I am normally a kind, humble, genteel, behind-the-scenes type of guy; however, today I must toot my own horn.  See, I did something really good.  Something that makes everyone happy…at least, it’s what makes everyone on TV happy.

So what was it that I did today?  I gave back to the community.

Did I visit a children’s ward in a hospital?  No.

Did I help someone build a house?  No.

Did I buy food for starving kids in Ethiopia?  No.

And I didn’t authorize a press release to tell people.

And I didn’t call a press conference.

Nothing I did today would be deemed newsworthy.

So, what did I do?  Not much:

- I obeyed the law while driving.
- I paid my bills.  On time.
- I did not spend on what I could not afford.
- I opened doors for people, and was gracious when others opened them for me.
- I greeted people.
- I paid attention to people when they talked to me.
- I fulfilled my job responsibilities.
- I told my wife of nineteen years that I love her…many times.
- I spent quality time with my kids.
- I set a good example as a husband for my children to see.
- I kept my mouth shut when I should have.
- I spoke out when it was appropriate.
- I didn’t put myself or anyone else in compromising situations.
- I didn’t abuse my body by eating or drinking to excess.

I know, you are probably saying to yourself, “But he didn’t do anything earth-shattering.”

EXACTLY!

Most people serve the community by doing what they do every day.  They set a good example for their family, co-workers and customers.  They fulfill their daily obligations.  They don’t put themselves or others into harm’s way.  They think with their brain instead of with other parts of their body.    They are wary of evil, and observant of good.

It shouldn’t take a massive, public act of so-called sacrifice by multi-millionaire entertainers and athletes for an act to be recognized as “giving back to the community”.  And it doesn’t take someone destroying their entire family’s well being and/or finances but making up for it in “spending time with the less fortunate” for someone to be recognized for really advancing their family, friends, neighbors and co-workers.

And for that, I would like to thank everyone who does the little things every day, and will never, ever get recognized for it.  Thank you for truly giving back to the community.

Now, let me get this straight.  LeBron plays basketball for a team that plays 41 games at home, at a price that many working class folks cannot afford.  Many of these folks, in this economy, may even have a difficult time paying their cable bills so they can watch the games.

So it’s LeBron’s fault these folks can’t make ends meet, right?   And if LeBron does leave, it means they’ll be able to afford even less, right?  I don’t think so.

Instead, why aren’t the media types in northeast Ohio focusing on the real problem: established politicians who keep doing the same thing to retain their power base, yet doing nothing to actually benefit the region.   The problems in the region are longstanding, but they keep adding new flavors.

Am I disappointed in LeBron for the approach he is taking to free agency?  Absolutely.  But to indict him for the region’s longstanding problems is nothing other than the region’s “leaders” deflecting blame from themselves.  Idiots!

…well, at least for the first six hours of his content.

Understand that everyone in this class is at least in their mid-30s, and only one of the students was new to management.  All races, both sexes, and most creeds were represented.  We came from public and private corporations, and government and not-for-profit entities.  In the reality of life, we looked like America. Not that that should matter in a leadership class, in my opinion, but it did in that seventh hour.

During a forty-five minute period, this excellent, commanding instructor decided to use the time to preach about diversity.  He approached practically every minority student to ask them if they were familiar with diversity problems, and that they were aware this is “still a white man’s world”. (The instructor is a white male in his sixties, btw.)  With each student he asked, you could feel the tension increase, and the students hesitate just a little longer before answering his questions.  One of these gals, who sat directly in front of me, had a relatively open posture for most of the day.  As the questioning went on, her posture closed up, and she spent most of the remaining hour in a prayer-like position, with her hands folded and close to her mouth.

I don’t know what point the instructor was trying to drive home.  Before his spiel, we were all managers trying to learn how to become better leaders.  After his talk, we were camps of black and white people.  I think no differently of the students who were made to answer his questions, but I have sympathy for them.  They were placed into a compromising position by someone they trusted.  It was not pretty, and it tarnished the good intentions of the instructor.  Something about the path to hell comes to mind….

