As I reported earlier William Ligue Jr., whose attack of Chicago White Sox first base coach, Tom Gamboa resulted in a very light penalty is allowed to return to White Sox games. In fact Ligue has returned to watch a game and Inside Edition, that bastion of journalistic integrity (note thick sarcasm), went along to report on it. The story will air this Tuesday.
This just upsets me all around. I'm annoyed that Ligue is even allowed back in the stadium where he obviously couldn't control himself. I'm pissed off that Inside Edition would follow him around and make him a celebrity because of his stupidity. It just makes me sick.
I have resisted commenting on the Dave Bliss situation at Baylor University for several days. I wanted to say something before but I just couldn't figure out how to say it. I'm not sure that I know what to say now but I feel like something needs to be said. There seems to be an epidemic among college coaches that cause them to lose their minds and cheat in every way imaginable and do stupid things like spend the night with a prostitute and then leave your credit card with her or spend all night partying with coeds from the school that just beat your team and then get your picture on the front page of the paper.
David Bliss has taken that stupidity to a whole other level. As a coach at a school that is at least in name Christian (I don't know anything about the school so I can't comment on whether it is still guided by that claim or not) he tried to cover his own butt by defaming the name of a murdered player. He tried to drag everyone else into the scheme, including players and assistant coaches and then he had the audacity to say "It's not like we created his situation. We're the victims." I don't even want to start on that comment, it just makes me sick.
The whole situation makes me sick. The fact that a coach would do something so stupid is disturbing. The fact that this would happen at at "Christian" school hurts even more. I just don't know what to say.
Well, I've got to go to a meeting now. Maybe I will comment a little more later. I've still got some other thoughts about this whole mess. I'd be glad to hear what anyone else is thinking.
I assume that just about everyone knows about the whole Pete Rose ordeal. If you don't, I don't know what hole you have been living in, but I will give you a brief synopsis.
Pete Rose was a great major league baseball player a couple of generations ago (before my time). During his playing career he established himself as a hard-nosed player that earned the nickname "Charlie Hustle." Over his career Rose amassed 4,256 hits, more than any other player in major league history, he had a 44-game hit streak and won a World Series MVP. After finishing his career Rose became a manager for the Cincinnati Reds, the team that he played for. In 1989 Rose was banned for life from baseball for "conduct detrimental to the game." Basically Rose was caught betting on baseball and even worse betting on games that he had a direct effect over. In other words he was betting on games that his team was playing in and therefore games that he could manipulate (to some extent) the outcome of. This is the chief of all sins in baseball and Rose received the equivilant of the death penalty. He was banned from all things baseball and most importantly to his supporters, from the Hall of Fame.
Well the debate has resurfaced as reports have come out that Rose is in the midst of making a deal with Bud Selig, the Comissioner of MLB, to allow him back into baseball. First into the Hall of Fame and then possibly as a manager.
This just makes me sick. If Pete Rose actually bet on games that he could control the outcome of then why do we want him back in baseball? Why would we allow him to manage again? The proof against him is insurmountable yet he has never admitted to wrongdoing. He was convicted of tax fraud because he didn't report his gambling earnings but he won't admit that he gambled. The guy is just sleazy and I don't want him back in baseball. Yeah, maybe he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame as a player based upon his career but he screwed up and took that opportunity away from himself. I have no pity for him. He got what he deserves.
Last September two drunken idiots, a father and his 16 year old son, ran onto the field at a Chicago White Sox/Kansas City Royals game and attacked from behind Tom Gamboa, the elderly first base coach of the White Sox. The idiots were immediately pummeled by players from both teams and then arrested by stadium security. Gambo ended up with a large gash on his head and still is suffering from hearing loss directly related to the attack.
Cook County Judge Leo Holt sentenced William Ligue Jr., the father of the duo, to 30 months probation, community service, parenting classes, he must remain in a substance abuse program and abide by a curfew for 90 days. The maximum sentence could have been 5 years in jail. Judge Holt said that the sentence should not be considered a slap on the wrist because Ligue will have to “live with the stigma of being a convicted felon.” WHAT!?!
