We don't need another hero

So when does a persons good actions compensate for their bad ones? I know that trying to quantify forgiveness is the kind of thing that can cause a German monk to hammer a list of grievances to a heavy wooden door, but I’ve been thinking about two deeply flawed heroes.

Let’s start with TJ. Jefferson was a great thinker for his time: The major author of a set of rules for government that would last around 200 years (hopefully more). A man who valued reason and morality over blind fear and claimed that all people have “certain unalienable rights.” Thomas Jefferson took freedom and individuality and made them into a working system of government.

However, he owned slaves. I know that everyone¹ owned slaves in his day, but Jefferson believed that they were more akin to livestock than people. He thought one day they could be free, but not in society with white people. "Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. [But] the two races...cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them." So much for all men are created equal.

He never freed his slaves, which is a sticking point to many in modern times. Being that slaves were considered property , Jefferson used them as collateral for his mortgage. He could not free them while insolvent which he was most of his life. He had an opportunity late in his life to free his slaves. A friend of his died and named Jefferson as his executor. This friend asked that the monies from his estate be used to free Jefferson’s slaves. Jefferson turned down the offer, citing age as an issue. When Jefferson died he only freed a few of his slaves, the ones believed his children with Sally Hemmings.

So, amongst the good and the bad, where does he stand? Can we celebrate a man who brings such a wave distain to some? Is condemning him in spite of his accomplishments the answer? Can’t we all just get along?

Then there is Michael Vick. A football player so good in college that he left after is sophomore year to join the NFL draft. Picked #1 overall by the Falcons his performance was good, but not good enough to carry a sloppy team to a Superbowl. Know for his flashy style and superstar status, his jersey quickly became the most popular one ordered by fans. Mostly quiet in the press box, he caused little stir off the field. Initially. 2004 was the infamous “Water Bottle” incident where he tried to sneak pot onto an airplane in a water bottle. This caused people to wonder if he was just stupid or cocky. In 2005 he was charged in a civil suit for willing giving a woman genital herpes. The incident was remarkable more for the pen name he used at the hotel (Ron Mexico) than for the fact that he infected someone. After failing to bring Lombardy home to Atlanta, the fans started to grouse about his performance. After the fourth straight loss in the ’06 – ’07 season, he flipped off the crowd as they boo’d him into the locker room. His ego was surpassing the team and he was getting known as a “coach killer” in the locker room.

Then finally, came the dog fighting ring. This resulted with 18 months in prison and Vick being suspended from the NFL. The word was that it was over for Vick. After he was out of prison, it would be 8 years since he was drafted and “past his prime” in the eyes of many, especially for a QB who made so many plays with his feet as opposed to his arm. His endorsement gone, he would end up broke and forgotten upon release.

In the spirit of COPS goes Disney, Vick gets a second chance with the Philadelphia Eagles as a back up to another QB known for his footwork, Donovan McNabb. After a year, McNabb is given the boot and Vick wins the starting job. His 2010 season has been one long highlight reel and talk is starting about Hall of Fame enshrinement.

Part of Vick’s sentence is to go to different schools and tell kids, “Don’t be bad like I was.” He seems as genuine as any other pro athlete who has been caught with their hand in the dog biscuit jar. The kids believe it, the fans believe it (except for the Fans from Washington and Dallas of course) and the talking heads on ESPN believe it.

So, what if it’s true? What if Michael Vick is genuinely sorry? Do we forgive and forget that young spoiled punk from 2007 and welcome the upstanding young man in green of 2010?  Sports fans will (mostly) say yes and animal lovers will (mostly) say no. Just like white people will overlook Jefferson’s slave owner ship and blacks will not. These two figures are so alike and so different. Vick is redeeming himself from his tarnished past, and Jefferson’s legacy becomes cloudy as our society becomes enlightened. Do we judge them by their actions? Their intentions? Accomplishments? Sins? What should that one word caption underneath them read? Hero or Villian?

People hate to be thrown into a category but are so eager to get out the label maker for the rest of us. Why can’t we let Vick and Jefferson just be complex and fully fleshed out characters? We seem to be too deeply invested in both hero-worship and our own priorities to remember that we ourselves so seldom fit into good or bad categories. I’m curios to know how a black descendant of Jefferson’s feels, or an Eagle fan who works for PETA. If their deep love of both sides of the equation can find “sum happiness.”

