Year: 2006

Character Rocks Within Apolo Anton Ohno

ABC News: Unrepentant Bode: ‘Man, I Rocked Here”

Call me old fashioned, but, since when is the Olympic goal to party?

“Me, it’s been an awesome two weeks,” Miller said. “I got to party and socialize at an Olympic level.”

Bode Miller’s attitude has been discussed more than once while watching the programing. The general consensus – too bad another athlete with a competitive goal did not get the opportunity because Body filled the spot.

“As for his obligation to prepare, Miller said he was less ready for these games than the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, where he won two silver medals.”
“I’ve been living my life as if I might have died two weeks before the Olympics started,’ he said. ‘That left me the opportunity to dig deep, to go down that other route, to make more sacrifices and get back to where I was.”

Let us not forget the great television moments that teammates Shani Davisand and Chad Hedrick provided us with as they squabbled and how Jeret Peterson finished off a night of drinking in the mountains with a street scuffle. Well it seems the U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Jim Scherr did not forget these Kodak moments either.

“We have certain expectations,” said Scherr, detailing the code of conduct for the U.S. team. “The athletes have to prepare themselves and compete to the best of their ability. And their behavior should bring honor to the United States.” . .. “It affects how the world views our country, and how the athletes are viewed,” . ..”We’ll use a number of things that happened here to point things out to other athletes. Like case studies.”

Apolo Anton Ohno – Now here is a guy who “Rocked”! and not just because he won some medals, but, because character is what sees you through.

Wealthiest Cabinet in American History

George W Bush has the distinction in the 2002 Guinness Book of World Records of being the most devoted representative yet of corporate interests in the Oval Office:

“George W. Bush (inaugurated as the 43rd US president on January 20, 2001) has assembled the wealthiest cabinet in American history by appointing more multi millionaires to the top rank of his government than any of his predecessors. Of the 16 full government members at the heart of the Bush administration, 13 are multimillionaires, seven of them own assets more than $10 million. His cabinet has acquired the nickname `tycoon’s club.’ Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill each have declared assets of at last $61 million, while Secretary of State Colin Powell has a least $18 million.”

Guinness World Records 2002, by Antonia Cunningham (Editor), Mark C. Young, Bantam Books, April 2002, p.57

Just in case you did not know what the interests of the people at the top of the the Executive Branch of the United States government were. Follow the money.

Stupid People In the News

Police said a 20-year-old was found upside down in an air duct of the 98 Cent store on Fruitridge Road. It took firefighters several hours to get him out. He was then taken to the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento. The twenty year old was caught upside down in an air duct of a local 98 Cent store. It took the firefighters several hours to get him out. He ended up being taken to a local Medical Center. He might be our rooftop burgler.

Three people were arrested for stealing A DIRECTV vanfrom Vacaville. It was cornered near Northgate Boulevard and Interstate 80. The tracking device on board made it rather easy to find them. Unfortunatly, they plowed through a fence and some pallets of bricks before the surveillance video from a nearby business recorded them jumping out of the van.

Killing: Absolutes do not Exist in a Referential Relative World

Absolutes do not exist in a referential relative world.

If killing is killing and all taking of life is lumped together then it would be wrong to take a life in self-defense or to protect my neighbor, an innocent child, or a family member, from imminent death or grievous harm. I suggest these simplistic definitions to separate the differences between killing and murder for the sake of discussion.

Murder is a deliberate taking of human life.
Killing is to save human life from gravis harm.

Now I have set out my definitions I will try to apply them to an article posted on another blog. Whether my response is a wacky or thoughtful one shall be judged by you the reader.

“Killin is killin folks and revenge is the basest of emotions. Yet we have legalized it in America and cling to it with a tenacity only found in psychopaths. We are the only civilized nation left on the planet that still uses the death penalty. We’re up their with Saudie Arabia and Iran on this one. War? The whole concept of killing men, women and children you don’t even know for some grand ideal. What ideal could be so great that it would call for the murder of strangers? This concept is even more bizarre than killing for revenge. What, killing strangers is ok as long as I’m imposing my beliefs or my system of government on them?”

“We are the only civilized nation left on the planet that still uses the death penalty”

According to Amnesty International, during 2004 more than 3,797 people were executed in 25 countries, and more than 7,395 people were sentenced to death in 64 countries.
Executions have been carried out by the following methods since 2000:

Beheading (in Saudi Arabia, Iraq)
Electrocution (in USA)
Hanging (in Egypt, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Pakistan, Singapore and other countries)
Lethal injection (in China, Guatemala, Philippines, Thailand, USA)
Shooting (in Belarus, China, Somalia, Taiwan, Uzbekistan, Viet Nam and other countries)
Stoning (in Afghanistan, Iran)

I will leave the decision to you whether or not a country qualifies to be civilized. The death penalty is murder. It is the purposeful taking of a life. If the sentence is imposed because the party killed or murdered another human, murdering them will not safe the life taken.

“The whole concept of killing men, women and children you don’t even know for some grand ideal. What ideal could be so great that it would call for the murder of strangers?”

Unfortunately once humans formed tribes and alliances based upon geographical and spiritual reasons we moved from individual responses to group responses. If group A murders Group B, and Group C defends group B, is it murder or killing?

It is a deliberate purposeful attack but group C is saving group B’s lives. I propose that if group C saves more lives than group A would take, it is killing. If group C kills more of group B then it is murder.

If group A is defending, its members lives by attacking group B then group A is killing. If they do it to steal their food or land, it is murder.

Obviously I could go on with different scenarios, but, I am sure have an idea of how the discussion would go.

“What, killing strangers is ok as long as I’m imposing my beliefs or my system of government on them? Taking human life to impose beliefs, religious or governmental, fails the killing test and is murder by my simple definitions posed above.

Groups laws do not define what is good and bad, they just reflect the morality of their society. Killing is either good or bad based on its ethical acceptability. And ethics are defined, for example by religions. Explaining why killing is just or unjust we go to a higher “authority”. If god said killing was always ok, would you start murdering everyone? On earth, the concepts of good and evil are out of Gods jurisdiction. Depending on ones personal beliefs there might be a problem when in death you face your God.

Standard moral discussions on war bring up the application of three criterions:

Public authority – only a legitimate government may wage war. Vigilantes and terrorists cannot do it

Just cause – War may be waged only to save innocent life, to make sure people can live decently, and to protect their natural rights

Right intention – your just cause has to be your actual reason for going to war.

Like I stated: Absolutes do not exist in a referential relative world.