Tuesday Afternoon

Spent a couple of hours with my Mom at the hospital today. She seems to be recovering from her Easter Sunday asthma attack, which of course did not occur until we had departed for home after having spent an otherwise delightful afternoon with my sister Judy and her husband John, and my brother Joe who had driven down from North Carolina. I'm informed their Sunday evening was a bit more exciting than mine, but then Mom is nearly 89 years old and these things do happen on occasion. The good news is that she is on the mend and should be home soon.

Could not help but notice all the ruckus over Don Imus and his stupid remark. I have never listened to the guy myself or any other political "shock jock" for that matter. I find them all boring, but I don't think the insults that they spew over the waves are only relevant if you listen to them. Remember that old saying about the tree falling in the forest when there is no one around to hear the noise associated with the fall? You know, is there still a noise if no one is there to hear the sound? The play on that of course is the infamous; "if a man is alone in the forest and there is no one around to hear him when he says something, is he still wrong?" Now, let's take this one step further and ask if a conservative or liberal talk show host spews some insult across the radio waves and there is no one listening, is he or she still a jerk? Some folks have suggested that the market should determine what happens to Mr. Imus. Me, well I think he should be fired and the FCC should ban him for at least a year! In fact, I think we need to insist that he is fired and inform the sponsors of the network that if he isn't fired then we will boycott their products until he is fired. The fact is the market isn't you or me, it's all those right wing fundamentalists who listen to him and think that what he said was actually okay because he meant no real harm. Hey guys, you know that myth about our personality changing as we get older? Well, the reality is that it is just that, a myth and nothing is going to change the deep-seated bigotry that resides behind his remarks. Imus is not a good person, he is a racist and a bigot and this country needs to start setting some serious rules and guidelines for these folks. Where is the Commissioner of the FCC? Forget the network because they are only going to want him back because this ruckus is going to make him more popular allowing them to sell more advertising and make more money. The FCC needs to take this decision and they need to take it now and send a message to the whole bloody political radio community.........but then of course this is only my humble opinion.

Speaking of taking action. I see the Hawks finally took some action against Josh Smith's foul language. I just wonder why it took so long for them to recognize that this kid has a real problem with controlling his anger and his mouth. He is a spoiled child who gets angry when things don't go his way and he uses the "F" word all the time even though there are kids in the stands less than 20' from him. I am absolutely delighted that they are fining him $40K and sitting his rear on the bench. Of course it doesn't matter at this point in their season and they can take this stand without doing any harm to what is already an embarrassing season. I wonder if they would have taken the same action if the team were in contention for a playoff spot? Oh well, guess we will never know the answer to that question.

Finally, someone asked me for the link to the folks at Clifton StrengthsFinder.......you can find out more about this amazing field at http://sf2.strengthsfinder.com/research and also at http://sf2.strengthsfinder.com/faq. To learn more about the books you can go to http://sf2.strengthsfinder.com/learnmore.

Have a nice evening folks.