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Television That Is Better Than Most Books

The WireFrom the looks of its ratings, there’s a good chance you’ve never watched HBO’s “The Wire”, and that’s okay.  You probably haven’t heard much about it.  It’s not the kind of show most of the people you work with will stand around and talk about.  Honestly, it’s not the kind of show most of the people you work with can grasp.  But that’s not the fault of the show.

If you think about it, most television dramas are written for the kids you went to high school with who got through literature class either reading Cliff Notes or speed reading the whole novel in a night.  They could ace the test when asked to regurgitate the main events of the book and could tell you about the characters, plot and major themes.  There’s nothing wrong with that necessarily, it’s just a reality–most people have a hard time thinking beyond what is merely written.  I think that’s the reason The Wire doesn’t get the attention it deserves from the average television viewer.  The Wire is literary television.

You walk away from each episode of The Wire wanting to talk about it.  When I say “talk about it”, I don’t mean “what do you think will happen next week?”  I mean you walk away actually discussing it.  If you watched it alone, you wish you had someone with whom you could share your thoughts.  It’s something that stays with you.  You come away drawing parallels to what you see happening in real life with education, politics, and the war on drugs.  You are forced to ask yourself some very tough questions about your own belief system and how it applies to situations you aren’t likely to encounter in your own life.  In effect, The Wire does all the things through the medium of television that good literature does through writing–it forces you to think.

HBO has shown each season OnDemand in the months leading up to the fifth and final season which begins in January, and they’ve also shown a couple of mini-docs about the making of the show and the reality it portrays.  Someone (I can’t remember who) commented in one of these documentaries that a possible reason the show isn’t a ratings success is that the majority of America just isn’t comfortable watching a program with a predominantly black cast.  But I’m not sure that’s the case.  I think the real reason may be that most Americans aren’t interested in making the intellectual investment to enjoy a show like The Wire.

I was probably wrong when I said that it’s okay if you’ve never watched The Wire.  I wasn’t considering my audience.  What I should have said is that it is okay that most Americans have never watched The Wire.  You?  I expect more from you.  Check it out on Netflix or Blockbuster and get ready for some serious couch marathoning.

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Ron Paul’s Money Is Coming From People Like Us

It looks like the Paul campaign will easily pass the $17 million mark before midnight. I’m guessing that’s going to result in $5.5 to $6 million raised on December 16 alone.

What’s most impressive to me is that this money is being raised by regular, every day people, in most cases $100 at a time. Earlier in the day, Ron Paul’s website reported that they’d received $3.6M from more than 30,000 people. Personally, I don’t know anyone who has or will reach the $2,300 individual limit, and I’m guessing that’s because people like us just can’t afford that much.

What separates Dr. Paul’s campaign from the other candidates is that it is being driven by a very large number of people who care, even if they can only able to give a couple of hundred bucks. I’ve heard several of my friends who are supporting Dr. Paul say, “I’ve never given to a political campaign before, but this is different.”

UPDATE:  Point reiterated here.

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Join the Tea Party!

I Heart Ron Paul
Up late keeping up with Ron Paul’s contribution totals at www.ronpaul2008.com

At 12:26 ET, he’s at $11.8M for the fourth quarter–the goal for the quarter was $12M. I checked just before midnight, and he was at ~$11.5M, which means roughly $250k in contributions during the first 30 minutes or so.

This thing may get huge. Look for some serious mainstream coverage Monday!

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More on Steroids and Baseball

After yesterday’s post, I’ve had a chance to read a little more and think about the issue. This is so obviously a free market issue to me. If baseball fans demand a clean up, we’ll have one. Frankly, I don’t think many of the baseball fans that are left really care one way or the other.

HungryMother brought up health issues in yesterday’s comments. Admittedly, a health issues exist, but are the health issues of baseball players a concern of Congress? Should Congress also step in and do something about the years shaved off of pro football players’ lives? Average life expectancy for football player is 55 years, and only 52 years for linemen, according to this article, and the NFL has arguably the most stringent drug policy of all the professional leagues in the U.S. Consider boxing and stock car racing.

Should Congress investigate every time someone’s chosen occupation is a risk to their life and health?

People make personal choices, some of which shorten their lives. Athletes are people too. Some choose to use steroids and risk their health and lives in doing so. Others choose to participate in a sport that takes years off their life by itself.  How much resolution to we really need in federal regulation and oversight?

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Knoxville Mans Shares Love For Jesus With Prostitute

Unfortunately for him, she wasn’t feeling it.

“I ain’t saying what I did was smart, but I don’t think I did anything wrong,” Bohannon said. “I just saved an infant’s life, and maybe helped spread the love of Jesus a little bit.”

You have to give it to the guy.  Only a true optimist could find the silver lining in getting carjacked by a hooker and her “friend” at knife point in her hotel room.  It gets better:

Bohannon says he picked up Stephanie Rae Starcher, 30, early Tuesday morning to share his Christian testimony. He said he didn’t know she was what police call an admitted prostitute or that he’d end up losing his car to the man in her motel room.

“Early” here probably means 2:00am, not 7:30 am.  Of course, I’m speculating.

This is, by far, the best excuse I’ve heard so far for picking up a prostitute and taking her to a motel room.  Usually on Cops they give some lame excuse like, “She’s my cousin and I’m taking her to work” or the like.  But this guy got super creative.  Bonus points for that.

