When your heart is trampled
and buried in the road
and buried in the road
dig it up and find a better path.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Sunrise
Wisconsin River, Eagle River, WI
--"...the quickest way for anyone to reach the sun and the light of day is not to run west, chasing after the setting sun, but to head east, plunging into the darkness until one comes to the sunrise."
by Jerry Sittser
Friday, March 11, 2011
Trying to figure out this little thing called Politics.
As some of you may know I am a Wisconsin native but have lived all over this great country of ours from Maine to Utah and everywhere in between. I'm really not into politics. I'd rather launch my kayak into the river put my ear buds in, crank up my John Denver or Ramones tunes and paddle away from the world for an afternoon. That's my happy place, politics is not.
Over the past few weeks my state has had a lot of local, national and world attention. It is pretty chaotic here. Family and friends are divided, co-workers and colleagues are arguing. It's past the casual water cooler debate; it's all fueled by frustration and passion now. Nobody even remembers a few months back when we were all giving high fives and hugging each other when the Green Bay Packers won another Super Bowl. Go Pack Go!
So here is my take on this whole political game and what people are calling democracy. Yes I am calling it a game. In a game you need two teams with different team colors. Let’s have a red team and how about a blue team. Let’s call the red team the Majority and the blue team the Minority. Just to be fair we can change up the names and colors every few years for what the people want. If we really want to get into the game we could have mascots also like a donkey and an elephant but let’s skip that for now. The team names and colors are established so now we need some players. We’ll have a draft and let the people choose the players by voting. This is the fairest way to choose teams but sometimes one team is a little better or more powerful than the other team. This doesn’t seem fair but the teams switch up power every few years and it all evens out in the long run. For this example let’s have the red team be a little stronger a little more powerful. I think this is fitting since their team name is Majority. Now let’s not put down the blue team they are great players but just don’t have the power right now. They have had it in the past and I’m sure they will have it sometime in the future too. The game changes quite a bit. Hey some teams even use slogans about “Change” and it makes them more powerful, go figure.
Now is the time for the game to start. The whistle blows and the Majority has the ball. They call the shots right now. They have an agenda they bring forward to pass. They feel their agenda is very important because the people who chose them for the team have expressed their opinions this is what needs to be done. They bring this to the arena, let’s call it the floor. Now the Majority really wants this to pass and they know they can pass it because for the time being they are a more powerful team. They give their agenda to the blue team, the Minority to look over to see what they think. The agenda is open for discussion.
Now comes the hard part the discussion, the debate whatever you would like to call it. This is the meat and potatos of the game. Sometimes the discussion goes good and sometimes not so good. See the red team, the Majority can listen and take into consideration any ideas the Minority may have. But since they are the more powerful team they are allowed to do what they feel is best for their team. This can create some tension between the teams. One thing you need to understand is these two teams are big rivals and have been playing against each other for many years. There have been a lot of great games, some big wins and some big losses for each team. But the great thing is they keep coming back to play against each other with the same passion year over year.
After both teams have talked about the agenda for awhile the more powerful team has the right to end the game. So the Majority will call a vote to see who wants to end the game and pass the agenda. Sometimes both teams will agree on the agenda, other times they may not. Now this is the tricky part. When the less powerful team the Minority doesn’t like the agenda they have a few options. One option is to vote and try to get enough numbers to stop the agenda which is very hard to do. They can chalk it up to being less powerful for this game with hopes the next game they are stronger than the other team and can get their agenda to pass instead. A second option which has been played recently is more chaotic. This Minority team tries to stall the agenda in many different and sometimes desperate ways. One way to stall is keep debating with hopes the stronger team will grow weary and give in. The last ditch effort would be to run out of the arena and hide so the vote can not be taken. This doesn’t really do anything but cause a lot of chaos.
The chaos happens when the two teams start using illegal hits and low blows to try and injure the other team. The losing team will pull out all the tricks in the book to try and win a battle that mathematically they can not win. The losing team will accuse the Majority of playing favorites to their sponsors. The sponsors are the people that helped the players get on the team by donating money to make the team stronger. While the Minority team says this is wrong they also have a big cookie jar full of cash from sponsors like unions or special interest groups for example. Sometimes the less powerful team will invite all their friends, supporters and I’m sure some hired professional cheerleaders to come visit them at the arena to show support in numbers. They will create a lot commotion. The media will feel sympathetic for them and tell their story so more people will come out and support them. Everyone loves a good underdog fight to the finish with a big win. The reality is the winning team is still the Majority because they were chosen by the people and are mathematically still stronger no matter how much noise the Minority creates. The Minority needs to accept the loss and fight to become the Majority for the next game or term.
