I happen to think that John is a handsome lad when that mouth is shut. Sometimes the pure fuckery that comes out of his mouth really  just turns me off. Then he starts strumming that guitar and making those “O” faces to his music and my chonies fall in love all over again. Today makes him a Hot sex of the day when his mouth is closed.

Oi.

More oipinions.

Whew.

People in the street.  People on TV. People on Radio.  People in my living room.

Is it me or do more people than usual think they have the “right” strategy for Afghanistan, Iraq, health care, the economy, global warming along with Sunday’s line on the NFL and what the Red Sox should do over the winter season?

Are their brains expanding and mine shrinking?

The globe’s and the nation’s problems appear so complex to me that my brain sags from their density.  I’d no more want to make a summary statement on Afghanistan, as President Obama did last night  (never mind make decisions) than I’d want to scrub my hands, get into surgical garb and perform brain surgery.

My obligations as a citizen can’t force me into the ability to be able to synthesize or conjugate these large problems.  I have tried.  I’ve read.  I’ve listened.  I’ve thought.  I sag.

My conclusion is I have to trust someone whose brain appears in tippy-top condition to process as many of the dimensions of this complex world as possible and make recommendations on what to do.

He may have big ears, but President Obama does not suffer from brain sag.

Whether he is making the right decision, I don’t know.  But, I think he’s taken the time to think deeply, ask questions that should be asked in as many different ways as possible from as many informed people as possible–plus he gets a daily national security briefing that all the yappers do not get, and most importantly, instead of spleen spewing anger, he appears to carry our messy suitcase of problems, alongside the black bag with the nuclear code buttons, with a somber logic that balances his gait.

I ask you– what does your average talking head carry lurching into their LIVE opinion yap fest besides a breath mint that melts on the roof of their mouth?

©Pat Coakley 2009

PHOTOGRAPHS CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION

Oh, my darling TB. Don’t cry. Yes, you may have gotten sacked like, 87 times, and yes, you got pummeled into an embarrassing 38 – 17 loss. But hey, look on the bright side. Not only are you going home to the most bangin’ model on the planet, but you’re going home to a city that still has houses. Eh? Katrina joke? Too soon?

Jamie ******** – is “so many paths to take but which is the right one?how am i supposed to make that decision?lookin forward to what my future holds.”

- Hmmm….. that’s a tough one. You know that picture of a man standing at a fork in the road, one path narrow the other wide? Yeah, people like you have a special hidden path that’s not shown in the “Life’s Important Decisions” picture. The forbidden path is only revealed to those who chant Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life”, while zigging Gargamel’s magical (smurf-killing) wand in an X,Y,Z pattern. In other words if that dude in the picture turned around and walked back the way he came, that would be your path. And if your backwards path leads you to a cliff, keep walking, cause ain’t nothing gonna stand in your way.

The Blogger: Get over it, Molly Ringwald.

Me: [pause] I think I need to hear that a lot more often.

Flipmode Squad, originally uploaded by sizzled.

sdrawkcab sgniht gnilleps otni yllaer eb ot desu i

Adam Sharp calls Paul La Monica on his defense piece for Goldman Sachs…

Shut Up, Paul Monica!

Courtesy of Adam Sharp at Bearish News

Congrats Paul La Monica. Your editorial,  “Shut up, Lloyd Blankfein!” is spreading like wildfire. It’s ‘gone viral’ as they say. However, it is clear that your knowledge of the issues involved is limited, at best.

It draws in populists with the provocative “Shut Up” headline, then morphs into stealth Goldman ass-kissing. It essentially tells Goldman-critics to man up and stop whining.

It starts out with a bit of promise:

The public relations gurus who are advising Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein might want to give him some new advice. Shut up!

Blankfein made a startling confession Tuesday. He apologized for Goldman’s role in the financial crisis, saying that the bank ‘participated in things that were clearly wrong and have reason to regret.’

But any redeeming qualities end there. He goes on to display ignorance in the subjects of finance and banking. He essentially argues that Goldman should be allowed to do as it pleases. This part particularly rankled me:

The notion that Goldman’s good fortune is a problem is silly. Even though many average Americans are still struggling financially, it’s misguided to suggest that everybody should be suffering and that the nation would have been better off if Wall Street went under. . .

