The Pinnacle of Travesties!!!!

When will it all end? I am a news hound. I love to watch the news on TV, listen to the news on my car radio and read the news on the internet. The problem I have these days is what passes as ‘real’ news. I saw a headline the other day that heralded the fact that Kim Kardashian’s baby bump is now showing. I don’t care. Who really does? The only thing I worry about is that poor kid being raised by whatever nanny this no-talent harlot hires.  

We are beset on all sides by tragedy and travesties. Benghazi-gate…Fast and Furious…Sandy Hook Elementary…Aurora Movie Theatre…100 car pile-ups on I-10…murders, rapes, burglaries, robberies, and it goes on. Old movie stars dying, young movie stars pontificating, middle of the road movie stars languishing….we’re told about them all. 

In fact, we are desensitized…almost…to everything and anything they report on these days. Taxes are higher, food is higher, gas is higher, unemployment is higher but it’s bound to get better. Did she lip-sync or didn’t she? Is he going to take away our guns or isn’t he? Is Feinstein really a woman or isn’t she? Should women go into combat or shouldn’t they? If they do, it will bring an entirely new meaning to the term ‘Foxhole’. Are the Republicans going to be destroyed or aren’t they? Will the Democrats take the House in 2014 or won’t they?  Soon, it all blobs together until you think John Kerry is going to be the Secretary of Defense and Hagel is going to be the Secretary of State and Obama is going to be selling ice cream from an ice cream truck. What??? Where did THAT come from? The Egyptians are getting F-16’s and we can’t have our AR-15’s and I want MY DAMNED AR-15!!!! The Moo-zlims are taking North Africa by storm, the North Koreans are going to nuke us, Japan and China are going to war and Mercedes has a Super Bowl ad that people are saying is too sexy for TV. Global Warming is a hoax and then it’s not, green energy costs too much but we’re going to do it anyway and America is going down the toilet with the rest of the goo but Bloomberg is worried about New Yorkers drinking too many BIG GULPS. Sheriffs across the country are letting the White House know they’re going to arrest Federal Agents while the Feds are more interested in arresting tax evaders than they are illegal immigrants. Afghanistan is going back to the dogs, Iraq never left the dogs, all the Arabs hate us and the Israelis don’t trust us. Europe is broke, Russia is in a mess and China has aspirations about taking over the world. North Korea, AGAIN…threatened war with South Korea and Malaysia is planning to have a Bible burning. Pakistan and India still hate each other and are rattling their nuclear sabres, while the pirates in Somalia are retiring from the business because they’re all multi-millionaires now and the ocean around their cracked up country is too dangerous to continue the trade. BUT…NEWS FLASH!!!! Tiger Woods is dating Lindsey Vonn, Danika Patrick has a new boyfriend and Michael Buble and his wife are expecting a baby. Who the hell is Michael Buble???? 

Then…THEN…to top it all off, comes the travesty to end all travesties. It is the veritable pinnacle of travesties. Yea, there can be no worse travesty than the one I am about to inform you of. When I saw this on the news, I went…”NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!” and fell to my knees in anguish, sobbing like a child who just found out his diaper wasn’t organic. Some things used to be sacred, ya know? There was a time when you didn’t change some things and you let tradition live on, regardless of the cost or the negative impact and consequences. But, not today. No, in today’s society you can’t allow what’s best in the world, what’s good, pure and beneficial to planetary peace go on without change. When I saw this on the news, I was fully aware at that moment the world..as we have known it…would soon end. The Lingerie Football League will no longer wear….I can’t hardly continue with these tears in my eyes….LINGERIE!!!!! 

Why even have a man-cave in your home if you can’t watch scantily clad women play football? Why even watch women play football if you can’t see all their jiggly parts…jiggling…as they run with the ball? What sense does it make to cover them up? They aren’t popular because they rush a hundred yards a game or sprint the 40 in 4.1. They’re popular because THEY’RE WEARIN’ FRIKKIN’ LINGERIE!!!!!  Any idea why men like to watch a catfight…(a term used by us Neanderthals to indicate two women fighting)? Because they tear each other’s clothes off and we get to see their jiggly parts jiggling…sometimes without any covering at all. It’s a gas gas gas. Ya know? 

