ONE TIME AT BAND CAMP...

Here's a little something for you all before the big VP debate tonight:

Maybe she'll bust out some Jethro Tull after she gets flustered and avoids the questions by comparing polar bears to pigeons and declaring that the new Alaskan state bird is a "Meese". Well, if this whole VP thing doesn't work out for her, it looks like she might be first in line for a grammy, especially since Metallica is in the running once again. "Death Magnetic" is no match for what I hope will become a flute-driven powergrind outfit called "PalinDrome". Alaska does rock after all.

HEY AL, THE JERK STORE CALLED...

Al Davis should be spanked. And not like a latex dungeon fantasy with a whip and ball-gag type of spanking. He needs a spanking with a wooden-handled spatula that will discipline his 7-year old-like business sense and flux-capacitate it 72 years ahead to his real age. What a jaded and immature old man

this guy is.

If you haven't heard by now, Mr. Al, the owner of the Oakland Raiders, recently fired his head coach, Lane Kiffin, for "cause"; or in Raider-fan terms, "failure to get shit done on the motherfuckin' field." Davis, in a press conference the other day, publicly accused Kiffin of actions that were detrimental to the team, including speaking negatively to the media regarding his players and coaches, and not cooperating with the organization on a fundamental level. Ok, so that's acceptable. Airing your grievances in a public forum is fine...to a point. The problem here is that Al Davis and his pillory party for Kiffin became a huge vaudevillian circus, and the only clown in the whole place turned out to be the septuagenarian himself. He read aloud a letter that he wrote Kiffin back at the beginning of September that warned him of his impending firing if Kiffin didn't improve. He not only read it, but he displayed it on an overhead projector for all to see! What a child! Again, I call for a spanking!

I understand that Lane Kiffin might have sucked as a head coach. Maybe he did talk alot of smack about his staff and players, and maybe he did only win 5 out of 19 total games with the Raiders. But there's no way in hell I can support Davis' public trashing of Kiffin. Well, unless they changed his name to Ray Handley. But that's not important. What is important is the fact that no one of caliber - not players, not coaches, not executives - will ever go near the Raiders until Al Davis retires or winds up buried under the 50-yard line of the Oakland Coliseum, Hoffa-style. The stink is too strong for anyone to take this organization seriously under the reign of AD. You've got to seriously be down on your luck or just suck as a person to want to join up with this squad. Hey Michael Vick, there's gotta be a job opening for you in Oakland when you get out of the pen.

So Lane Kiffin, you will have a job somewhere else eventually. The list of fired Raiders coaches prior to you will guarantee that: Mike Shanahan, Jon Gruden, Norv Turner, Art Shell...the list is abundant with proven coaches who are still in the NFL today. Just take the high road for now and let your lips rest. Don't respond to the tactless taunts of a dinosaur. His vestigial business techniques will gain him no points, and hopefully Commissioner Goodell will deal with Al Davis the way he has dealt with so many other man-babies in the NFL. Put a frickin' pacifier in his mouth, Goodie.

AND THE NEWSIES SUPPORT...

This morning as I was on the elevator up to my 17th floor gulag, I caught a headline on one of those newfangled built-in news tickers that provide us all with useless information before entering the huge black hole of American bureaucracy that we call our jobs. The headline read: "Boston Herald Backs McCain For President". It seems like a common practice these days for a media outlet to support a certain candidate for office. But why? We've all seemed to accept this fact, which has violently changed from its original Thanksgiving-loving puritan form to a rape-and-pillage invader of public soil. How has journalism evolved this far to influence politics and government in such a direct and somewhat predatory manner?

I took a Journalism class in college, and I what I gathered from the course was that the whole point of the job was to teach us to be "fair and unbiased" in what we presented as news to the public. Now I know that Fox News has taken that phrase and run it through the mud wrestling ring of eye-catching news reporting, but you'd like to think that one news source would have the ethics enough to actually uphold it. It just doesn't make sense to me. Why are we relying on our news outlets to tell us who to vote for? Isn't that why we have something called political campaigns? I'm an Obama supporter, but I would be disappointed if The Washington Post declared him their choice for president. I'm just not for it. The common citizen puts way too much stock in the media, and for one person to be able to make a free-thinking decision, without influence from their preferred source of information, would be an ideal thing. The candidates are the ones that need to convince us to vote for them, not some editor or producer at The New York Times or MSNBC. I need to know that Sally from Seattle or Mookie from Mississippi based their votes on clear and truthful first-hand information rather than an op-ed paper written by a jaded wordsmith.

The current news source that all Americans should definitely "fear", Al-Jazeerah, has an interestingly familiar code of ethics. In particular, their first rule:

"Adhere to the journalistic values of honesty, courage, fairness, balance, independence, credibility and diversity, giving no priority to commercial or political considerations over professional ones."

I'm sure that's how our American version of ethical code started out, and then quickly started to crumble under the Orwellian style of control that technology has allowed the government to operate with. But its definitely refreshing to see that the Arab-based network, which survives within a "backwards" Islamic society, seems to have a better grasp on news reporting than do our own outlets. Even if it involves airing beheadings and executions.

So I'm predicting that this issue will be repetitive dribble that most people have thought about in the past with a dismissive eye and ear, and will continue to think about in the future, but will do nothing in regards to it - including myself. But that seems to be the problem with most people.