He made plenty of good points about diversity that did not have to make an issue of race.  He could have stopped there, but he didn’t.  He should have.

Tomorrow is another day.  Let’s see if he messes up again.

How about when children of these parents are allowed to join social groups and start to make friends?  What happens then, when the kids are pulled from the group?  When they are not allowed to have contact with the friends they were making?  It’s not only tough on the children of the recluse, but leaves the parents of their friends lacking for answers to the question of, “why won’t they return my call?”

These parents may have good intentions, but they end up shielding their children from many things.  The cocooning is not good.  The children do not learn how to face problems, to deal with others, or to persevere under adversity.  They learn to close up, to run away.  And the friends they made end up confuse.  All because some parents refuse to face reality or accept the fact that their children aren’t reclusive like they are.  It is selfish.

What they can’t stand is this.  Pity the fools.  What’s good for me is not good for thee.  The focus isn’t on New York, so this sports journalist is going to cry in his Manhattan Iced Tea.  Dude, besides CA and NY, there are forty-eight other states in the union.  Come September, the Yankees and Red Sox will dominate again, and come September through January, it’ll be the Jets, Giants and Patriots.  Okay, maybe not…it’ll probably be Favre again.

Regardless, the sports media focuses on you too much already.  And, by the way, your teams suck.  Welcome to reality.  Idiots.

The businessman in me, however, says it’s a great commercial. I have never picked up a cigarette or cigar in my life.  I’ve frequented smokey bars and restaurants, and have dealt with the smell of smoke on busses and in the work place.  (Yes, you Gen-Y-ers, it was once acceptable to smoke at your desk at the office.)   I remember the commercial, very clearly.  It works.  Simplicity wins.  Even us non-smokers recall the commercial and the brand.

If simplicity works, and the “smoking sucks” mantra has caught on, why hasn’t anyone applied it to politics yet?  Probably because all the pols are looking for just the right message for just the right demographic.  Hence, their nuanced approach to creating mob mentality is falling short.  (See, that’s the problem with political pundits proclaiming to understand business…they don’t!)

I have a better way:

I’m talking about Opening Day!

What’s that?  You don’t know what “Opening Day” is?

No problem.  Let me explain.

There is a certain sport played primarily in the Americas and on the Pacific rim that kicks off at this time of year.  That sport is baseball.  If you play in the United States or Canada, and play in the premier north american league – the Major Leagues – your season is about to start or did start.   The day your team starts its baseball season is affectionately called “Opening Day”.  It is the only day that all baseball teams are equal.

Over a 162 game season, the winners will rise to the top, the losers will fall to the bottom, and a few teams may surprise.  However, Opening Day is the day that hope springs eternal for the fans of thirty different baseball teams.  Every fan is excited because, well, over a 162 game season, you hope even your bottom-of-the-barrel, always-finish-last home team can scrape together enough magic to go all the way.  Or, at least, to finish with more wins than losses.

Yes, hope springs eternal.

For my home team, the Cleveland Indians, I have hope for a “500″ season, which essentially means they win half their games.  I am a homer, and always root for the home team, no matter how good or bad they are.  You’ll never see me root for the Tigers, Yankees or Red Sox.  It just ain’t gonna happen.  So, even though my team lost today, I still have hope for an exciting, promising season…

…even if it kills me.

If you are a Republican, you put up with it for years, and never complain about it.  Why?  Because if you did, the media would be all over you for being a wimp.

If you are a Democrat, you put up with it for maybe 24 hours, call a press conference, talk about how mean-spirited the voters are, and look for sympathy.

Over the last 24 hours, callers have let their thoughts be known to the Democrats who voted for the health care bill.  I am not supporting the callers’ vitriol.  I understand and share their anger.  But I would never use those words.