Fly the "touchy-feely" skies

Personally, I decided that I was never going to fly again over a year ago. I don't mind airplanes. I actually kinda like watching the other side of clouds and the cheap headsets and mini pillows you get. but, when it got to a point that you had to show up two hours early before your flight I started thinking it was a little excessive. When "jokes" about leaving your things unattended are prohibited, I thought they were taking themselves too seriously. But when they missed the Exacto blade in my carry-on, I knew that it was all for show. 

Dave Barry recently went through the new airport security system. You know, the one that shows "everything". He apparently (pun intended) suffers from a "blurred groin" which meant that he was subject to a pat down, one of the new, more thorough pat downs, that is palm up and resembles reaching third base in middle school. While he was being "examined" one of the security guards was going on and on about how he was a fan of Mr. Barry's work. This guy knew it was the Dave Barry, yet still he had to go through the whole "you-show-me-yours-I'll-show-you-to your-seat" process. Seriously? Did they think some radical group of terrorists was going to brainwash Dave Barry into a suicide mission?!

The problem with airport security is that over the top measures that aren't going to change anything. Here's what is going to happen: in about two years another really dumb bomber is going to succeed in getting explosives on a plane. How? He's going to pack his rectum full of C-4. He'll get caught when someone realizes that he has been in the bathroom way too long and they bust in on him trying to light a wet wick. Soon afterwards, measures will be passed that passengers will be subject to random cavity searches. And who is going to be searched? That 84 year old grandmother. A 14 year old boy on a scouting trip. A pregnant mother with her two other kids. Every single person that you would least suspect. The worst part? We'll let them do it.

Look. I know terrorists are scary. Airplanes are great big shiny targets for them. They make really big explosions and are filled with people going to meet relatives. So when they die, there is lots of sad, tearful footage of widows crying and children who were waiting for daddy to come home. How about we just agree that flying is dangerous and leave the security measures at checking the bags and bomb sniffing dogs, because no matter what you do, someone is going to find a way through. No need to suffer radiation poisoning from big expensive machines, no need to limit my toothpaste to .02 ounces and no under trained community school reject feeling me up without buying me a drink. 

Life is full of risks. Deal with it.

Tradition or tacky

I don’t know how I came to this, but I found myself looking up the dollar dance on Wikipedia. I’m quite familiar with the dollar dance, so I don’t know how or why I felt the need to look it up, but there I was. It mentions that it’s a German/polish tradition which makes perfect sense to me. The city where I grew up (Erie, PA) has a lot of Germans and Poles and I remember quite a few of these dollar dances as a snot nosed kid running around the reception hall in the Elk’s club.

What got me upset in the Wikipedia article is that it mentioned it as a “lower socio-economic” tradition. Really? You had to play the poor card? Just because you give the couple some spending money for their honeymoon doesn’t mean they’re poor. Those weddings I went to as a kid seemed pretty posh, but that may be the rosy outlook of a 6 year old. So I decided to take out the “socio-economic” statement, because there was no relevant citation (The source the sited was a blog about Mexican Weddings. Nice little stereotype) and frankly, it pissed me off.

I did some more surfing and found two camps in “Dollar Dance-land”. Camp one was shocked and appalled at this “pimping” of the bride. Their reasoning was that as guests, they brought a gift, there was no need to be extorted for “face time” with the bride. Camp two clung to the argument of tradition and was desperately defending it from the epithets of “trashy” and “tacky”. Cries of “It’s only a dollar” and “It’s to help them pay for the honeymoon” were oft repeated. When I was shooting weddings in VA, I only saw the dollar dance once, and that couple was from the Boston area. The photographer I was shooting with (an uptight wasp of a woman) was appalled beyond belief, while I was happily tripping down memory lane.

Its got to be the money aspect that puts people off. I think if people were paying the bride in sticks of gum or brownies, we’d avoid all the brew-ha-ha. Maybe with all of the great new technology, instead of handing the best man a dollar, you can to go the couples blog, find out where they are staying for their honeymoon and send a credit to their hotel for room service, or send them a fruit basket to their room for when they arrive. Maybe that would make some of these prudes feel better.

Spit takes and their implications

I admit, I was wrong.

