Thank you, Good Night, the 2009 version

Well, it looks like the Red Wings put the final dagger in the heart of the Blue and Gold last night with a 4 to 1 win over Buffalo. The Sabres really did put up a great fight, but it is time to come to the sad realization that this is not an elite team anymore and it may not be an elite team for a very long time.

I applaud Darcy Regier for keeping the team together for the last couple of years, but this team is still recovering from the gutting it withstood three seasons ago. Go ahead Sabre fans, say it with me, “We still miss Briere and Drury.”

The Sabres played with determination last night but there were no playmakers to get the job done. The Gaustad/Mair/Paille line had the right idea by working their tails off in the corners and crashing the net every chance they got, but in the end the Red Wings were too much for the Sabres and the door was closed yet again on a chance at the Sabres making the playoffs.

Oh Max, with all of your speed and determination you still could not find a way to make it work here in Buffalo. I still hope that Moore and Max get a chance at one full season together next year because it really looked like Dominic Moore could skate with Max and was actually on the verge of figuring out how to play on a line with Max. But something tells me we will never get that chance.

And what of Dominic Moore? What about our only real trade deadline acquisition?
What do we do with Dominic? I say we keep him. He has only scored one goal so far in a Sabre uniform, but he has shown more heart than most guys on the roster and we need guys that are willing to play every night.

And what of our lord and saviour Ryan Miller? Anyone that still does not consider Ryan Miller an elite goaltender missed this entire season. Ryan Miller stepped up not only as a leader on this team, he also stepped up as one of the premier goaltenders in the NHL. He singlehandedly stole his fair share of games this season, and did the work of Brodeur in keeping the Sabres in some of these games. It could be said that Miller’s injury right when the playoff run started was the reason the Sabres missed the playoffs. It could be said like that if it were not for the fact that Lalime played out of his mind for his first 3 or 4 starts and the Sabres in front of him looked like they could have cared less.

What do we do with Lindy? This could be the first professional sports team where I completely agree with the notion that we fire many of the players but keep the coach. Players like Hecht, Pomminville, Paille, MacArthur, and Rivet have failed to live up to expectations and consistently let the team down with horrid play or by not really showing up at all. Sack ‘em all and give Lindy a team to work with that wants to play.

With the exception of Jaro Spacek, the entire defensive corps can be traded to far off lands never to be heard from again. Lydman tries but he always seems a step behind, and the promise offered by Sekera has waned away. Butler is learning but we need depth and experience on the blue line to win. Rivet was a bust except when it came to kicking the hell out of the other team in a fight. Rivet is a lunatic when the other team tried to manhandle his teammates, but he is not captain material and he started to fade noticeably towards the end of the season.

My suggestions are to keep Lalime as the backup to Miller but give Lalime more playing time next season. Save Ryan for the playoff stretch. Give the captain’s “C” to Jaro Spacek. I would give it to Roy but his habit of diving and whining makes him much less of a role model that Spacek. Get rid of Hecht, Pomminville, Paille, and MacArthur. Let’s give guys like Mancari, Kennedy, and Gerbe a chance. They could not play any worse. Make sure you sign that Kaleta kid to a multi year contract and keep him around for a while. Take the $500K we are paying Andrew Peters every year and invest it in a tough guy who can actually play. Finally, we need real on ice leadership. The kind of leadership Drury and Briere gave. We have not replaced that leadership element since they left and it shows on the ice every night. Right now we don’t have anyone that can live up to the standards of a Briere or Drury and, if we want to make the big dance next season, that is what we desperately need.

Like a Freight Train

I had someone in my office say outloud today that if things keep going the way they are going that Barack Obama could go down in history as the worst president ever, even more hated than W.  I laughed a little and just got back to what I was doing.  I have always been amused by people and their unrealistic expectations and the thing I find really dangerous about populations is that these unrealistic expectations do not take long to become popular opinion.

Never understimate the power of popular opinion.  It was popular opinion that caused students to get shot at Kent State University back during the Viet Nam era.  It is popular opinion that can decide whether or not a new Prime Minister is needed in England.  It was popular opinion that spared the life of Barabas and brought about the end of a messiah.  Popular opinion is extremely powerful but yet popular opinion is still not used to elect a president.  Do you think election night decides a presidential election?  Ask Al Gore about the popular vote versus the system that really puts a president in power.

The Obama-American people honeymoon was destined to end, you could see it coming like a freight train.  The average American expected Obama to wave his hand over everything on January 21, 2009 and make it better and then drop a check for a few thousand dollars in their mailbox.  If you think that is unrealistic then you are not one of the people I am talking about and you are a small minority.  Popular opinion elected Obama before election day even arrived and now popular opinion is crucifiying Obama’s every decision.  It isn’t fair but it is the American way.