Ligue’s son was earlier sentenced to five years of probation and 30 hours of community service but will probably be sent to prison boot camp because he already violated probation. So the son got a stiffer sentence than the father. The judge also said that baseball players encourage violence by throwing at batters and batters charging pitchers and benches-clearing brawls. Because of these things and the fact that Ligue is a drunken idiot he isn’t responsible for his actions. I don’t see the logic. Neither does Tom Gamboa. Maybe they should have just let the players continue to beat the crap out of the two idiots.
This just makes me sick. I’ve got a lot more I could say about this but I don’t have the time and it just continues to make me angry so I am going to stop.
This really pisses me off. Why do people keep selling out to the leftist, liberal, homosexual agenda? Why is the church doing it now? Have these people actually ever read Scripture?
Some people are idiots and I am convinced that PETA is full of them. Here is just one more example.
I just need to rant for a minute. I'm really getting pretty tired of what I see as the corporate world. Or maybe it is just my specific situation. There is just too much politics going around. It just seems that every little thing turns into a major fight. I could go into a lot of details about the specific fights that are going on around me and involving me and because of me and all of that. But I won't do that right now. Basically I just want to make a couple of observations that I think are universal. At least they are universal in my universe.
My first comment is this: the motivation to produce a good product (and by that I mean anything that it is your job to produce or do) does not come from the worker having pride in what they do or from thinking it is their duty to do their job well but rather the primary motivation for producing a good product is so that no one else sees you making a mistake. Letting someone else see you make a mistake seems to be the cardinal corporate sin. I guess this attitude is fostered by desire to be promoted and no one thinks that they are going to be promoted if they are the person that makes the mistakes. Because of this pathology the first response to a problem found is to look for a way to pin it on someone else. There is no desire to find the root of the problem and get it fixed. It is all about finding a way to make it look like someone else screwed up and making them fix it. Needless to say this is not the best way to get a job done, especially when you are working with large numbers of people. It might be fine if you were working alone and there was no one there to see your mistake and you could fix it before anyone else noticed, but when lots of people are working together and everyone is looking over the shoulder of everyone else you have a hard time getting anything done.
My second comment is related to my first. It just seems that all that anyone is concerned about it getting to the top of the corporate ladder. I guess it is just the human nature of greed that feeds this but it is really hard to deal with when you are just concerned about getting your job done and those that you are working with are just concerned about getting themselves noticed. I have been working on a web-driven database application that will be used by several different groups, with several different managers that have lots of employees that want to have themselves heard. Every time that I get together with concerned parties I end up having to fight with people that seem to be just offering suggestions because they want their manager to hear their voice and know that they have an opinion. (At least I hope that their suggestions are just that because if they are being serious then they are basically idiots because their suggestions are horrible. Ok, maybe that was a little harsh, but I'm in a bad mood).
I guess overall I'm just growing tired of being in an environment that fosters tension and greed. Or maybe I'm just in a bad mood because it has been a particularly bad day for such things and I have a headache. We'll see what tomorrow brings.
Sorry for the rant.
This is ridiculous. I am trying to do some VB/ASP.NET/SQL Server 2000 programming on a project that was 3 months overdue before it was turned over to me but I can never get it done. It is usually insane the number of meetings that take place in this corporate setting, but today is particularly insane. Today I will literally spend more time in meetings than I will spend doing any actual work. (Of course there are some days that I have only one meeting but am not particularly productive that the same thing could be said). I came in today and worked from 8:00am until 10:00 and then went to a meeting. The meeting lasted an hour and a half and then I went to lunch. I got back from lunch at 12:30pm and I have another meeting at 1:30 that is supossed to last until 3:00. At that time I will come back to my desk and prepare for the video conference meeting that I am supposed to be leading from 3:30 until 4:30ish (chances are it will last longer). After that last meeting I will try and kill a few minutes and then head home. Today is really going to be an unproductive day. I guess I shouldn't waste any more moments typing this.