Both teams no matter what color they are or what kind of mascot they have will always push their agenda through with or without compromise when they are the Majority. To me the more honorable thing is to accept defeat, make a new plan, and get a stronger team so you are the Majority the next time you step into the arena. So that’s democracy and/or politics in a nut shell for me.
Cheers,
Sir Zimbrakman
Over the past few weeks my state has had a lot of local, national and world attention. It is pretty chaotic here. Family and friends are divided, co-workers and colleagues are arguing. It's past the casual water cooler debate; it's all fueled by frustration and passion now. Nobody even remembers a few months back when we were all giving high fives and hugging each other when the Green Bay Packers won another Super Bowl. Go Pack Go!
So here is my take on this whole political game and what people are calling democracy. Yes I am calling it a game. In a game you need two teams with different team colors. Let’s have a red team and how about a blue team. Let’s call the red team the Majority and the blue team the Minority. Just to be fair we can change up the names and colors every few years for what the people want. If we really want to get into the game we could have mascots also like a donkey and an elephant but let’s skip that for now. The team names and colors are established so now we need some players. We’ll have a draft and let the people choose the players by voting. This is the fairest way to choose teams but sometimes one team is a little better or more powerful than the other team. This doesn’t seem fair but the teams switch up power every few years and it all evens out in the long run. For this example let’s have the red team be a little stronger a little more powerful. I think this is fitting since their team name is Majority. Now let’s not put down the blue team they are great players but just don’t have the power right now. They have had it in the past and I’m sure they will have it sometime in the future too. The game changes quite a bit. Hey some teams even use slogans about “Change” and it makes them more powerful, go figure.
Now is the time for the game to start. The whistle blows and the Majority has the ball. They call the shots right now. They have an agenda they bring forward to pass. They feel their agenda is very important because the people who chose them for the team have expressed their opinions this is what needs to be done. They bring this to the arena, let’s call it the floor. Now the Majority really wants this to pass and they know they can pass it because for the time being they are a more powerful team. They give their agenda to the blue team, the Minority to look over to see what they think. The agenda is open for discussion.
Now comes the hard part the discussion, the debate whatever you would like to call it. This is the meat and potatos of the game. Sometimes the discussion goes good and sometimes not so good. See the red team, the Majority can listen and take into consideration any ideas the Minority may have. But since they are the more powerful team they are allowed to do what they feel is best for their team. This can create some tension between the teams. One thing you need to understand is these two teams are big rivals and have been playing against each other for many years. There have been a lot of great games, some big wins and some big losses for each team. But the great thing is they keep coming back to play against each other with the same passion year over year.
After both teams have talked about the agenda for awhile the more powerful team has the right to end the game. So the Majority will call a vote to see who wants to end the game and pass the agenda. Sometimes both teams will agree on the agenda, other times they may not. Now this is the tricky part. When the less powerful team the Minority doesn’t like the agenda they have a few options. One option is to vote and try to get enough numbers to stop the agenda which is very hard to do. They can chalk it up to being less powerful for this game with hopes the next game they are stronger than the other team and can get their agenda to pass instead. A second option which has been played recently is more chaotic. This Minority team tries to stall the agenda in many different and sometimes desperate ways. One way to stall is keep debating with hopes the stronger team will grow weary and give in. The last ditch effort would be to run out of the arena and hide so the vote can not be taken. This doesn’t really do anything but cause a lot of chaos.
The chaos happens when the two teams start using illegal hits and low blows to try and injure the other team. The losing team will pull out all the tricks in the book to try and win a battle that mathematically they can not win. The losing team will accuse the Majority of playing favorites to their sponsors. The sponsors are the people that helped the players get on the team by donating money to make the team stronger. While the Minority team says this is wrong they also have a big cookie jar full of cash from sponsors like unions or special interest groups for example. Sometimes the less powerful team will invite all their friends, supporters and I’m sure some hired professional cheerleaders to come visit them at the arena to show support in numbers. They will create a lot commotion. The media will feel sympathetic for them and tell their story so more people will come out and support them. Everyone loves a good underdog fight to the finish with a big win. The reality is the winning team is still the Majority because they were chosen by the people and are mathematically still stronger no matter how much noise the Minority creates. The Minority needs to accept the loss and fight to become the Majority for the next game or term.
Both teams no matter what color they are or what kind of mascot they have will always push their agenda through with or without compromise when they are the Majority. To me the more honorable thing is to accept defeat, make a new plan, and get a stronger team so you are the Majority the next time you step into the arena. So that’s democracy and/or politics in a nut shell for me.
Cheers,
Sir Zimbrakman
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
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