The Collins Twins

 

 Honestly, I care more about the sexuality of these Collins twins more than I would ever care about the sexuality...

...of either of these Collins twins.

I've been a Collins fan for a while.
I followed their careers from their winning CIF in high school at Harvard-Westlake in L.A. to their success at Stanford.
Being away from home, I root for any SoCal native to do well in anything.

But sports is a strange world in which participants often imagine themselves as being 'warriors' or 'gladiators' - where masculinity is thought to be requisite.
(Although I'm sure, if all things were known, some teams could be a modern day Sacred Band of Thebes.)

 

It seems that even in female athletics that the most dominant players are often the most 'manly'.

 

But back to the issue with Jason Collins...
So the dude is gay and playing professional sports - the male interaction in most sports is pretty much 'prison-gay' anyway.
Locker room horseplay is more about the domination of another male than it is anything else - even the games themselves revolve around a man (or a group of men) dominating other men in some sort of physical manner.
Guys often call their teammates, 'my bitch' or 'my ho' as a term of fraternal endearment.
Jokes about ones penis or the penises of others are often the talk of the day.
Men dress in color-coordinated matching outfits for games and shower together after them.
The close bonds formed between most athletes could be seen as getting pretty close to the crossing the line into homosexuality.

 The recent gang rape cases involving athletes is just about as gay as it gets.
In fact, what could be more gay than using a drunken woman as ones frot toy?

(Dude, you're just using the woman as a barrier for you to engage in a sexual act - with... another... man.
You're gay !!!)
The fact that these cases are excused as being part of a team sporting culture just reinforces the gay-ness of many guys involved in sports.

 So back again to Jason Collins...
I.
Don't.
Care.
I prefer these Collins twins.

Money Kids

It's odd. These days many kids think that there is some magical genie who just creates money out of thin air. (Okay, the Federal Reserve does not count in this case.)
I've never seen so many kids walking around with Beats, Jordans, Polo units and G-Shock watches - while I know that their parents are still renting apartments, using payday loans and complaining about being on some imaginary 'plantation'.

I was talking to a nightclub promoter who is sick of the business and wants to give something back to a community plagued by poverty, ignorance, obesity and crime.
As we were discussing his next step, his son asked for money to pay for a week of summer basketball camp.
"These kids are spoiled. They just don't understand money", he said to me.
"What if we started a summer camp for entrepreneurs?", I said jokingly.

The odd thing is is that it's already being done in other cities.
We still have to create our curricula, find instructors, create logos, market the idea, find a building and business project and find a price point for our tuition - yet we signed up four corporate sponsors the first night of discussion.

I'm no teacher.
I know very little about business (even though mine is doing well).
In fact, I don't even know how much to charge or whether I should just make it a not for profit endeavour.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Calvin and Hobbes

Forget Hooked on Phonics or Your Baby Can Read - a good comic strip is much more engaging than either of them could ever be.

When I was a kid, The Silver Surfer was my comic book of choice but as I got older I'd look forward to reading the daily strips in our local news paper featuring a kid and his imaginary tiger.
For over a decade this energetic kid and his sardonic tiger would keep me laughing just for the sake of enjoyment.
Some would say that 'smart' people read Doonesbury - but I'd counter that 'geniuses' read Calvin and Hobbes.
I don't know what it was about this bad-assed kid but even today I'll spend a part of an evening reading the old Bill Watterson crafted panels.

I used to wish for an animated version of the strip yet in ones mind is a better place for these characters to reside.
The mind fills in gaps which could never be translated to film or video.
The mind creates voices to which one can relate and understand.
Calvin's mind is where these characters (along with Susie Derkins, I'm assuming) go in a recently released 'film teaser'.

In the trailer, Calvin wants to grow up but his imagination won't let him.
Jaded and weary parents, revenge-seeking snowmen, monsters lurking under his bed, Dinosaurs and other and familiar manifestations all seem to make an appearance in this fake trailer.

One odd image in the short film struck me as odd.
It showed a seemingly 'crucified' Hobbes being tormented in the depths of the earth.
Hobbes was Calvin's best friend and protector...
Are angels just manifestations of fearful humans created to comfort us when we're alone?

A Different Generation

 How a 73 year old lady works her sexy.

How a 23 year old trap-house model twerks her ratchet ass.

Skylar !!!

 Sorry, Val.

Dayumm...!!!!

 Most guys from a generation ago can remember the hit on Joe Theisman which caused many a grown man's nuts to retreat back into his belly.

Now a new generation has it's own stomach-curdling injury thanks to Kevin Ware.

Facebook Is NOT Your Friend

 Who fell for the 'ease of use' shtick sold to them by Blogger, Google Chrome, Facebook and/or any other social media site?
(Why would I want to link one site to my other sites?)
Oh, and to ensure that you don't lose your password, don't forget to add your phone number as well?
Hasn't everyone read about the tracking these sites provide?
Doesn't everyone know that any information posted on the Internet can be used against them?

I use the site as a marketing tool for the club but for little else.
I can keep track of other clubs in the area, invite patrons to special events or just wish someone a "Happy Birthday".
But I'd never post anything I'd want to hide from anyone.

 One recent incident involved a man who tried to stunt on facebook with his tax return money.
The thing is; the dude was arrears in his child support payments.
The guy had maybe $500 and was he acting as though he was Drake at a strip club.

 I've known several women who have had their children taken away from them by ex-husbands because of their booty-poopin' pictures on facebook.
I've known guys who were caught in pictures with their girlfriends who called me later so that I could delete the photos before their wives or her friends saw them.

And why do people post pictures of slop on paper plates as though they were dining at Ruth's Chris?

I Wish It WOULD HAVE Happened Here

So Cyprus postponed it's controversial plan to straight jack the savings of it's citizens in order to pay off some bank debt (20k-100k euros at 6.75% and more than 100k euros at 9.9% of their deposits).
This is terrible.
Why put ones money in banks when banks can just take it whenever they get into trouble?

The thing is; everyone was set to receive stocks in the banks in exchange for their seized assets.
Just think of what would have happened if everyone in America would have gotten bank (or brokerage firm, insurance company, or any other financial institution that needed and received a bailout) stocks for all the money lost in our most recent financial scare?
If your 401k lost $500,000?
Cool, you'd now own a percentage of the debt we are all expected to pay off without receiving any compensation.
The thing is; the bankers would get their money but the citizens would now own the banks.
If the citizens owned the American banking/investment system, we would be able to fire all of the people who were and are benefiting from their past and present greed.
The workers' would control the payment structure of it's executive employees.
Our banking system would have become a nationwide member-owned credit union with it's board being answerable to it's owner-members.
What's so bad about that?

"Black" Television?

 Val commented that she only recently discovered the existence of the over the air Bounce Network.
The network is only two years old with limited (but growing) penetration into US markets.
The thing about Bounce is that it is a Black-owned network geared towards Blacks.

Some may cite TV One (Radio One (51%) and Comcast are partners) as being another "Black television network.

A quick look at the company's investment/management structure would lead me to agree. 

 Others may think of Centric and BET as being more representative of the Black television market.
But since Bob Johnson sold out to Viacom - most Blacks are just being resold their own culture from a Euro-Centric conglomerate.

Sure, Oprah has the Oprah Winfrey Network (Through Harpo Productions in partnership with the Discovery Network) - but is it still a "Black" network?

It's odd. With talk about what is "Black" (Black-Owned v. Geared Towards Blacks) - Blacks don't even own a major presence on the most democratic medium available (the Internet).
Even The Grio is owned by NBC News and The Root is owned by The Washington Post.