Complaint #030: Pittsburgh Penguins

Look, I am not a hockey fan. To me, the hockey season just started because the playoffs are the only thing that matter in an 82+ game season. I think Friday night was the first time I realized it was a penalty to clear the puck from your goal in hopes to run down the clock (icing, which seems like an idiotic penalty). But if there's one thing I know about hockey, it is this: I don't want to be a Penguins fan, or more appropriately: I don't want to be a Penguins fan if there's an option to be a Flyers fan. This really comes down to one reason: toughness.

Hockey is a contact sport. In fact, hockey is probably the contact sport. Hockey is more fast-paced than (American) football and has harder contact than basketball and soccer/football. Baseball has no real contact (one slide into home plate every 43 games doesn't count), and no other sport is popular enough to warrant mention. Hockey is also the only sport that allows fighting. Sure, you may get penalized for engaging in the timeless art of fisticuffs, but there's a good chance you're not getting ejected and suspended for a quarter of the season (and if you're an NFL player, you'd probably have to go to a six-week seminar on concussion education and if your name is James Harrison you'd get fined $400,000 (OK, now I'm just complaining)). It's for those reasons I mentioned at the beginning of the paragraph that I'm going to root for one of the (if not, the) toughest team(s) in the league (Hey, it works for the NFL, why shouldn't it work for a tougher sport?)

Now, I'll make a concession here. I can't continue to be a Steelers fan (and maintain my belief that they've become the greatest franchise in the NFL) and tell you that the Flyers are a better franchise than the Penguins. It cannot be true because the Penguins have more Stanley Cup victories than the Flyers (and all of them more recently than the Flyers' last one). So the Penguins franchise may be a better franchise now than the Flyers (and it's been true for a number of years), but they certainly are less respectable as a franchise.

Why do they deserve less respect? It's because of toughness. No one questions the toughness of the Philadelphia Flyers. Everyone is free to do so with the Penguins. Sure, a single Penguin (by the way, that's a fantastically fruity mascot if you ask me (although, to be honest, paper advertisements (Flyers) aren't too scary either)) player may accidentally be tough once (I mean, look at Malkin, he's an ugly Russian, I'll give them that), but the team is far from tough. Watching the playoff game now, I can see the Penguins with their playoff "beards"; they each look like they can grow a beard as well as I can (that's an insult to them, or it should be). The face of the franchise, Mr. Sidney Crosby (no surprise that he has a unisex name...), would probably lose a fight to a Care Bear. I think the only battle that co-owner and previous face of the franchise, Mario Lemieux, won was the battle to open his container of hair gel this morning. On the other hand, when you look at the Flyers, you get a group of guys with shovels as faces. I think the entire team combined has fewer teeth than I do. Bobby Clarke's image makes toddlers (and even some of the weaker adolescents) cry.

So Penguins fans, when you call us "Philthy", we take it as a compliment. Also, please stop pointing out small exceptions to the rule: just because a Penguin has a single tough moment, doesn't mean your franchise is tough. No one questions the toughness of the Broad Street Bullies. Well, no one has and lived to tell about it.

Complaint #029: Politics

I hold this truth to be self-evident: that all men (and women) were created equally. When we force an imbalance upon this, I think people don't know how to appropriately cope. Yet, we, as a society, feel the need to impose a hierarchy upon ourselves. Why we feel we need this, I'll never know, but we do. As if we needed confirmation on this, I'm going to give it to you: besides the fact that every major society in the world (that I know of) has some sort of governmental structure, let's look at the Israelites. Despite having a perfect leader (God) and a series of judges, after having been redeemed from an oppressive leadership, the Israelites demanded a king (if this notion is unfounded to you, try First Samuel 8).

The problem that arises when we elevate people into positions over us, is that we expect them to be better than us and forget that all men (and women) are created equal and none of us is perfect. Take a look at the American government: we put a singular man (ok, this time I don't have to say "or woman" yet) in a specific elevated position, demand him to solve unsolvable problems, and when he doesn't live up to our astronomical expectations and despite the 400-some-odd other men we elected in Washington, we kill him (not literally, of course, although some people who take politics wwwaaayyy too seriously, sadly, I'm sure would like to).

The problem with human leaders is that the people most qualified to lead are the same people smart enough to avoid being leaders. If you don't believe me, take in the following wise words:

The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
– Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

One day the trees went out to anoint a king for themselves. They said to the olive tree, "Be our king." But the olive tree answered, "Should I give up my oil, by which both gods and humans are honored, to hold sway over the trees?" Next, the trees said to the fig tree, "Come and be our king." But the fig tree replied, "Should I give up my fruit, so good and sweet, to hold sway over the trees?" Then the trees said to the vine, "Come and be our king." But the vine answered, "Should I give up my wine, which cheers both gods and humans, to hold sway over the trees?"
Finally all the trees said to the thornbush, "Come and be our king."
– Judges 9:8-14

So let me get to the main reason that I hate politics (because mainly I don't give a crap and just ignore it/them (I'm not quite sure if "politics" is plural)). Here's politics in a nutshell: people argue about problems that can't be solved, and the best we can do falls into two categories and personal preferences/priorities define which option is better and then people just continue to try to push their preferences and priorities on others and they don't have the authority to do so (basically, politics is subjective and we treat it as objective).

People may find me stupid or inconsiderate, but that's the way I feel about it. So I find politics not only annoying, but mainly immaterial (or, at least, of lesser importance than I need to worry about). I don't inform myself and I'm pretty sure I'm giving it up all together (it's probably better for the uninformed to not vote anyway).

Let the boys play their games, I'll work on bettering my own world and focusing on the true leader of my life.