Album of the weekend

Guns and Roses-Use Your Illusion I

Use Your Illusions I and II might be the best rock albums from their era. I already covered the second one, and it's time to talk about the first. Another great album from a band that shined so brightly for such a short time.

As mentioned while discussing the second one, this album also has a bi-polar feel. The ballad "Don't Cry" and bizarre "Coma" and the cover of "Live and Let Die" originally by Paul McCartney don't really fit in with a tradaional rock album, especially a traditional Guns and Roses album, but that doesn't spoil the overall feeling of the album. Everyone likes and remembers November Rain, but I get the feeling that when the door is closed, November Rain isn't played that often. It's just too long, but does have an ending that gets more intense an meaningful. For a ballad, it's not bad though. My personal favorite song off this album is "Don't Damn Me", a powerful free speech ballad.

This album isn't as good as the second, but it's still worth a download.

Parent shaming?

I may have the terminology wrong, but when I say "parent shaming" I mean another couple looking down on a parent for disciplining their child in a way they may not approve of. Also, even if it has to be said, yes, abuse is wrong and should be condemned in the strongest term. However, yelling at your child isn't abuse. Especially if your child is about to do something really stupid-like try to enter water that could be filled alligators.

I was at Disney recently-a place famous for children acting up and parents sometimes being at the end of their rope. I saw a child (no, I can't estimate age and I'm terrible with that anyway) about to run to a pond near the hotel we were staying at. The parent yelled at the kid, ran after them, and gave them a slap on the rear. A younger couple near me (strangers to me) saw the interaction and commented to one another that the mother shouldn't have done what she did.

Look, I'm not a parent, but a light slap on the butt to prevent a child from running into a pool of water that might have an alligator in it is not overkill. At all. In fact, hopefully it'll teach that child not to do the same stupid thing again. No, I'm not in favor of spanking, but since I'm not a parent I could never tell you how or what to do in that case. Even if I was a parent, it's not up to me to tell you how to discipline your child. It's not up to you either, to be honest.

NBA Age limit

As of right now, there is an age limit to play in the NBA. You must be 19 years old. It's always struck me as bit odd-an eighteen year old can enter into the job market and get a job based on their skills and abilities-which granted, at age 18, isn't much-but you are a legal adult at that age. Why do you have to play college basketball or go a different route?

My personal view is that someone at age 18 is not mature enough physically or emotionally to play professional sports at the highest level. For every Kobe Bryant there is a Korleone Young and James Lang. However it is not up to me to tell NBA teams who to draft-they should be free to pick and choose who they'd like on their team.

I don't have any sympathy at all for the NCAA. They've shown time and time again how corrupt they are. The schools also make enormous money from their sports programs and sure, while they provide the athletes with a "free" education, the athletes could be making much more if they went professional. For some athletes who lack the skill needed to play professional basketball, college might be a good idea. For those athletes who can compete right away at the highest level, they should have that option.

Vigilante justice at it's finest

In NYC, a woman was arrested for strangling a guy into unconsciousness for grabbing her bottom. Unfortunately, she strangled the wrong guy.  I get it, we all love vigilante justice, but it's not so pretty when you attack the wrong guy, is it? Oh, and by the way-the guy who really did grab her bum should be arrested for sexual assault. So no, I'm not in favor of men acting like pigs and getting away with it.

What the woman did was much worse. As disgusting as an uninvited slap on the bum is (and it is disgusting) it's not going to kill someone. In fact, it's more annoying then deadly. To repeat myself (because this is not a point I wish to be misunderstood) the "man" who did it should have been arrested immediately and brought up on sexual assault charges. However, he doesn't deserve to die for it.

And neither does a totally innocent man. Lets say she strangled the guy into unconsciousness (and she did) and he eventually passed out, hit his head against something and died. Guess what? She will correctly be brought up in manslaughter charges.

We fear the justice system. We fear that justice will not be solved after we've been wronged in some way. While that's unfortunate and true in some cases, it's much worse to take the law into your own hands and pretend you are Dirty Harry.

Addiction counseling

When a doctor or a group claims to have the cure for something-treat it with a high degree of skepticism. No, there is no cure for cancer and no, no one is holding it back or keeping it in secret. I've noticed that people hawking addiction cures can be incredibly offensive about how they market their product. No, no addiction cure, even ones based in religion and even ones based in my religion, is 100% effective. If they were, than everyone would use it.

When something works people generally flock to it, usually by word of mouth. iPhones are incredibly popular because they work. Blackberries have sort of died out because they don't work as well as the other alternatives. Peach pits do not cure cancer and no one uses them to do so. Chemo, all though it has horrible side effects, treats cancer the best way possible that we know of right now, so people generally treat cancer with it.

Addiction treatments are notoriously difficult. Some work on a minority of people, some don't work at all, and some claim to magically cure all addictions with the push of a button. No addict wants to be addicted, and if one treatment really did work 85% of the time, then all addicts would flock to it. That doesn't happen, so I'm intensely skeptical of any addiction treatment that claims a high success rate.

Scripture Sunday Mosiah 2:22

Oh, the famous passage where is starts off by saying "All that He requires of you is to keep His commandments and He has promised you that if ye would keep His commandments, you shall prosper in the land." Sure, He is talking to a large group of people though his prophets, but in reality, this is also a deeply personal passage.

"All that He requires of you is to keep His commandments". Um, that's actually a huge requirement and it's extremely difficult. There is a famous joke where Moses comes off the mountain carrying the tablets for the Ten Commandments. He tells the Israelites, "The good news is that I've talked him down to ten, but adultery is still on the list." Ha ha. All the commandments are incredibly difficult to follow, from adultery to weekly church attendance. So "All that He requires" is actually quite challenging and if anyone tells you otherwise, they are lying or they aren't following the commandments very well.

The good news is that if you do keep the commandments, the Lord will bless you and you will prosper. That doesn't mean that everyone who prospers is keeping the commandments-that would be naive to think so-but blessings come in different forms. It's always good to remember that if you obey Him and do your best to follow His commandments, blessings will come in one form or another.,

NFL Ratings

Apparently the NFL isn't really suffering anymore. Ratings are skyrocketing, according to this report.  I thought this would happen-eventually temper tantrums end, and people usually don't have the energy to boycott something for a prolonged period of time. We are still talking about the National Anthem protest, but not as much as before. The ratings went down for a bit, but have clearly bounced back. Attendance might be suffering if the local team is struggling (Tampa, my local team, are giving away free tickets. Not a good sign)  but other than that the NFL has rebounded.

Is the NFL in the clear? Oh, God no. Between CTE, domestic violence and yes, national anthem protests they still have major problems that aren't going away-but at this point, viewers aren't going away either.