Why "horrifying" can be an ironic word

Let me start off this entry by acknowledging how much of a non-story it concerns. My reason for bringing it up is to show how ridiculous Yahoo! news, or any other on-line source of "news" for simpletons, can be.
Most of us who are not afraid to use our brains have had the experience of seeing a sensationalist headline catch our eyes on MSN or Yahoo!, clicking on the story and then feeling very disappointed or remarkably aggravated. This story made me feel both.
Martin Fitzmaurice, a compere who has become regarded as "the Voice of Darts" allegedly "horrified" an audience at a recent tournament between England and Scotland. Two examples of the "sickening" jokes included: "What's black and eats bananas? Half of London," and "What's the difference between a P*** and ET? ET went home."  Because Yahoo! engages in censorship like all good politically correct robots, I can't tell you what P*** is. It's either Pole or Paki.
Now then, I can accept that these jokes are inappropriate. Perhaps it's not the job of a tournament host to engage in behavior that strokes and encourages the lowest common denominator.
But is it really "sickening" and "horrifying"? Classifying the Fort Hood massacre as "workplace violence" is sickening. North Korea's saber-rattling is horrifying.
But for modern Western mankind, with its three seconds of short-term memory, such news is too cumbersome to worry about. It's easier for the news networks to stoke the masses with non-stories and inflated rhetoric as to why we all should subsequently be upset and distressed.  If you're not outraged to the point of wanting Fitzmaurice strung up and struck like a piñata, you are an unfeeling ogre and an example of what is wrong with the world.
Needless to say, since this so-called incident, Fitzmaurice was, shall we say, encouraged to quit.
It would be very nice if our politically correct overlords admitted their affinity for censorship and thought control. All they need to do is say that it's to keep from offending (non-whites), and the sheeple and opportunistic claimants of victimhood will happily buy it.  The heck with true, genuinely harmful racism where it exists.  It's all about the headline and feeding the people heavily processed food for thought.

Mike Rice: Another victim of political correctness

This whole "controversy" surrounding Mike Rice, the head coach of the Rutgers basketball team, is inflated nonsense. In fact, Rice is—as so many others before him have been—a victim of political correctness.
There, I said it.
Rice was fired by the university earlier this month after practice video surveillance showed him whipping basketballs at players, grabbing them by the jerseys and kicking at them. He is also heard to have been verbally abusive, at one point telling a player, "You're a fairy, you're a faggot!"
That Mike Rice is passionate, there is no doubt. Did he deserve to be fired? Does he deserve to feel, in his own words, like an embarrassment to his family? He didn't embezzle any money, he didn't commit any crimes of passion, evidence of his friskiness were not found on an intern's dress. He didn't even wipe out an entire village with a drone.
Let's face it, Rice got in trouble because he was pushing minority students around. Once the self-appointed arbiters of justice infecting our social media got a hold of this video, the school was going to suffer a fate almost as bad as that of Penn State. Rice had to be fired to save face, especially since the assumption is people apparently cannot distinguish between raping 10-year-old boys and daring to be confrontational with, say, a 6 foot, 5 inch 19-year-old.
Rice was not abusing a group of people with learning disabilities. He was whipping a group of young, strong men into shape. In fact, for a great many of them, a man like Rice is exactly what they need to keep them humble and wipe the arrogant smirk that comes with being young (as well as the same height as the Washington Monument) and thinking they know everything off their faces. None of these "children" are short on self-confidence and none of them are easily wounded.
One is naturally reminded of Bobby Knight, the cantankerous former head baseketball coach of Indiana University. Knight, famous for knocking over chairs and hollering obscenity-laced tirades at players in the locker room, was made out to be a villain on many occasions. But his players always had his back, showing great devotion to him. One such player was someone by the name of Larry Bird.
Here's the thing: Though Rice was without a doubt a man with a temper, he also knew how to keep a team together. Since his firing, former Rutgers team members have said Mike Rice fostered a "familial" atmosphere. As much as he was brusque with his players, he also showed affection for them by taking them out for meals on the road and talking with them at length about their futures.  As for his behavior on the practice court, one former student has said that while Rice was indeed "in your face," he also gave players the opportunity to respond and speak their minds.
Rice reminds me of my former boss at the supermarket I worked at during my college years. There were plenty of times when I did not like him at all. Yet, in retrospect, I know that he wanted the best for me.
How do I really know that Mike Rice is not the monster he has been made out to be? Because New Jersey governor Chris Christie called him an "animal". 'Nuff said, methinks.

R.I.P. Margaret Thatcher: 1925-2013

I read with sadness yesterday that former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had died. It did not come as a big surprise as her health had been declining for several years.

Baronness Thatcher lead Britain for 11 years, from 1979 to 1990, not always with smoothness but always with great resolve. She believed in the free economy and wished to liberate British manufacturing from the twin yokes of too-powerful trade unions that demanded too much and socialism which, she correctly believed, was the granting of money from those who earn it to those who do or produce nothing yet believe they are entitled to it. This did have the effect of massive unemployment and inflation during her early years, but only because these backs on which British industry had run for decades were finally being broken.

Margaret Thatcher did not cave in. She earned the term "the Iron Lady" from her detractors. She embraced the term, noting that trying to be liked by everyone would achieve nothing. Thatcher stood up for the residents of the Falkland Islands who wished to remain British. It's regrettable that it took a war to do so, but you can blame that on the Argentinian tin-pot regime that invaded the islands, thus precipitating it.

Thatcher did not always get it right, as the implementation of the poll tax—which essentially placed the tax burden on the traditional working class—demonstrated. She was also perhaps a bit overzealous in her desire to privatize almost everything she touched.

But for a few mistakes and the eternal hatred that she will always fetch from those with a red streak running through them, she was as perfect a leader as you could get. By 1979, Britain was in desperate need of a strong-willed Prime Minister who would be serious about turning the British economy and manufacturing base around to reflect capitalist credentials. Like her or loathe her, she was essentially the first Prime Minister of note since Winston Churchill. Who can wax eloquent about Wilson or Callaghan? Macmillan was fairly effective but too quiet and behind-the-scenes.

Thatcher was, admittedly, a bit "school ma'am"-ish.  She reminded you of the head lunch lady, veteran teacher or principal you had when you were in elementary school—an imperious woman that everyone respected but no-one liked.  It didn't matter if she never smiled at you; you were just relieved if she left you alone.

But, in the end, Margaret Thatcher deserves to go down in history as one of the greatest leaders that the Western world has produced.  This is her due, whether you agreed with her strongly or not at all.

There's not much I can say about Lady Thatcher that hasn't already been said over the years by other conservatives. So I will end this entry with what I consider to be some of her most noteworthy quotes:

"I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left."

*   *   *

"To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no-one believes and to which no-one objects."

*   *   *

"Ought we not to ask the media to agree among themselves a voluntary code of conduct, under which they would not say or show anything which could assist the terrorists' morale or their cause?"

*   *   *

"To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukemia with leeches."

*   *   *

"There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty."

*   *   *

"Pennies do not come from heaven. They have to be earned here on Earth."

*   *   *

"Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides."

*   *   *

"If you want to cut your own throat, don't come to me for a bandage."

*   *   *

"The battle for women's rights has largely been won."