And now, they’ve gone and ruined it for all of us who still have that animalistic desire to see near naked women grunt and grind and hit and jiggle, all without having to endure listening to them talk afterward. It was a win-win!!! 

So, that’s it for me with the news watching. I can’t think of anything more horrid than this…but what if it were to happen? What if…heaven forbid…a future headline like this were to be splashed on newspapers and internet sites around the country? What would we do then? What…would…we…do? 

KIM KARDASHIAN ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!  

If the Lingerie Football League change can happen….anything is possible. Be afraid my friends. Be very afraid.

Let Us Drink Milk and Honey

Ah, to live in a liberal's fantasy land must be a wondrous thing. If only everyone would love and not hate, give and not take, bless and not curse, make love and not war and...and...I think I'm going to be sick.

Yes, it would be grand, wouldn't it? That's what we should do. We should drink milk and honey and sprout fresh smelling blooms from our bottoms and wish away all the world's problems into the corn field. Utopian thinking is the way to everlasting peace and understanding. We need to quote famous figures who denounce violence and espouse pacifism, for if the tyrants out there could see how harmless we are they would melt in our presence and instantly morph into preserved figs that we could taste all the day long. That's why there are people acting out evil things. It's because they don't understand how lovely the rest of us are and that if they would only come within our fold the beast that beats inside them would be tamed forever and we could lie among the clover and have one big slobbery lovefest with another. Why, if everyone had the same thing, then crime would disappear. If there were no guns, murder would disappear.

I can see it now. Let us all have a Volkswagen and a two bedroom house with kitchen, small living room and bathroom. Everyone has central air and heat, and everyone gets a chicken a day with a cup of rice. Why steal if that's what everyone has? Why covet if that's what everyone has? Why kill, maim and destroy if it will gain you nothing but the same thing that everyone else has? I think we should demand this happen right away. Let us start a petition to the White House and ask our President to sign one of his executive order thingys and put it into action. After all, government is the answer. Right? All of the world's ills can be answered by the right kind of governing.

And, of course, we need the utopians to help teach the rest of us the true way of happiness and contentment. I'm sure it has something to do with jump rope, hop scotch and jacks, but I'm not an expert on dreaming about the impossible like they are. I'll need to be re-educated, too.

A lot of us will have to do without certain things we have become accustomed to when the new world order comes into play. Things like...freedom...liberty...and the pursuit of what makes us happy as individuals. No, the liberals want 'normal' to be defined as everybody having and doing the same thing. Individuality is out, for it is individualism that breeds greed, lust, envy, hatred and violence.

The liberal totally rejects the idea of sin as the root cause of the world's problems. They say it has to be more than that. There has to be more to it than that. It can't be that simple. Then, when they turn the coin over to look at the other side, they scoff and scorn at the simplicity of the answer to sin. The liberal wants the answer to be found within us and them. They want man to find his own answers and his own solutions. They don't want to cast aside their own godhood, because then it would make them answerable to someone higher, greater and more powerful than they. Liberals refuse to believe their own ideas of what real power is couldn't even start to reach the height of what is truly there. No, they would rather look to those who are no better and no worse than they for their dreamy yet useless quotes, and then look upon those who are of a different mindset as inferior and a major part of the problem that just doesn't seem to want to go away.

One day, there will be a reckoning. It's in print that it will come. I would rather be reading that, believing that, than thinking they can avoid said reckoning by their own pitifully inadequate intellect. No matter how much you 'Imagine', this old world is only going to get worse and worse. And, every one of us has a hand in it. Every...last...one of us.

Dogs or Cats?

I was listening to 610 Sports Radio in Houston the other morning after the Houston Texans got slammed...AGAIN...by the New England Patriots, when for some reason the conversation turned to dogs and cats. The radio hosts were far and away dog lovers, which I have no problem with. But, they also voiced a total disdain for cats. One went so far as to say he couldn't stand cats.

In my lifetime, I have heard more guys say they have no love for the common house cat than those who do. Most have expressed a severe dislike for them. I think I know why. However, lets go to the dog and why men love them more.