It’s hard to NOT feed the trolls. I let my perspective of right and wrong cloud my vision and I turn into an eighth grader shouting, “He started it!” I’m not proud, but that stupid brat in my head gets control quick.

Here’s what happened:

I’m playing World of Warcraft, roaming around when I happen to pass a couple of other characters. One makes a rude comment about my character’s name, “Wizbang”.

“Nice name. Sounds like what I did to your mom last night!”

“Yer Mom” jokes are the height of adolescent humor, so I should just let it go. But I can’t. Some delusional voice in my head thinks that if I let this person know that I’m offended, they’ll respond with “So sorry. Have a nice day.” I know, totally delusional.

“You know, I really find that kind of innuendo offensive”
“Good.”

Okay, he doesn’t care. Surprise. I let it go and go on my way, and in about 4 minutes I run into him again. Do I just ignore him? Nope, that eighth grader in me gets hold of the keyboard and types /spit.

For those of you unfamiliar with World of Warcraft, “/spit” makes your character spit. If you have another character selected when you type this, it will appear as “Wizbang spits on John Smith” for everyone in the area to see. This is usually reserved for enemies of the opposite faction that you kill in player versus player combat. It’s VERY rude. But I figured, if this guy likes being rude, he shouldn’t mind getting some rude back, nice logic for an eighth grader.

Of course, I get a response. Not from him, but from his wife. I’m chastised for being rude and childish and I shouldn’t let other people’s rude behavior get to me and I’m going to need a thicker skin if I’m going survive in this world when I grow up. The standard, “I don’t care who started it, you’re just as wrong” line you get in school.

Yes, I was wrong, but here is what I don’t understand. Why do some people feel justified being rude and then when they are retaliated against, tell others to “lighten up” or “don’t stoop to my level.” How can you retreat to the moral high ground when you’ve made your life in the gutter? If you are going to be rude, you have to expect that kind of behavior in return. It irks me that people think if everyone behaves, they can misbehave without reprisal. You can insult that guy all you want knowing that if he hits you, he’ll be prosecuted for assault. Small comfort if he puts you in a wheelchair.

The one thing I’ve learned from this game is when you give someone anonymity and an audience, you get their uncensored personality. I see a lot of ugly out there, and sadly, I see it in myself too.

A Note to My English Teacher

I'd like to take a moment to thank Mrs. Lucht.

Mrs. Lucht was my 6th through 8th grade English teacher. She had the onerous job of averaging my reading comprehension skills (high) with my spelling scores (low). She would give me this look everyonce in a while that would say, "I know you can do better than this. Make an effort." I may never have put in the effort that she thought I should, but I put in more than I would have without her.

I spend a lot of time playing World of Warcraft and have to deal with people confusing "there", "their" and "they're" all the time, not to mention the text speak. Occasionally I will fall into the pitfall of arguing with these people about their grammar and am met with, "I'm not in school, what does it matter?" I remember feeling that myself in 7th grade.

What I get now is that school isn't the place you go while waiting to get back to your life, school is where you learn life skills, communication being a huge one. The clearer you are in getting your point across, the easier things will be for you.

So, thank you Mrs. Lucht for making me care about how I get my point across.

Make It Better

I’m not gay. I know people who are gay and I’ve heard horror stories about the self imposed repression of identity during the adolescent years. The struggles and pitfalls of having a society against you and finally being able to tell the narrow minded that you don’t care what they think. I have no idea what that is like personally, I’ve just heard.

I do remember being an overweight teen and thinking I was worthless and unlovable. I remember all emotional dressing downs in high school, the torrent of conflicting emotions that sent me from laughter to tears in a single breath. It was a slice of Hell wrapped in hate and dressed with hormones. And I was a straight white kid.

I can’t imagine going through that AND a sexual identity crisis.

The third leading cause of death among teens is suicide and we’ve seen a lot of buzz about it recently. Celebs (and the President) recording “It gets better” spots telling gay teens to hang in there is a nice sentiment. I’d like to add this though; To all you straight teens out there, to all of you who see someone pushing someone around, to all of you who say nothing when someone says, “That’s gay”. I challenge you to “Make it better.”

I know it’s hard to stand up and step into a flammable situation, but all you have to do is let someone know that you are there for them. Just be a friend, talk to that kid on the receiving end of peer torture. To step out of your clique, your comfort zone and tell someone that you’ll listen, and make a friend. “Make it better.”