What gets me, however, is not their reaction to the health care bill.  The intrigue for me is how this show of fear by the Democrats today compares to the need for strength in foreign relations.   Over the fall and winter, we heard about how conservatives were acting like terrorists.  Interesting.  We now see that the Democrats are afraid of these “terrorists”.

Not really.  Think again.

This is another Alinsky ploy to demonize the enemy.  But, it shows to what extent the Democratic party is willing to go against its true enemy.  Are those the third-world dictators?  No.  The terrorist organizations?  No.

Conservatives?  YES!!!

In other words, these tactics prove exactly who Dems think their enemies are.  It proves why they are weak on national defense, why they are willing to come to the table with terrorists.  They fear the real enemy.  With conservatives, they have have no fear; they realize they can manipulate the game whenever they want.

When they can win, they manipulate the game to win.  They cannot do that against terrorists, because they either don’t believe they can win, or don’t want to win.  In other words, when it comes to national defense, they need to grow a pair.  They need to defend all citizens, not just those wimpy, anti-military citizens that voted them into office.

Or…could she?

Let’s start here:  Let’s say you are Christian, Jewish or Muslim.  You are devout in your religion.  You follow the precepts, and study the book, whichever one it might be.  You do your best to follow the tenets of your religion.  Nothing could take you away from your faith.

If that is true, then you know who your ultimate enemy is:  Satan.  Forget about the earthly battles you choose to fight for now, and focus on the spiritual realm.  Satan is your ultimate enemy.   Never, no, not once, would you ever consider saying anything good about Satan.   The reasons would be obvious, right?  Could you imagine walking into your Bible Study class and sincerely saying something like, “well, because of him, we are enlightened.”  No, I don’t think so.   You would be giving credibility to him, making him possibly seem like an okay guy.  He’s not, but that does not matter.

You would do nothing to give the impression that the father of lies is acceptable.  He’s not cool, dreamy, hot (ha!), or anything else like that.  He is the enemy.  He must be, well, demonized.

Before you blurt, “Obviously!”, let me take this to the next level:

If you are conservative, then you are Satan.

No, seriously.

Right now, you are either cussing at your screen, or at me, or at the parents who gave birth to me.  Hear me out.

Just like the Jews, Muslims and Christians all recognize Satan as their ultimate enemy, and thus would never have anything good to say about him, liberals and their followers have politics as their religion, and must have an ultimate enemy.  If you are conservative, then congratulations, you are it.  Therefore, you are Satan.

This has nothing to do with being a follower of the evil one.  This has everything to do with how you are treated by the liberal establishment.  Because of the left’s effective use of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, you, as a conservative, will never, ever have anything nice said about you.  There will never be an opportunity to be told that you are wise, that your ideas are good, that you are thoughtful, or that you even look good.  If they did, it would make their followers believe that you have some redeeming qualities, that you are not the doofus they’d been led to believe.  And that you might – just might – have some beliefs worth hearing.  The left cannot have that, because their ideas won’t stand when put to the test.

Hence, the left has only one option, and that’s to make sure you, as a conservative, are the most vile, repulsive person known to man.  The person who no one wants to associate with.  The one who destroys all that is good in this world.  You are Satan.

Naah, not even the Church Lady would go that far…would she?

In showing a shockingly high level of consistency, the MSM, the Obama administration, and Congress are also showing disdain for another auto company who has just quietly recalled a number of their models.  Consumer complaints deal with power steering lock-ups.  If the driver cannot control their car, the problem is significant.  Harry Reid is all over this story, as are David Axelrod, Nancy Pelosi, and the union leadership country-wide.

Oh, I’m sorry.  That last paragraph is just not true.  Not when Government Motors is the company issuing the recall.  We wouldn’t want the truth to be known, would we?

Oh, I need to do an about face on the MSM involvement.  Depending on the search terms used, MSM coverage of this event does not occur until the second or third page of search results.  Everything else is either related to auto industry publications or blogs.  HuffPo ranked higher than other MSM outlets in covering this story.

Who says we don’t have a government, controlled media?  Idiots!