Dogs are great. I love them. Allow me to go through the short list of dogs that I have owned. There was Toy, Zeus, Sissy, Ginger, Buddy and Phoebe. Toy was a short haired terrier mix and he was extremely loyal and fun to play with outdoors. Zeus was my German Shepherd and he had my back. Sissy and Ginger were two little dogs that belonged to me and my parents and both were very loving. Buddy was a chow mix and he had my wife's back...even when it came to me. He hated men and worshipped her. I didn't have to worry about the girls' safety while I was gone. If anyone tried to get to them, they would have had to go over his dead body. Then, there was Phoebe, my black labrador retriever. Crazy dog, but very loving. We had to give her over to a good family while I was working in England. She's very happy and loved where she is now. Men love dogs because they exude manhood. To have a manly dog makes a man feel...well...manly. A lot of men have 'control' issues and need a dog to carry them out. Dogs are subservient creatures and want to please their master. Dogs have no problem with having a master, because the master meets all their needs. Water, food, a place to stay and companionship. It's like having a slave. The dog, in turn, protects the home, the family, hunts and basically does what it's told to do. They are great company, always at your feet waiting to please. In addition, many people just prefer dogs. They love dogs. It's almost an innate thing you are born with to love a dog. Dogs are good and have proven themselves to man for centuries as great helpmates.

Then, there is the cat. I think men hate cats because cats couldn't care less what they want. You can't look at a cat and say, "Come!", expecting him to do anything other than to look back at you with an expression that says, "I know you ain't talkin' to me." It has been said the ancient Egyptians worshipped cats as gods and that they have never forgotten it. I would have to agree this is how they act. In the above paragraph, I mentioned several dogs I have 'owned'. The same cannot be said of cats. One never owns a cat. Dogs have masters. Cats have staff. I have heard men say that with a cat, you get nothing back in return. I have to disagree. With cats, you actually learn something about yourself and can take additional lessons about life in general from a cat. The first lesson would be to chill out and take a bath. Nothing seems to be as refreshing to a cat than a good bath. When a cat bathes, the entire world goes into 'stop' mode and total attention is given to it. When something is important, the cat says, put your whole being to the task. No other animal has mastered the art of the nap like the cat has. Frequent naps are part and parcel in the nature of the cat. As I have grown older, this catlike wisdom has taken root with me. Nothing beats a good nap. Cats teach you to be independent and wary of others. Cats can be left alone for days at a time. When you return, they look at you as if to say, "Oh...you left?" You gotta love that. Our oldest cat, Sasha, beds us down every night. He gets on top of us and lays down, purring loudly. The purr is one of the most pleasant sounds in all the world. Much better than a bark.

If you choose to own a dog, I think that's great. Dogs are a great animal friend to have. But, don't look down on people who love cats a little more. These are sensitive people who like a quiet, sedate animal at their side while they read a book. When they allow it, you can stroke their soft fur and listen to them purr. It is said cats don't show affection. That's usually said by people who don't like cats and have never had one choose them to live with. Cats are very affectionate creatures. It's just that the affection comes to you on their terms, and not yours. If you're a guy who likes to have control over everything around you, then you will hate cats. But, if you're a guy with a big heart who believes in 'live and let live', then you will treasure the company of a cat, as much as you will that of an obedient dog. I have had both at the same time, and it was a happy home we had. Love your dog, but have a heart for the cat. They are a special creature.

When Did This Happen?

I was listening to what passes as news this morning, having my cup of joe and minding my own business, when this 'idiot' woman began to vomit her 'idiot' thinking from her brain through her pie hole. The subject was the legalization of marijuana, whether in the 18 States that have approved it to be distributed medically, or Colorado and Washington State that has made it legal recreationally.

From looking at this woman, one could logically deduce the only life she has ever known was in a library or classroom. I doubt she's ever been on a date, much less asked out for one, and I couldn't help but chuckle as she spouted about talking to 'experts' to back up her claims...of which these 'experts' were never named.

I always like that term...expert. How do you get to be an expert on something? I've watched the news before where some guy about 21 years old is heralded as an expert on political conflict engagement between the minorities and police in suburban areas that have low crime rates due to the number of dogs people own vs. the cats they have. I mean...really? You aren't old enough to be an expert on wiping your own ass. But, I digress.

