Sadly, Justice is not always blind

Apparently Jason Whitlock has fallen off the deep end. I read his column on a regular basis and 9 times out of 10 he and I see eye to eye. For some reason however he has (for at least one column) lost his ever-lovin mind and actually tried to make, that sorry excuse for a man, Ben Roethlisberger out to be a victim of the big bad commissioner of the NFL.

The basis of this opinion stems from an interview that was granted to Peter King of Sports Illustrated by the NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. On the subject of Big Ben the commish stated that he was unable to find one NFL player, out of dozens, who would come to Big Ben's defense. To Mr. Whitlock this is just the commissioner's way of taking another shot at the Pittsburgh QB right before the Super Bowl. According to Whitlock Big Ben is simply the token white whipping boy for the commissioner so he can show that he is hard on both the black and white athletes in the NFL. Why o' why does it always have to come down to the race card with some people. Jason, I never thought you would stoop so low.

What if perhaps the commissioner is like me, and millions of other football fans around the world who think that Ben got away with one because of his NFL status? The commissioner like many of us had access to the facts of the case against him, and possibly had even more facts then the general public was privy to. But maybe....just maybe he is just telling it like it is, you know Jason that thing you claim to do in your column?

Let's look at the facts of the case. Big Ben was "accused" of sexually assaulting a female party goer in a bathroom at a nightclub in Georgia. I will go ahead and stick with this one case and not even mention that not even a year before he was accused of sexual assault by another female....oops, well anyway. So Big Ben is accused and police are called to the scene. The officer who initially investigates the crime was getting his picture taken with the NFL star just hours before investigating the crime, and had some colorful remarks about the accuser.

According to reports of some of the other people there that night the hero from Steel Town, USA was acting like a first class, grade A, jerk in the Peach State. Plying women with alcohol (including his accuser), "aggressively" hitting on other women, and even one story of a woman who got a picture with him for her boyfriend, who is a fan, only to see the Steeler QB get mad and call her some colorful names once he realized that she wanted nothing more then a picture.

Now all of this could just be good evidence for the fact that Ben is a moron, and just a rude, stuck up piece of trash. However, if you are accused of sexual assault once.....depending on the circumstances it is most likely his word v. her word and those cases are always tough. Accused of sexual assault a second time.....well Ben my friend now you have established what I like to call "a pattern of behavior". Throw in all the other reported behavior from that night and basically what you have is a rich, overrated, horny idiot on the loose who clearly cannot control himself.

Yet charges were dropped due to the fact that the charges "could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt." Not because the investigation found the accuser to be lying...Not because the charges were found to be false...Not because Big Ben was proven innocent of all charges during the investigation. No simply because there was no credible evidence that the DA felt they could use to get a successful prosecution. Couple this with the fact that they knew Big Ben would have quite the legal team (same lawyer who got Ray Lewis off on his murder charge) at his disposal and short of having video of him in the act, no evidence was going to help secure a successful prosecution. All the DA could do was what he did, make the announcement and release all the details he could about the case so it could be tried in the court of public opinion. If he really thought Big Ben was innocent do you think he would release all the details that he did?

Sadly if this case was about any other average Joe on the street, whether he was white, black, brown, purple, red, orange or any other color I believe the DA would have went forward with the case. Make the accused a star, with a large bank account, and news cameras following every part of the case? Suddenly justice no longer remains blind and other factors, besides the facts of the case, take center stage and are weighed in favor of the accused.

So I say Bravo to the commissioner who helped remind everyone before the Super Bowl that one of the stars of the show was just a short while ago accused of a despicable crime, and even though he is innocent until proven guilty "in a court of law", that does not mean he didn't do anything wrong that night in Georgia. It just means it can't be proven that he did anything wrong. A six game suspension cut down to four was his only punishment. Average Joe on the street could have well been serving four to six years in prison for the same crime. Ben got off easy Jason, so I you will have to excuse me if I don't shed any tears when the commissioner takes "one final potshot" at the Pittsburgh QB. He more then deserves it!

The Mayor stays

My last post dealt with an issue here in Omaha about the mayor and the attempt to recall him from office. I personally didn't agree with the idea of the mayor being recalled but was a supporter of any citizen exercising their rights within the law, no matter how stupid that law is. The election was held and the citizens who reside in Omaha decided that they did not want their mayor recalled and so he will at least finish out his term. Obviously there were some tough feelings on both sides of this issue and even though I don't live in the city and was not able to vote, I was not exempt from having strong feelings about the whole deal.

For one I say the mayor's office brought this whole mess onto themselves. Think about it, there might be a few folks out there who want to recall a mayor in any given city. But it takes quite an effort to actually get the mayor recalled, and in this case it takes some unhappy citizens to do so. Make no mistake the mayor only escaped losing his office by a small margin. There were plenty of unhappy citizens willing to go to the poll and vote for his recall. This recall attempt may prove to be easy by comparison when you consider the task of continuing to lead a city that is divided.

Many of the mayor's supporters took issue with the law for recalling a mayor and many said it needed to be changed. Well as of right now it appears that is in the works. I find it funny however that the mayor's office and his supporters complain about a law that was used against them, when just years ago the current mayor's predecessor had no problems using ridiculous laws to get what he wanted. Mayor Mike Fahey used ridiculous annexation laws to forcibly annex the town of Elkhorn without a vote against the will of the people. You see here in Nebraska if a town has less then 10,000 people residing there a municipal like Omaha can come in an annex that town without even needing a vote from the people. Sounds real American doesn't it?

Now right up front let me tell you that Elkhorn is my hometown. It is where I grew up and where I went to school my entire childhood. So does that play into my emotions on the issue? HELL YEAH! But I don't see how that matter since facts are facts. The town of Elkhorn tried to fight back by annexing other land that would bump them over the 10,000 resident requirement, but Omaha put their plans into motion and would be able to annex Elkhorn before they would be able to accomplish that. Now understand that Elkhorn was not some town that couldn't take care of itself. This town had it's own public works, fire dept, police dept, school system, mayor and city council. Regardless of all that though Omaha decided they knew what was best for the people of Elkhorn and forcibly annexed the town against the will of the people who live there.

Now I don't like the people who were behind the recent attempt to recall the mayor of Omaha. I think they were some dirty folks with plenty of bad ideas of their own. But, I am not going to cry any tears in defense of the mayor's office. If the office of the mayor of any city wants to play fast and loose with the rules and look to do things in such a way that is against the will of the people, then I don't want to hear any whining when citizens play fast and loose with the rules to do things that is against the will of the mayor.

It's called Democracy in action!

So this post is going to hit close to home for me since it involves an issue that is taking place.....well close to home. In the city of Omaha the mayor, who was just elected not even two years ago, has been fighting a recall effort to get him out of office. Recently, the group who is behind the recall has gathered enough signatures to trigger an election to see if the people of Omaha want a recall election. As you can imagine there are some strong opinions on both sides making it quite the story.

My personal opinion is that I could care less about recalling the mayor of Omaha. I live outside of Omaha, so I don't even vote for the mayor anyway. However, since we go into Omaha quite frequently and my wife works in Omaha I try to pay attention to the things that go on in the big city. I personally don't feel as if he has done anything that warrants a recall but apparently there are about 27,000 people who disagree with me. So now just when I thought it was all over, I get to listen to campaign commercials again on the radio.

The problem I am having is when I see people lashing out at those who have brought on the recall. There are all kinds of things being said about the people behind it, and for all I know most of it could either be true or false, but it has nothing to do with what is being done here. What exactly is wrong with exercising your rights inside of a democratic system of election? The people who started the recall effort had every right to do so as citizens who are residents inside the city of Omaha. They were obviously not alone in their feelings about the mayor since they were able to gather the more then 27,000 signatures needed to trigger this process.

Now the residents of Omaha will vote as to whether they want to have a recall election, and if the vote passes then the mayor better break out the campaign wagons if he wants to stay in office for at least the rest of his original term. It's called Democracy folks. It's where you the citizen, the resident gets to have a say and be involved in deciding who sits in power and makes decisions. It doesn't mean you always get the person you want. It doesn't mean you get things your way right away. It simply means you get to participate and let it be known where you stand. So don't sit around complaining about those who are exercising their rights, get out there and exercise your own rights.

What is the Epitome of Absurdity?

Every blog needs it's jumping off point. It needs that one post (I prefer it's the first post) that basically states the purpose of the blog. Why it was started and what does the author or authors intend to make their main topic. For this blog that is exactly what this post is all about.

Maybe it's just because that as I get older I start to see these things more and more. Perhaps they were always there but I was just too young and too immature to give a rip about them. But it seems more and more today the masses are treated as if we are too stupid to know better, and on the flip side some act as if they are too stupid to know better. All I am asking for is some consistency and common sense. Don't tell me one thing and do another. Don't tell me what is important and then ignore it.

In short, this blog won't be restricted to just one subject. I find absurdity in all areas of life. I know, I know, many who will read this will think that it's just one person's opinion so why in the world should they care? Well, since you ask, you shouldn't care. At least about my opinion. You should care about the subject at hand. What do you think? How do you feel about it? Is it as equally absurd to you as it is to me, or am I just being that old cranky man on his front porch yelling at kids to get off his lawn? You ever hear that old line "Someone had to say it." Well sometimes I feel like I just have to say it.....or I guess in this case write it.

So whether you agree, disagree, like, or dislike what I write I encourage anyone and everyone to comment and let me know what you think and maybe even get a good discussion started about the topic at hand.