Goldman Sachs is a bank. It’s supposed to make money. It’s supposed to take risks. Lloyd isn’t exactly running the March of Dimes.

Where to begin? Monica’s statement that banks are “supposed” to take risks is interesting. Because I thought a bank was supposed to safeguard people’s money, while making responsible loans to others. That’s how fractional-reserve banking works.

Goldman Sachs is an investment bank/hedge-fund with government guarantees. They’re not a “bank” in the traditional sense of the word.

When the U.S. converted GS and other “systemically important” firms to bank holding companies, it flat-out saved their asses. Ongoing perks include cheap Fed funds and the ability to issue government-guaranteed debt (Goldman still has around $20b in gov-backed debt).

And Monica says they are supposed to take risk, with explicit government-backing? That, my friends, is 100% pure garbage.

His statement that we should get off Goldman’s back, since they already paid back government assistance is also hopelessly flawed:

And let’s not forget that Goldman has paid back taxpayers not just for the warrants but the full $10 billion in TARP money. There’s a big difference between Goldman and Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) and Citigroup (C, Fortune 500), which still don’t seem to be healthy enough to return bailout funds.

As I pointed out above, they are still and always will be HUGE beneficiaries of government support.

M-o-r-a-l  H-a-z-a-r-d

Allow me to introduce Mr. Monica to a concept known as moral hazard. Apparently the idea has escaped him and other Goldman apologists. Moral hazard occurs when banks are implicitly backed by governments. Although it isn’t really implicit these days. They’ve made it clear – they will bail out any TBTF institution.

One huge benefit of government-backing is cheaper private rates. Lenders don’t need to consult their inaccurate loan-models to recognize that government-guaranteed loans are safer than those tainted by unsavory free market “risk”.

Financial firms have long-benefited from an implicit bailout guarantee known as the Greenspan Put. If things get bad due to reckless activities, emergency funds will be made available at record-low rates. Everyone knew it, and acted accordingly. Hence one cause of the bubbles.

This is why people don’t like TBTF institutions. Profit is subsidized, and losses absorbed by the public.

Under Bernanke/Geithner these actors should feel more secure than ever. Think of post-2007 bankers as naughty teenagers caught vandalizing a neighbor’s house. In front of his neighbor, their Dad [Bernanke] scolds them, “You’re in deep deep trouble boys *wags finger at boys, then looks neighbor in eye* I am so sorry, Mrs. Krabapple [the public]. I promise it will never happen again.”

When the door shuts, Dad grins proudly at his sons, “Not bad, boys. You coulda make a dozen omelets from that mess on Krabapple’s bay window. Try not to get caught [bring the global economy to its knees] next time. OK?”

A little thing called… Glass Steagall

I would also remind Mr. Monica (or introduce, if that’s the case) that Glass-Steagall was enacted in 1933 for a reason. It separated bank-holding companies from risky financial firms ( like those with huge trading desks).

Glass-Steagall was enacted to prevent banks from gambling with other people’s money. Throughout history banks have always gotten greedy and put customer funds at risk. Unless they are outlawed from doing so, as Glass-Steagall largely did. And please don’t blame “free markets” for bank schemes. This is an issue of decriminalization, not deregulation.

Opacity Rules

On top of all this, we are not allowed to view collateral pledged by banks for these Fed “loans”. Why? Many suspect the collateral is garbage — sub-prime securities and the like. All valued at “mark to imagination” valuations.

Hypothetically, a bank with a sub-prime bond worth $.30 (according to an antiquated measure of value known as ‘what people will pay’) might get $.80 or $.90 from their friendly Fed rep. I’d love to be proven wrong on that, and learn that our banks have been handing over pure gold to the Fed as collateral.

In August 2009 Bloomberg won a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case on the bank-collateral issue. The judge ruled that the Fed has 30 days to turn over the requested documents, but the Fed is stonewalling. Goldman could be a big beneficiary of this support as well, but we don’t know.

They protest that member-banks should not be forced to acknowledge their dependence on emergency funds. The lengths they are going to in order to stop this information getting out should be a huge hint. Whatever is hiding behind this curtain looks more like Freddy Krueger than the Wizard of Oz.