This bloviating blowhard of a woman (of which I am the same thing, but I'm a guy) was talking about how recreational marijuana use will harm the low income and youth...or, the ones who don't have much to do. It will decrease productivity in the work force, she claimed, since they'll be 'chilled out' from THC overload. Let me touch on that. Back in 1979, before drug testing and while I was working at a plant in Houston, I would get high before I went to work. I would show up at 6:45 in the morning and start working at 7. Around 10, I would maintain the high. After lunch, I would do it again. When we were supposed to go home at 3:30, we were usually told that we had to work overtime. During that fifteen minute lull I would get high again. This went on until seven or eight or nine or ten pm. When I got home, I would get my bedtime high and go to sleep. Only to get up and start all over again the next morning. There were several of us that did this, working sixty, seventy and even eighty hours a week. What's funny is we got the product out, nobody got injured, and we were gainfully employed. The only reason I stopped smoking marijuana was because of drug testing. The job was more important to me than the high. For her to also state that only the poor and the young will smoke dope is ludicrous. All people from all walks of life get high. If it's legal, marijuana will be at every party at every level of the financial ladder.

But, what had me chuckling the most at this idiot was when she said that we as a society are responsible for what happens to the lower income people and  youth who will be negatively affected by marijuana use. When did this happen? When was "I" responsible...as in my fault if nothing is done about it...for everybody else? Look, guys...I can't take care of 300 million Americans. I know I'm quite the man, but even that is beyond my capability. What she's saying, like so many idiots just like her, is that we need to pour more money at the problem. And where do we get this money? From me and you for the government to spend and spend and spend for social ills that will NEVER go away. Marijuana has been illegal for how long now? There's been a 'war' on drugs for how long now? There's been educational tools, seminars, meetings and films (the most hilarious is Reefer Madness, you should see it some time) about the dangers of drugs for how long now? Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence....We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal. I believe that. But all men and women will not move on from birth to remain equal and it ain't my responsibility to see to it they do. A lot of men and women make bad choices through their lives and end up being unequal on the ladder of life. Some don't get off the first rung, others only make it halfway, and then there are the very very few who climb to the top. Am I an equal citizen to Donald Trump or Brad Pitt? In the eyes of the law and the Constitution I am, but on the rung of financial security, fame, popularity, and status I have not. I can't call a press conference and talk about my root canal...but if these two were to do it the press would show up in droves.

I am responsible for the path I chose. Nobody else is responsible for me and I don't want anybody else to be responsible for me. I have made bad choices in life, and I've made good choices in life and I've made some so-so choices in life. Those choices are what have made me what I am today, for better or worse, and nobody is to blame or get credit for it other than me.

Personally, I think the legalization of marijuana should go nationwide. Thousands of people are being murdered, butchered, tortured, raped and mutilated on the southern border because of America's gluttonous need for drugs. The drug cartels are shipping it over here and making billions of dollars down there. The best way to take their power from them is to compete with them....the good old capitalist method. Just think how much revenue the government could bring in from the taxes. If we ran the drug cartels out of business, think how many lives would be saved down south, and how much money would stay here. There are many...MANY...who would decry this idea and wail and scream and throw accusations at me about the lives that would be destroyed here and how I was heartless to put 'money' in the mix of the decision. My answer to that would be this. Are people not smoking it now? Are people not snorting it now? Are people not making brownies now? Do we not already have a widespread drug problem in this country now? One of the draws to marijuana is the illegality, the excitement of the 'sneak', the getting away with something.

My daughter goes to college and has made friends with a young man she says was high all the time. She never saw him at school when he wasn't high. He made straight 'A's. At the beginning of this semester, she told me he came up to her and wasn't high. He informed her that he was tired of it and decided to quit. There was no pressure, no arrests made and it wasn't that his parents found his stash and threatened to throw him out on the street. What happened was....he grew up. He decided to be responsible for his own actions. Just like I did. I was glad to hear it. There are others, perhaps many, who won't make that 'good' decision. But, that's not my responsibility...it's theirs. We all have choices to make in life. I want those to be free, personal choices...no matter what they are or what they do to the person making them. What I don't want is some liberal thinknik with her unnamed experts telling me or anybody else what choices to make. The government has already started doing that in many other areas of our lives, chipping away at the foundation of our freedoms and liberties until they finally get what they want. A nanny state.