This financial crisis is unlike anything anyone has ever seen before and Barack Obama got dropped right in the middle of it.  Is he making the right decisions?  Intelligent people would answer that it is impossible to tell if he is making the right decisions yet and only time will tell if we are on the path to recovery.  Popular opinion will tell you that Obama has already blown it and the Republicans can just ride the wave of Obama’s failure right back into the White House.  God I hate popular opinion.

Sigh

Ok.  I need to quickly chime in on this whole New York Post cartoon thing.

Here is the cartoon in question:

Delonas' cartoon

Al Sharpton is all in an uproar about this and I guess I begrudgingly have to agree with Al this time for the first time ever.

When you are a political cartoonist you have to keep current events in mind when you are making your point.  What I think Delonas was trying to say here is that he disagrees with the stimulus package and it looks like it was created by a monkey.  What Delonas and the New York Post are insensitive to are two very important things.

1)  The lady that was mauled by the chimp is still in intensive care fighting for her life.  That whole story is not funny now and it may never be funny but it certainly isn’t funny now.  A parody of that event is tasteless and cruel.  That is my opinion.

2)  Our president, the man who worked so hard to make this stimulus package go, is black.  Someone needs to get Delonas a memo that President Obama is black and he is bringing up a pretty nasty racial slur with this kind of image.

I guess what makes it worse for me is Delonas’ reaction to Al Sharpton’s charge (Al is not alone – there is a long list of people upset with Delonas) that this cartoon is racist.

In an interview with CNN Delonas said:  “Do you really think I’m saying Obama should be shot? I didn’t see that in the cartoon.”

I am in no position to call anybody out on anything because I don’t know Delonas personally and I don’t know the president either.  For as much as Al has been on television over the years I feel like I know him but I guess I would have to admit that I do not know Al either.  But for Delonas, and others, to miss the racist angle on this cartoon is pretty shocking.  I’m not going to say it because you all know what I want to say next, but I won’t.  Let’s just say that this could be one of the more obvious cases of newspaper irresponsibility since Dewey was rumored to have defeated Truman.

Nadya Nadya Nadya

I have been trying to understand the different sides of the octuplet story but it all comes back to personal perception I guess.  Today the public relations firm that was representing Nadya had to drop her because of a ton of death threats they have been getting.  People have been calling in and leaving death threats (leaving their phone numbers on the caller ID) and mailing in hand written death threats and putting their return address on the envelope.

I have tried to examine the situation from afar to really understand it and I have come to the conclusion that everyone involved is clueless and slightly askew of reality.

First let’s deal with the PR firm.  The lady that owns it defends her place in all of this by saying that when Nadya went in to get her recent fertility implant she was only trying to have one child.  She already had 6 children at home, no job, and was living on food stamps and a disability settlement.  Even if she wanted just one more child it was a child she probably could not have afforded.  To say that you decided to help Nadya because your a mother and a grandmother and were only concerned about the children is not a very logical defense.  If you cared about the children you should see that Nadya should not have tried to have children after the first 6.  If the PR lady is a professional then she must have taken the time to understand the situation before she signed on for the job and if she was a mother and grandmother then Nadya’s situation should have made her sick and not sympathetic.

How about the people leaving and mailing death threats? Everybody is mad at Nadya and anyone with common sense knows why everyone is mad at Nadya.  However the more intelligent people that are mad at Nadya are not calling in death threats on the phone because almost every business has caller ID.  That just is not smart.  Let’s not even talk about the people that actually took the time to write obscene death threat letters and then put their return address on the envelope.  That is a special kind of messed up.

Nadya, Nadya, Nadya.  No my dear it is not enough that you love your children.  Every parent loves their children, the difference is that the responsible parents go to work so they can afford to clothe and feed their children.  You are living on food stamps and had the nerve to create a website that was asking people for donations to help you raise your children.  The website has since been taken down but it amazes me how you cannot see why people are angry with you.  In a state where there is a $42 billion budget deficit and where 20,000 state employees are getting laid off to try and balance the budget you bring 8 more children into the world that you cannot afford and will more than likely make burdens of the state.  Who is going to pay the $1 million hospital bill, and climbing, to care for the children?  Not you.  No, the state will have to pay it.

You went on television and admonished America for being angry with a loving mother that just wants to hold her children and give her children everything she can.  If that is what America was angry with then I could see your point but America is angry with you and you are a selfish person who has no idea how to care for a family and is content to syphon funds off the state of California.  Those funds could be used for people that really needed them.  A million dollars can buy a lot of school books for other poeple’s kids.  Other people that work to take care of their kids.  Other people that do not create websites begging for money and who are not waiting around for cable television to drop a weekly television show in their laps.