This new, and more explicit government backing, should have subjected firms like Goldman to further regulation. It didn’t. They still don’t file a full balance-sheet report like other banks. They’re allowed to own hedge funds and take as much risk as they please.

In short, GS has not shed taxpayer support. Doing so is impossible now that the government has made it clear it is too big and important to fail. So it’s time to break them, and a lot of other firms, up.

Have you ever taken a person you were trying to impress to an event featuring free liquor? And then—after you’ve babbled on for a while about all sorts of things you don’t understand, like “depth” and “tasting notes”—have you discovered that she works for the Food Network? Yeah, it’s really great.

kids, children, funny, comic, mom, parents, Comics, child, kid, parent, humor, truth, true, real, real kids, true story, , real children, real child, real kid, shut up, bad word, punishment, spank, spanking, dad, arloa, arloa reston, according to kids, according to children, world according to kids, world according to children, the world according to kids, out of the mouths of babes, kids say the darndest things, parenting, motherhood, fatherhood, raising kids, adults, parenthood, mouths of babes, fun, cartoon, cartoons true stories

In many families, parents tell their children that “shut up” is a bad word.  Yet with the constant noise and screaming that comes along with raising kids, mothers, fathers and other adults sometimes forget.  Of course, it only seems fair in the eyes of a child that everyone should be punished the same for the same crime!  Today’s cartoon is based on Arloa’s nephew, Xander, who overheard his mother say those naughty words… The twinkle in his eye and the glee in his voice were hysterical when he asked his daddy if his mommy was going to get a spanking on her bottom!  And boy was it was difficult for daddy to keep from laughing!

i hate people speaking loudly uff!

yeah, so i’m turning back into a teenage girl… that kind of teenage girl who is also an old woman. oversensitivity combined with paralysis. i guess both teens and cat ladies share a particular feeling: “it’s all been done before.”
but really, things have kinda been like this for a while. only i don’t smoke anymore, and i still seek out current and former someones to sleep beside. broken hearts be damned.

I just watched last week’s episode of Glee in preparation for this week’s, and while I enjoy a good “everyone is actually caring and compassionate on the inside and truly wants to help someone else out,” I was a bit disgusted by parts.

So, for those of you who don’t watch, I will briefly explain the points. So, first of all, an abled boy plays the Artie, who is in a wheelchair. Here is a good article about the issues surrounding that. It’s hard for me to believe there were no candidates that can act, sing and are actually differently abled.

But, that’s not the point. The point is, the glee club kids are forced by the director to raise money to take the handicap accessible bus to their competition. At first they aren’t too concerned, because Artie always rode with his dad before. Of course, they were reprimanded. So, they are ordered to have a bake sale and have to spend three hours in a wheelchair every day. Of course, those three hours are when everything in the episode happens. Because obviously, they would choose to sit in the wheelchairs at school.

But, let’s say they did. For some reason, they have this change of heart, and are really dedicated to this bake sale, thus making pot cupcakes to raise the money.

However, most of the impetus to raise this money came from a character’s desire to make money to support his baby mama, who told him to put it back. Then, they gave the money to Artie, who generously puts it toward wheelchair ramps instead.

So, yes, it is heart-warming, but here is my problem: Why are the able kids always coming to the rescue of the differently abled? I certainly believe that we all overlook people with disabilities and should go out of our way to help and be more understanding. I do believe that the best way to make change is for the majority to care and act on issues concerning the minority. As long, of course, as the minority is deciding the action.

When do we see Artie, though, deciding the action? Also, why are we congratulating the glee club for doing what they were told to do? And, actually only one of them really did. And, not really for Artie as much as his unborn child, whom everyone thinks is another character’s.

Also! Artie and this girl admit they like each other, kiss, and then the girl admits she has a fake stutter.

I once faked a stutter. At the time, I thought it was cool because my father is one of my greatest role models and he happens to stutter. Let me tell you, faking a stutter is not easy. Perhaps this is why they eventually got rid of it, and this love interest was a good chance to do so. Or, because we want to teach the lesson that fake disabilities are not acceptable. Which they’re not.

But, how many people fake disabilities? Really!? Yes, there are some. But, probably not as many as you think. There are probably far fewer people cheating the disability leave system than society would like you to think. