do more for my own kids; but let's be honest; there isn't much anymore that I can do with either one of them that interests them. Maybe shoot paintballs at each other, that's about it. My wife tells me that I do just fine for them. I wish I could believe her.

So, anyway, I'll end this with my take on the Lynndie England interview on Dateline. (Picture withheld upon reader request). Basically, she is probably only a half-bump up from the folks I was bowling with, if that. I believe everything she says. I believe our government said "to hell with the Geneva Convention", and I believe that everything they did was, at the least, winked at by command, and probably condoned. If the pictures didn't leak out, these same people would probably be getting promotions for their expeditious manner of obtaining information.

I believe that she and the others are being offered up as sacrifical lambs to the Islamic world, in a lip-service attempt to prove our moral superiority to the world. I'm not buying it...not for a second.

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