Would be that we still had the mindset of the old settlers moving west. They took responsibility for their own lives and their own futures. Many died along the way from indians, outlaws, disease, starvation, accidents, and weather. I'm glad we didn't have this woman living back then. She would have been at the threshold of the west, warning everyone to not go and urging the government to intervene on their behalf because they were deluded and forcing suffering on themselves.

I guess I only have one thing to say to her, and I wish I could. That would be...."Shut up, bitch."

Piers Morgan Go Home

I just finished reading an intolerably long article by Piers Morgan that was published in the UK Daily Mail. Now, for all you libs and gun hatin' types out there that are AMERICAN citizens, please understand this is not directed at you. As a citizen, I firmly believe you have every right to hold your own beliefs and have your own stances about guns in America and lawfully speak out however you choose. You also have the right and Constitutionally protected tools to do what you can to change things in this country. I don't support your side...but I support your right and the right to those tools.

As most of you know, I legally worked and lived in the UK from November, 2007 to November 2009. I went back in August, 2010 and didn't leave from the project that brought me there until April, 2012. First, let me tell you that I fell in love with that country. The place is unbelievably rich in history and tradition. From the coast of southern England to the Scottish Highlands I doubt I have ever seen such resplendent landscapes and lush, beautiful vegetation. The people are extremely friendly and the pub life superb. I made many friends while there and still remain in contact with several of them. I miss England very much...every aspect of it. I would love to live there for the rest of my life.

But, you know what I didn't do while I was there? I didn't tell them how much greater America was than England. I didn't tell them how stupid they were to have a parliamentarian government instead of one like ours. I didn't scoff at their having a royal family or deride them for driving on the left side of the road. I also didn't tell them how bad off they were for not having the same freedom as we to protect ourselves...because, dear friends...they don't. No, what I did was live by a couple of simple rules. The first one was, 'When in Rome..'. The United Kingdom is what it is. The English are English, the Scottish are Scottish and the Welsh are Welsh. I lived as an Englander. I had no weapons at my ready disposal. I visited the local pubs. When I ate out, I learned that the crowd doesn't start showing up until eight or later. They don't eat early. I watched their news, read their papers, listened to their radio and never once tried to drive on the correct side of the road. To be quite frank, many of them...mostly males...were fascinated by our gun culture. Several times I had them ask me if I had any guns. My response? "I'm from Texas, dude. Of course I have guns." The conversation would then go to, 'How many?', 'What kinds?', and 'Why do you need them?'.  I never...not once...injected into a conversation as to why they didn't want them.

You see, it's a different culture. My second rule was that I wasn't there to change the culture. I was there to perform a job. I wasn't there to alienate people. I was there to get along. When it came to their way of life, I minded my own business. I was a visitor. And, even if I moved there permanently and established full-time residence, I wouldn't go on a crusade to change them. The same holds true for every other country I have been in. It's up to them to change if that's what they want to do. If they are content...leave, them, alone.

I know many, many people who have come here from the UK to stay. One of the first things most of them do is buy guns. They are elated at the freedom to buy guns and to possess them. As our founding fathers said, and even as old Great Britain patriarchs have said in the long ago past, no man is free unless he is armed. They have also discovered that the vast majority of gun murders here are between gang bangers fighting over their 'turf'. These UK ex-pats have found on their own that America is a safe country. Not only is it safe from the criminal element...by and large...but an armed populace increases its safety from the government that looms over its people. I have no problem with UK folks coming here to work, live, play, raise their families and experience this great country of ours in any fashion they wish...except for one.

