Doug Berger – Page 147

February 11, 2007April 18, 2020

Give up religion for Lent

While driving by a nearby rib joint I noticed they had this written on their outside sign board

All-you-can-eat Fish on Fridays

That reminded me that Lent is close at hand.

Lent, the period between Ash Wednesday and Easter in the Roman Catholic (and most Christian) calendar arrives on February 21st. Most Catholic friends of mine abstain eating meat on Fridays. I once had dinner with a friend, on a Friday, late during Lent and when I asked what was for dinner, he said, “Pancakes..” It seemed his family was fished out.

It was very weird having Pancakes with all the fixings in the evening. I tried to get my Mom to do it for fun once but she refused. “Pancakes are for breakfast,” she said.

Religious people are also taught to give up something they enjoy during Lent. Some try to quit smoking, stop eating sweets, or stop drinking.

My idea is for religious people to give up religion for Lent. Try to see how it is to live without superstition and outdated thinking – like observing Lent. Try it for 40 days and if you aren’t satisfied you can go back to religion but I really believe if you stop going to church and stop praying, you will like it and stay with us Atheists.

For further reading:

American Atheists

American Humanist Association

Secular Student Alliance

January 29, 2007April 18, 2020

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon for charity

Six degrees of Kevin Bacon is a game created by some college students a long time ago. The premise was that any actor in history could be connected to the actor Kevin Bacon and the challenge was to make the connection in as few steps as possible. For example, one of my favorite actors is silent era star Louise Brooks. She has a Bacon Number of 3 (although one of the links I was not aware of at all).

Louise Brooks (I) was in Who’s Who in the Zoo (1931) with Billy Barty
Billy Barty was in Harum Scarum (1965) with Suzanne Covington
Suzanne Covington was in Beauty Shop (2005) with Kevin Bacon

Anyway, this past week Kevin Bacon used that game concept and applied it to giving to charity in association with the website Network for Good. They created a Charity Badge program. People who pick and donate to charities listed with Network for Good can post a graphic in support of their charity on their blog or website. The twist is that you can find a badge created by your favorite celebrity and post that one instead.

Sixdegrees.org : Be a celebrity for your cause

Here is mine:

January 15, 2007April 18, 2020

Fantasy football leaves me unfulfilled

Sorry the first entry of 2007 is so late in coming. Part of it is I started a new work schedule and January is our busiest month and I was working a lot of overtime. I was also stumped in what to write about, having thought of several good issues to post. Then I watched the weekend NFL divisional playoffs and thought I would write about my experience with Fantasy Football.

For those who don’t know what Fantasy Football is, that is where you pick current players and base scoring on their stats each week.The team with the most points wins your game.

I have been playing for several years through Yahoo Sports and NFL.com My general strategy has been to pick a team that I think will make it to the end and get me in the playoffs and maybe winning the league. While some of my league mates base their weekly lineups on matchups they also sign free agents or trade players.

Unfortunately, five years of playing has shown I am the unluckiest player in the world. I have never finished higher than 4th in any of the leagues I have been in and this past season I finished last or near the bottom of the three leagues I joined. My records were 3-11, 5-9, and 4-10 and each team finished the season by losing 5 games in a row.

Being on my fantasy team is like the kiss of death for a good player. QB Byron Leftwich had a season ending injury, WR Chris Chambers sucked this season, WR Doug Gabriel was cut from the Patriots after getting into a fight with the staff there, WR Braylon Edwards suffered from a sucky Browns team, and QB David Carr faded at the end. The only player that performed consistently for me this season was RB Larry Johnson and WR Reggie Brown. Even the defenses I picked, Indy and the Steelers, had bad years.

In previous years I let the computer pick my teams but this year I bought a Fantasy Football preseason magazine with all the stats from 2005 and predictions for 2006 and I used that info to rank my first 50 players. In my NFL.com league, one of the teams that finished in the top 2 at the end was for an owner who didn’t even show up for the live draft we had.

I thought at first I just stunk at the game but I really think that luck plays a major role in how players and teams do in a given year. For example, in 2004, I picked up QB Ben Rothlisberger when I found out he was going to start for Pittsburgh after the starter, Tommy Maddox, got hurt. I knew Big Ben would do well as I had watched him in his college days and Pittsburgh that year had a good team. He led them to a 14 game win streak to end the season.

At the start of this year one of my league mates wanted to trade TE Tony Gonzalez to me for Kellen Winslow Jr. Looking at points alone I said no and wouldn’t you know, Tony had the better year as Winslow suffered from a poor offensive team performance. It was pure luck. Had I made the trade I might have won more games that I lost by only a few points.

As the old saying goes: Wait till next year….

December 28, 2006April 18, 2020

Reflections on President Ford

Former President Gerald Ford died on Tuesday. He was 93 years old.