But my anger gets tempered when I realize that Nadya is more than likely in need of professional help.  The doctor that helped her get pregnant again, after she already had 6 kids she could not take care of, is probably more guilty here that Nadya is.  At least a doctor is expected to have common sense.  Nadya obviously has no common sense and should never have been allowed to bring any more children into the world.

Does my attitude change if Nadya is a millionaire with cash to spare?  It may but even a millionaire would still have to explain to their 14 children why they have never met daddy.  Even a millionaire would have to find a way to deal with 14 kids going through their pre-teens and all of the events that happen to every child growing up.  If Nadya were a millionaire we would have never heard of her.  A millionaire having 14 kids isn’t news.  A ward of the state having 14 kids in a state that is more broke than the rest is not just news, it’s pathetic.

That Wall Everyone Was Talking About

I was scrolling through the depressing news on CNN about our economic future and as I was reading an artcile about 7,000 more people losing their jobs and executives taking pay cuts and wage freezes something occurred to me.  What if this is that wall that everyone was talking about?

For decades people have been saying that everything is out of control and that every economic indicator would all hit the same wall at the same time.  Companies were charging too much for services, people were making too much income, and inflation was soaring out of control.  Baseball players and basketball players were getting contracts worth $20 million a year and more.  CEOs were taking in salaries that were more than twice that every year.  Housing prices were higher than they had ever been and there was talk of putting the minimum wage up and over $8 per hour.  People making $35,000 a year were living in $180,000 homes and driving $30,000 cars.  It couldn’t go on forever and it was a financial powderkeg waiting to explode.

It looks like subprime mortgages were the wick leading to the powderkeg and $5 per gallon gas was the match that blew the whole thing up.  You had to feel it.  After a month or so of $5 a gallon gas, companies laying workers off like crazy, and people losing their homes it was like a balloon waiting to be popped.  Then in January it popped and now we are dealing with the fallout from it.

What do I think will happen?  I think people will continue to lose their jobs by the tens of thousands for at least another month or two.  As long as gas prices stay below $2 a gallon you will start to see consumer prices for everything fall.  Smart real estate investors are already gobbling up devalued property like crazy because they know the value will go back up.  The property may not go back to the levels it was before the balloon popped but it will be enough to make a profit.  By summer the jobs situation will have hit the floor and that will start to level out and even improve slightly.  People will start buying things again and the economy will swing back up by Christmas time this year.  But in the meantime you may want to hold on because the ride is going to be rougher than anything you have ever felt before.

If you survive until June at your job then chances are you should be safe.  By then the economy would have bounced off that wall it hit and it should be turning back the other way.  However this mess has been brewing for at least 3 years and it will take at least that long to clean it up.  When it is over, prices will be at an all time low and you will find yourself able to afford things again.

Of course everything will start to creep back up again and we will be headed for that wall so you may want to brace for another impact in about 10 years or so and probably just as bad as this one.  You would think that we would learn how to avoid hitting that wall again after what we just went through but I would not bet on any lessons being learned from this financial meltdown.

Recession Is A State Of Mind

This recession, like pretty much every recession before it,  has its genesis in some event or government policy that went financially wrong.  People got burned and suddenly the market went crash and people started losing their jobs.  This one can be traced back to when the government deregulated the banking industry and allowed the banks to give mortgages and lines of credit to just about anyone.  A few years later everyone learned how bad of an idea that was when millions of people started losing their homes on a monthly basis.

Now the government is in damage control mode and out comes this bailout to the banking industry.  That was such a horrible idea that they decided to do one for the automakers as well.  The new incoming president Obama wants even more money but at least he has a detailed plan for it and can tell us exactly where it will go and it looks like none of it is bailing out any industries.  Obama wants to create jobs by taking $850 Billion and giving us tax breaks and repairing and updating the country’s infrastructure.  He wants to repair and build roads, fix education, and start fixing our power infrastructure that is badly in need of help.  I can get behind that.  He will create millions of jobs with that.  But in the end it may not be enough because an extended recession is all a state of mind.

I called on a customer last week who told me to call him back in April, if he was still there to answer the phone he would buy from me.  I asked him what was going on and he said his company is laying of 5,000 people in January and February.  I told him I was sorry to hear that his company was losing so much money.  He said that they were not losing money yet and that these were all preventive measures because of the fear of losing money.  This company will ruin the lives of 5,000 families all because they are unsure of where the economy is going.  This sort of activity by corporate America, ladies and gentlemen, is what ultimately causes the economy to stay down in a time of recession.

Companies that cut back in anticipation of tough times either disappear or take twice as long to recover from a recession as the companies that kept on with business as usual and found new ways to generate revenue.  I know of several large companies that are growing, hiring employees, and giving their existing employees raises and bonuses.  These are the companies that will emerge as dominant leaders in 12 to 18 months when this is finally over.

Business is a funny thing but when you don’t get the joke it can become a nightmare.  Holding back in these bad times means that you are one of the competitors that the future business giants are currently stepping over to become leaders when the recession ends.  When you pull back and wait you are exhibiting weakness and weakness in business is fatal.  When you pull back in a recession you are letting the real business people pass you by.

So to all of the companies laying off workers in anticipation of bad times I say goodbye.  The bad times you fear are on their way and you have no one to blame but yourself.  Layoffs, cutting budgets, and cutting back in sales and marketing activity is a sign of bad management and also a sign that you may have allowed your company to grow too big in the first place.  After the first 6 to 9 months recession becomes a state of mind.  As a business owner it is up to you to decide what state you want to live in.

Dear Governor Paterson

Hey man,

How’s it going?

Look.  I just read this statement of yours on CNN.com:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/12/18/paterson.obesity/index.html

I hope the link works because it is a brilliant piece of political baloney and I want to be sure my readers get a chance to savor the baloney flavor as well.

You know, it isn’t so much that I mind that my can of Pepsi has been put on the same level as a cigarette in that it is now taxed for the common good, my problem is how stupid you politicians really think we are.  Are you serious with this baloney about taxing us on soft drinks an extra 18% to save the children?  Is this honestly the low brow drivel you are going to feed us about why you are doing this?

I understand that New York State’s budget deficit is because Upstate is forced to pay for that money pit known as New York City and the tax base in Upstate is leaving in droves … er … ahhh … I mean that the budget deficit is because the New York Stock Exchange is no longer the tax cash cow it used to be but c’mon man!  We are not morons!  Just tell us that decisions made by past governors have dug us a pit that no state could possibly crawl out of and now the residents, like me, that refuse to leave for some God-knows-why reason will be stuck paying the highest taxes in the Union for quite a while as we continue to wave to the moving trucks as they leave this mis-managed political hellhole known as the state of New York.  I can live with the truth.  What I can’t live with is some shabby, second rate excuse for a new tax given by a politician who was fighting to keep his job from the day he got it handed to him.

I really hate that.  I really hate politicians who roll out the poor children every time they want to justify digging deeper and deeper into our pockets.  You want to help the state of New York?  Make New York City its own state and force them to survive without the feeding tube that comes from Upstate.  That would at least solve all of our problems up here for the time being.

But, come to think of it, do we really want to do that to the children of New York City?

I Remember Christmas

Have you seen those car commercials yet that have people in their late 30’s  or early 40’s re-living childhood memories while looking at the new car they just got for Christmas?  The one with the kid riding the Big Wheel through the house reminded me so much of my childhood Christmases that I actually enjoy watching that commercial every time it is on.  The guy at the end looks to be about my age and when I see that commercial the memories come rushing back.

I remember Christmas when I was a kid and it is nothing like Christmas these days.  When I was a kid the Christmas specials on television would start on November 1 and go right through to Christmas Day.  Everyone had a Christmas special and I really miss all of that.  Today you get the same movies over and over again and no one really comes out with a good and new Christmas special anymore.  The closest thing is the Grinch movie Jim Carrey made a few years ago.

This is going to sound strange but I believe that part of the problem with the break down in our society these days has to do with the de-emphasis on things like Christmas.  These days it is all about selling more product than last year and no one really focuses on the things that used to bring families together.  When I was a kid we used to huddle around the television to watch Christmas specials as a family.  We used to go to downtown Lockport and be there when they lit up the city Christmas tree.  I was glad to see they brought the Christmas tree lighting back.  But a lot of the things that used to emphasize family togetherness are disappearing.

Parents are not spending the time with their kids that they used to spend with them and some of life’s lessons are being lost.  There are a lot of single parent homes these days and parents have to work a lot to make ends meet.  I think that has a lot to do with the fabric of our society becoming unraveled as well.

But I do remember Christmas when I was a kid and I wish it was like that today.  I know you can never go back in time but if I could show just one 9 year old kid what the Christmas season was like when I was their age I promise you it would start to make a comeback.

Showing The Bills The Door

Ok.  That’s it.  I’ve had enough.