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Steroids and Baseball–Let The Records Stand

The report everyone’s been on the edge of their seat anticipating was released today.  Of course, there were the names you’d expect to see (Bonds, Giambi, Sheffield, and McGwire), but there were some surprising names on the list:  Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, and Eric Gagne, among them.  Notice something here?

The pitchers are/were juicing too…not just the hitters!

This changes everything in my mind.  I’m more than happy to let any records a steroid user attained competing against a bunch of other steroid users stand.

Ask not why these players were juicing, ask why the rest of the league wasn’t! 

The report culminated a 20-month investigation by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, hired by commissioner Bud Selig to examine the Steroids Era.

The real question should be, “why the hell are my tax dollars being spent to fund a 20-month investigation into a kids’ game?”

Note to Congress:  this is why we have a media.  If When the truth comes out about steroid use in baseball, it will be baseball’s problem to deal with.

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Ike Turner — R.I.P.

What can be said about him that hasn’t already been said by Ice Cube?

Ike TurnerWhen I was little I didn’t wanna be like Mike
I wanted to be like Ike, cause
Papa Was A Rolling Stone in the sixties
And he liked green like Bill Bixby
Told me that my best friend was a ten and a twenty
Pockets never skinny

–Down For Whatever

It’s quote Ice Cube Day!

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That’s Not A Steroid Problem…THIS is a Steroid Problem.

Reason brings up some excellent points about athletics, police, and steroid abuse.

Given that police officers carry guns, night sticks, and tasers, and that they have the power to use lethal force when necessary, one would think our politicians would be more concerned about illegal use of a drug known to contribute to fits of rage and violence among law enforcement than use by a bunch of baseball players.

One would think.  As far as I’m concerned, you can throw in football players, weight lifters, cage fighters, and especially professional wrestlers into the “who cares?” category.

This stems from a story in the New York Daily News was written after

…27 NYPD officers cropped up on the client lists of a Brooklyn pharmacy and three doctors linked to a pro sports steroid ring.

I’d never really thought about cops on steroids, but it seems like the type of job that would foster steroid use to me.  Of course, I haven’t been beaten down by a juicer with a badge recently either.  I just assume that there is a certain percentage of people in all lines of work who use steroids (and heroin, and meth, and marijuana, etc.).  Could it expain some instances of excessive use of force or brutality?  Possibly.  But I wouldn’t go jumping to those conclusions any more than I would for people in any other line of work.

It’s probably fair to say that I’ve known at least one person who was on the juice since I was 16 years old, but I’ve never seen what I’d call ‘roid rage.  The violent assholes I’ve known who were juicing had always been violent assholes and probably always will be.

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Let’s Hook Up!

If you are any one of these social networks, feel free to look me up and add me to your network or favorite me, whichever the case may be. If you see some here that you aren’t using yet, I’ve given a really quick synopsis of what they are and why you’d use them.


View blog authority

Technorati–probably the biggest blog directory and networking site.
My username there is ‘beefstooge’. I have a couple of active blogs listed there (including this one) and a couple of projects that are in the works. On Technorati, you “favorite” other blogs. They also have some great widgets you can use on your blog.


Digg!
Digg
I call this a social news filter. People nominate, or “Digg”, stories they like, and if other people like them they can Digg them as well, increasing the value of the story. Posts with high Digg counts are considered important and get displayed on the front page. Sort of a free market for the news. My name there is, you guessed it, ‘sadcox’. If you blog about something that is popular with Digg readers, be sure to submit it. This will result in a steady stream of traffic for some time to come.

Del.icio.us
I use del.icio.us as my primary bookmarking mechanism. Unlike bookmarking in your browswer, you can tag a bookmark into as many categories as you like. The other advantage is that you can reach them from anywhere, not just your computer. You are also able to tag stories for other people in your network. Read something you think I may like? Tag it as for:sadcox, and I’ll be sure to read it.

StumbleUpon Sadcox.StumbleUpon.com
Stumbleupon is just plain fun, but also a great way to drive traffic to your site. Using their browser toolbar, you can “stumble” onto great sites that other people have liked (you can choose to stumble only your friends’ favorites as well). For site owners, loads of traffic can result from a good stumble. My Stumbleupon address is sadcox.stumbleupon.com.

Twitter
My username there is ‘sadcox’. This one is great for quick-hit ideas or “tweeting” live events like debates, ball games, etc.

Blog Catalog–Blogger’s network and directory.
My username there is ‘sadcox’. Connect with other bloggers, build your network, and get widgets to display on your site.

MyBlogLog–Blogger’s network and directory
My username there is ‘sadcox’. Very similar to BlogCatalog. They were recently acquired by Yahoo!, so you can use your Yahoo! account to sign up.

There are countless other networking sites out there, but these are some of the bigger ones for bloggers and surfers. If there’s one I missed that you want to hook up on, let me know.

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Ready For The Majors?

Political operatives employed in public positions, no-bid contracts awarded to friends, e-mail theft, nepotism and cronyism (the KNS is full of links on this), renaming of positions to stay on the payroll, lobster for lunch, trips paid for with misdirected funds, secret meetings to determine public policy, providing funds to apparently fake entities, strongarming the citizens to vote for one tax to avoid another, etc.

Who says government isn’t efficient?  Knox County was able to accomplish all of this (and who knows what else)  in just a few years!

My question is, what are these guys doing messing around in little ol’ Knox County?  They should skip over state level gov’ment and head straight to the Federal level where they can do some real damage.  I haven’t commented on this in a while, but geesh…will it ever end?