Don't come over here and blather about how much greater England is than America. England is England. America is America. Deal with it. But, my anger is really kindled...along with millions of other Americans....MILLIONS...when a goatsucker like Piers Morgan comes over here and has a voice on national TV and trumpets about how much more holier his thinking is than ours. Piers Morgan has no business telling us anything about what we should do within our borders, right or wrong. As he so aptly pointed out in his article, we already threw his ilk out of here and we did it because we had guns. We shot the crap out of the British until they cried 'Uncle!' and then we boarded their Redcoat asses on their boats and shipped them home where they belonged. Morgan had the audacity to point out that he wasn't against guns. He said that guns was what stopped Hitler. What? The lack of guns in the hands of the people was one reason he was able to be HITLER.

Piers Morgan can pontificate all he wants with his stats and his figures and his math. Anyone can make any case they want to with stats...pro, con, or otherwise. He can even tell one of our citizens on his program that he's an incredibly stupid man and get away with it. He can spew his wimpy diatribe on our television channel until he's blue in the face. And I hope he carries out his 'threat' to deport himself, after a petition to the White House garnered nearly 100,000 signatures asking our government to deport him. In England, he and any other British citizen can say whatever they want about America, good or bad, and I will have no problem with it. But, to come over here and make U.S. Dollars hand over fist, on U.S. soil, living in a U.S. house, working on a U.S. TV station, eating U.S. food, drinking U.S. water, enjoying U.S. shops and...might I add... enjoying much much lower U.S. taxes from top to bottom??? One might think he would be somewhat grateful to be allowed to live in the greatest most powerful and free-est country the world has ever known and shut his pie-hole when it came to how we choose to live and under what rules. The best...BEST...thing he could do for America, is to frikkin' leave.

There Is No Cure

I read a story today about a mother who lost her son at Sandy Hook Elementary. She says he 'still' appears in her dreams and she's haunted by his memory. The word 'still' caught my attention, because it hasn't been that long ago since the tragedy occurred. However, if I could talk to her, my message wouldn't be pleasant. There is no cure for it.

We all expect to lose our parents and grandparents. That doesn't make it easier when it happens, and we go through the grieving process and mourn their passing and the absence of their positive influence in our lives. My dad passed away in October, 1999 and my mother in December, 2003. I still think about them and we have their photos on the wall of our bedroom. They were good parents and we loved each other dearly. I still miss them, but the passage of time has dulled the pain of grief and I think mainly about the good things they left behind and the good times we had. Now, today, I never get melancholy about them, nor my grandparents. They were good people who loved me and I would love to visit them over a nice cup of coffee. But, that's about it.

However, the loss of my child is vastly different. This year will mark the fourteenth year of her passing. I can't look at her pictures on our wall without feeling a knot in my stomach. At times, I see her face and hear her voice and it is all I can do to hold back the tears. Sometimes, I can't. I find myself second guessing on how I could have been a better parent to her and whisper for her to forgive me in my failures. I beat myself up over wanting her to die in the early stages of her life and think about what a terrible thing it was to wish such an event for your own flesh and blood. As her father, I should have been able to protect her until all the breath was gone from MY body, instead of hers. When May comes around, I dread it. It brings floods of bad memories and bad times of pain, suffering, sadness and regret. That long walk we took down the corridor of the funeral home to see her lying in a casket is etched in my brain and I can't get rid of it. We're supposed to go first. We're supposed to go first.

There is no cure for grief and the mourning process when you lose a child. It comes and it goes, and then it comes again. Sometimes it doesn't hit as hard as others. It is the birthdays and the Christmases and the Thanksgivings and...yes...the death where it hits the hardest. Then, there are times like yesterday while at work and sitting at my desk a wave of grief came over me when I thought of her. I had to go outside and sit in my car for a few minutes to let it pass. I have said before, and I'll say it again, that my greatest fear is I might forget what the sound of her voice was like. If I couldn't bring back the vividness of her voice in my mind I think it would devastate me. Sounds silly on the surface, but it freezes me with fear to think it may happen.

And, think about this. I feel this way about a child that I expected to die before me. When we brought her home from the hospital after two and a half months, we brought her home to die. If I still feel this way about her, just think about those parents at Sandy Hook whose children were healthy and expected to live out long and happy lives. No, there is no cure for it. There is comfort in my spirituality and my God allows me to be happy at all other times. But nothing can fully take away the loss in my heart or fill the hole that is there. And, there are no words to help those families in Connecticut. There are no programs, no guides, no quips and no medicines to take away the loss of a child, no matter what the circumstances were for that loss. The reason is as I said before....we're supposed to go first. There is no plan B if that doesn't happen. You just have to cope and move on. And that's the hardest part.