Call me a “fair weather fan” or whatever makes you hardcore Bills’ fans feel better but I have seen enough of the Buffalo Bills to last me a life time.  You all know that when Ralph Wilson passes on that the Bills are going to be sold to the highest bidder.  The highest bidder will dictate that if Buffalo wants to keep the Bills we will have to shell out taxpayer dollars to build a new stadium.  At that point it will be time to show the Bills, and the NFL, the door.

The Buffalo Bills have been the model mediocrity for so long in the NFL that I have completely forgotten what it feels like to have a team that the rest of the league respects.  The days of Jim Kelly and four consecutive Super Bowls are long gone and, being realistic, they are not coming back.  Each chance the team has had to better itself it hasn’t even bothered to step up.  Randy Moss was available and desperately wanted out of Oakland.  Did we even make a play for him?  Brett Favre wanted to play anywhere but we all knew it wasn’t going to be Buffalo.  Edgerin James was escorted out of Indianapolis a few years ago and wound up with Arizona.  Granted the Bills may have not been a prime choice for any of those players but I am pretty sure that really doesn’t matter.  We were content with Trent Edwards at QB, Lee Evans at WR, and Marshawn Lynch at RB.  Nothing against those guys but give me Randy Moss over Lee Evans any day of the week.

The Bills under Ralph Wilson have never been afraid to spend money.  Anyone care to guess how much we are paying our starting offensive line?  Combined it is well over $20 million a year.  It is the pathetic decisions made by the player personnel people over the years that are disturbing.  We haven’t had a good football coach since Marv Levy and the parade of incompetent coordinators started when Levy left and has not stopped.

Buffalo used to be a feared power in the AFC and now we are back to being the butt of everyone’s jokes.  Do we really want to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into this organization when there are businesses in Western New York that hire hundreds of people that could use the money more?  Why the hell should we build the Bills a stadium?  Why the hell does any municipality have to build any NFL team a new stadium?  With local, state, and the federal governments scrambling to prop up the US economy with tax payer dollars does it even make sense to play the NFL “status” game and build a state-of-the-art stadium for nearly a billion dollars for a business that could leave a few years later anyways?

When the Sabres got their new home they put up a decent chunk of the money themselves.  The rest of the money was low interest loans secured for the team by Erie County in exchange for the promise that the team would not leave for at least 30 years.  No hundreds of millions of free tax payer dollars and no holding the community over a barrel.

If what the NFL is doing doesn’t make everyone sick then it should.  As far as I am concerned the Bills, and the NFL, can make sure the door doesn’t smack them on the way out of Buffalo.

Taking A News Vacation

There is a lot going on out there and some of it really makes me wish I had never accessed the news in any way.  Last week a couple of kids were arrested because they had decided that it would be funny, cool, whatever to kill people based on the color of their victims’ skin and then finish off their feat of intelligence by taking a shot at Barack Obama.  I just cannot deal with the kind of deep seeded ignorance and stupidity that is required to be a racist.  Racists come in all colors, white people are not the only racists in the world. 

It says a lot to our lack of imagination when we attempt to break everything down into the simplest of terms.  To the average person there are black people and there are white people.  I have met thousands of people in my day and I have yet to see anyone that is black or anyone that is white.  I have also yet to see anyone prove to me that the color of their skin is an indication of the kind of person they are.  Black hating white people are just as ignorant and white hating black people.  I have always been and advocate for eliminating race from any conversation and forcing people to rely on the strength of their character in order to get what they want out of life.  If you look at me and hate me because of the color of my skin before you even know me then you are a fool.  If you act the stereotype and then complain that one group or another is “keeping you down” then you are a fool.  People make their own decisions and people make much better decisions when they decide based on the context of the issue and not on the color of anyone’s skin.

Man I needed to get that off my chest.  I don’t understand racism (when I say racism I am talking about anyone hating anyone else because of skin color – racism is not exclusive to any one race) and I just cannot understand people that will not vote for a candidate simply because of the color of his skin.  That is ignorance to the highest degree in my opinion.

So after I got done digesting that bit of ugliness I go to CNN.com today and there is a story about how Exxon/Mobil posted $15 Billion in profits last quarter.  That is a record you know.  Those profits were recorded in the last quarter when gas was still almost $4 a gallon.  That is the profit off of the misery of millions of Americans.  But Americans have changed their ways and gas prices have been falling for weeks now.  Americans are driving billions of less miles and we have dropped our consumption of gasoline by millions of gallons.  Will the American public get our revenge or will Exxon/Mobil post yet another record profit in three months?  Let me put it this way.  If Exxon/Mobil posts another record profit in three months then there is something very wrong with the way that this country takes care of its people.

So I am taking a vacation from the news until after the election.  I hate bad news and lately it seems that the only kind of news we have to read is bad news.