I was but a wee lad in 1974 when I watched President Nixon announced he was resigning his office and that then VP Ford would be taking over. After the corruption of Nixon on the news every night, Ford was boring. Until he pardoned Nixon.

Even as a kid of 6, I knew it was a bone head move on his part to do it. Now many years later you have to wonder that if Ford wanted to “put Watergate and the Nixon presidency in the past”, then why did he not pardon everyone involved in the Watergate mess?

In an article in the Washington Post, by Bob Woodward, it was noted that on August 1, 1974, before Nixon resigned:

[Nixon’s chief of staff, Alexander M.] Haig presented Ford with six scenarios: Nixon could step aside temporarily under the 25th Amendment, he could just wait and delay the ongoing impeachment process, or he could try to settle for a formal censure. In addition, there were three pardon options. Nixon could pardon himself and resign. Or he could pardon the aides involved and then resign. Or Nixon could agree to leave in return for an agreement that the new President Ford would pardon him.
Closing the Chapter on Watergate Wasn’t Done Lightly

Ford claimed thereafter there was never a deal but one has to wonder if he would have signed a pardon if Haig hadn’t suggested it. It reminds me of those scenes in detective shows when they ask to see some file and the person tells them no but then leaves the file out while saying they need to go to the bathroom and they will be back in 5 minutes. The file clerk didn’t give the file to the detective but he knew what he was doing in leaving it out for the detective to look at.

I remember Ford’s time in office for the bad recession, unemployment, the gas crises, and the evacuation of Saigon. He also told New York city no when it asked for a bail out when it declared bankruptcy. And he had an obsession with the Swine Flu and making sure everyone was vaccinated against it – similar to the hype about the current Bird Flu.

In June of 1976, Ford stopped in Findlay to give a stump speech in front of the Elks club downtown (on the corner of Main Street and Lincoln St). A few thousand people showed up to his rally including me and my family. He was the President, so even if my Mom wasn’t going to vote for him, we still came out to see him.

Across the street from the Elks was the headquarters of Marathon Oil and I remember workers there were looking out and opening windows to hear the speech. Several police officers used a bullhorn and ordered the windows closed for security reasons.

The other interesting note about that rally was a few years later a picture from the event was used in the civics book I had in school. That was cool.

I will agree that President Ford was a nice guy but the pardon of Nixon will taint his short time in office in my book.

November 26, 2006April 18, 2020

Iraq Solution

One only needs to turn on the news these days and hear about the chaos and sectarian strife happening in Iraq. From bombings, abductions, to outright killings, it seems that Iraq is in a state of civil war. Not to mention US troops still being killed on a daily basis. And even as President Bush and others still deny it, Iraq is one of the most unstable countries today .

On one of the e-mail discussion lists I participate, in the run up to the invasion in 2003, I had a heated debated with a pro-Bush person on the merits of invading Iraq and removing Saddam. At the time I mentioned that the British ran into a mess of trouble during their attempts to force their ideas of civics on Iraq after World War I when they had a mandate. I told my opponent that if the US invaded it would be another Vietnam and the US would muck it up. If the guy was still on the list (he was kicked off after accusing me and others of being traitors because we refused to support President Bush) I would be pleased to post the following note:

I told you so.

The reason the US will never “win” is the same reason the British never “won” back in the 1920’s. Iraq was forced together into a country. It was made up of different clans who hated each other and still do. Most are Muslim but act more like Catholic and Protestants in Northern Ireland. Each claims the other are heretics. Then you have the Kurds in the north who are as different as night and day to the Sunnis and Shiites.

There is a good overview of the British occupation of Iraq in 1917 that gives some uncanny parallels to the US invasion in 2003. Here is quote:

Within six months, Britain was fighting a military insurrection in Iraq and David Lloyd George, the prime minister, was facing calls for a military withdrawal. “Is it not for the benefit of the people of that country that it should be governed so as to enable them to develop this land which has been withered and shrivelled up by oppression? What would happen if we withdrew?” Lloyd George would not abandon Iraq to “anarchy and confusion”. By this stage, British officials in Baghdad were blaming the violence on “local political agitation, originated outside Iraq”, suggesting that Syria might be involved.
Come again? Could history repeat itself so perfectly? For Lloyd George’s “anarchy”, read any statement from the American occupation power warning of “civil war” in the event of a Western withdrawal. For Syria – well, read Syria.
Iraq, 1917

So what is the solution?

The only real solution is to let Iraq devolve into clan areas. That’s right. Iraq, as a country, should go away and be replaced with the areas that existed prior to World War I. Each area would be controlled by either the Kurds, the Sunnis, or the Shiites.

They each want to control Iraq so if you remove the country then you take away their reason for violence.