Now, On To What's Most Important....

Today, the Houston Texans are in Boston...or Foxborough...to play the New England Patriots in the NFL's Divisional Round of the playoffs. When these two teams met on December 10, the Pats steamrolled my beloved team to the tune of 42 to 14. It wasn't pretty. Now, here they are after winning the wild card round, back in the same place where their collective panties were pulled down and then spanked on their bulbous butts for all the world to see in a prime time game. They are 9-1/2 point underdogs.

Yesterday, another two teams met where one was a 9-1/2 point dawg. The Baltimore Ravens had been drummed by the Denver Broncos four weeks earlier....kind of in the same fashion the Texans were slapped around by the Patriots. As the Texans, the Ravens had to go to the opponents' home field and listen to the rabid crowd and play the 13-3, number one seed in the AFC. What happened could only be described as a sports miracle. The Ravens won the game, 38-35, in what could be aptly described as one of the most exciting playoff games in NFL history. Baltimore showed heart, grit, tenacity, a never-say-die mentality, and pulled out the win over one of the most highly rated teams in the NFL.

Then, today...we have the Houston Texans. They have individual players with a lot of heart. But, as a team...not so much. At the end of the Ravens game, the head coach kissed their star running back on the temple. Kind of weird...but the Ravens coach is an emotional guy. Our coach? The Houston Texans' coach? Yeah, he's kind of weird, too. However, I think he's devoid of emotion. In fact, he might even be an android. The style of coaching I saw yesterday trumps our coach's style in every sense of the word. The Ravens' quarterback, Joe Flacco was allowed the option of airing it out and taking chances, doing all he could to win the game. But you won't see this coach calling plays where our quarterback, Matt Schaub, will be throwing bombs all over the field. You won't see our team playing loose and with reckless abandon. It may even be a fact that they would get fined by our coach if they exhibited any kind of 'fun' while playing the game. To him, it's all business. Boring, tedious, repititious business. Gary Kubiak, the man of whom I speak, is about as flexible as a six inch long, two inch diameter iron rod. Here's one example.

Yesterday, a young man named Trindon Holliday (Denver), set an NFL record. He returned a punt for a 90 yard TD, and then returned a kickoff for a 104 TD. No player in NFL history has ever done that in the playoffs. The reason I mention the young man is that up until the regular season started this year, he was a Houston Texan. He showed brilliance in the pre-season, but Kubiak has so much granite for a brain that you can't make mistakes on his team and he lets you know when you're hanging by a thread. In short, he put so much pressure on the young man he had problems coping with it. Kubiak had said publicly that he didn't need somebody on his team that was simply a return man. He needed someone who was more versatile. So, if he kept Holliday, he would really really have to shine as a return man. He didn't, in Kubiak's near sighted eyeballs, so he cut him. Trindon goes to Denver and they say, "Hey little guy, we just want you to return kicks for us. Do your best." And, he did.

This coach's inflexibility will be the Texans' downfall today. He's too predictable and coaches as if he has blinders on. The coach he is going up against today is a mastermind at developing a game plan that will rip your heart out and crush it before your dying eyes. He lets his team play to their strengths, instead of what he perceives they should be doing. Kubiak will be like a deer caught in the headlights, and if they manage to win...it will be in spite of him, instead of because of him.

I feel bad about it, because we have some good men on this team who play with heart and who want to win. But when the captain of your ship is the NFL's poster boy for Captain Ahab, who is obsessed with his players staying within his Moby Dick system, he becomes the catalyst to their demise. Fake field goal? Fake punt? Razzle dazzle? A wrinkle in their offense that nobody has seen before? Throwing for ten when you actually need ten? Airing it out all over the field? Fuggedaboutit. That's not Gary Kubiak's style. He'd rather lose than change. And that's more than likely what's going to happen later today.

My take? Houston 17, Patriots 28. AND, I'll be the happiest person among all the fans if I'm wrong. Here's hoping I am.