Sunday, August 29, 2010
Randy Coulture Drops James Toney Like a Bad Habit
James Toney’s first MMA fight (against living legend, 47-year-old Randy Coulture) didn’t make it out of the first round. It didn’t even make it out of the fourth minute. What was this dummy thinking?
Yes, James Toney is an accomplished boxer who has been KO’ing people since the late 1980s. But the UFC isn't a boxing match with 16-oz. gloves laced on 90-IQ gorillas. The morons who said Toney had a "puncher’s chance" and were brain-dead enough to put their money on this stiff obviously never wrestled.
Watching Randy mug this goon reminded me of my Morris Hills High School Fraternity Brothers visiting Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, NJ, for my birthday. A fight broke out between our party (a few college freshmen and about a dozen high school guys) and another party of perhaps 20 college-age upper classmen, most of them starting players for FDU’s Divison-Three football team. The FDU defensive line was bigger, older, stronger and seriously outnumbered my teenage pals. And we beat the bejesus out of them (didn't we Johno?)
The moral of the story: Don’t fight wrestlers.
Yes, James Toney is an accomplished boxer who has been KO’ing people since the late 1980s. But the UFC isn't a boxing match with 16-oz. gloves laced on 90-IQ gorillas. The morons who said Toney had a "puncher’s chance" and were brain-dead enough to put their money on this stiff obviously never wrestled.
Watching Randy mug this goon reminded me of my Morris Hills High School Fraternity Brothers visiting Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, NJ, for my birthday. A fight broke out between our party (a few college freshmen and about a dozen high school guys) and another party of perhaps 20 college-age upper classmen, most of them starting players for FDU’s Divison-Three football team. The FDU defensive line was bigger, older, stronger and seriously outnumbered my teenage pals. And we beat the bejesus out of them (didn't we Johno?)
The moral of the story: Don’t fight wrestlers.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
A Couple of Buildings, Once Upon a Time
With regard to the proposed mosque at Ground Zero (let’s call it the “We’re Erecting a Mosque as an Act of Gloating as We’ve Always Done Historically on Every Battlefield Where We’ve Ever Claimed Victory” Mosque), Norm Breyfogle (artist of Batman and other comics) naively laments on his FaceBook, “What's on my mind? Freedom of religion. Isn't Islam a religion? Isn't the First Amendment still in effect? I mean, it hasn't been rescinded or anything, has it?”
Among the many comments from many folks, mine: “Cannibalism is a religion, too. So was Manson's family, Jim Jones's cult, the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh... You are using semantics (the First Amendment or otherwise) to defend the wrong people. This is not a freedom of religion issue.”
To which the comicbook writer Elliot S. Maggin adds, “Stop. Explain please. In what Universe and under what circumstances is this anything other than a freedom of religion issue?”
To which I clarify: “The people financing this edifice to sacrificial infidels are mocking us after backing other acts of human terrorism. And it's good, well-meaning folks like you, Elliot, and Norm, and a host of other idealists who make them realize what a soft and easy target America has become. As I said earlier, the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is a religion, too. By strict, fifth-grade interpretation of the First, you'd have to legitimize them as well. But that's not how things work.”
To which Maggin appends (and you can feel his fists clenching): “How things work is a lame and logic-free rationale for casual and convenient divergence from fundamental principles. Interpretation of the First Amendment in this case - and in most cases - is simply a matter of reading and understanding it. And to ascribe the equation of the downtown community center’s financing with the people who once upon a time sent a gang of killers to drop a couple of buildings on the people who currently own this onetime coat shop and our other neighbors to fifth-grade level logic would be grossly generous. This attitude is on its face the worst and most un-American type of ideological prejudice.”
To which I sighed. Because the enemies of America read this and laugh. Because there were even certain Jews who voted for Hitler (and would do so again) as fear makes certain types of high-verbal, otherwise intelligent people (who are all-too-often Jewish) tragically unintelligent when it comes to their own survival. And I replied, “Your belief that the attacks of Sept. 11 were once upon a time and merely a couple of buildings tells me everything I need to know. I'm sure you're as well-intentioned as the Jews on Kristallnacht who said, 'So they broke a few windows. It's nothing we can't fix…' As much as I'd hope you're right about your belief that there are moderates among these people who just want to pray their own way, it's historically clear that you are terribly, dangerously mistaken. Our very decent Constitution is just one of the weapons they are turning on us now. Welcome to The United States of Atlantis before they sink it."
And I sighed eternally.
Among the many comments from many folks, mine: “Cannibalism is a religion, too. So was Manson's family, Jim Jones's cult, the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh... You are using semantics (the First Amendment or otherwise) to defend the wrong people. This is not a freedom of religion issue.”
To which the comicbook writer Elliot S. Maggin adds, “Stop. Explain please. In what Universe and under what circumstances is this anything other than a freedom of religion issue?”
To which I clarify: “The people financing this edifice to sacrificial infidels are mocking us after backing other acts of human terrorism. And it's good, well-meaning folks like you, Elliot, and Norm, and a host of other idealists who make them realize what a soft and easy target America has become. As I said earlier, the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is a religion, too. By strict, fifth-grade interpretation of the First, you'd have to legitimize them as well. But that's not how things work.”
To which Maggin appends (and you can feel his fists clenching): “How things work is a lame and logic-free rationale for casual and convenient divergence from fundamental principles. Interpretation of the First Amendment in this case - and in most cases - is simply a matter of reading and understanding it. And to ascribe the equation of the downtown community center’s financing with the people who once upon a time sent a gang of killers to drop a couple of buildings on the people who currently own this onetime coat shop and our other neighbors to fifth-grade level logic would be grossly generous. This attitude is on its face the worst and most un-American type of ideological prejudice.”
To which I sighed. Because the enemies of America read this and laugh. Because there were even certain Jews who voted for Hitler (and would do so again) as fear makes certain types of high-verbal, otherwise intelligent people (who are all-too-often Jewish) tragically unintelligent when it comes to their own survival. And I replied, “Your belief that the attacks of Sept. 11 were once upon a time and merely a couple of buildings tells me everything I need to know. I'm sure you're as well-intentioned as the Jews on Kristallnacht who said, 'So they broke a few windows. It's nothing we can't fix…' As much as I'd hope you're right about your belief that there are moderates among these people who just want to pray their own way, it's historically clear that you are terribly, dangerously mistaken. Our very decent Constitution is just one of the weapons they are turning on us now. Welcome to The United States of Atlantis before they sink it."
And I sighed eternally.
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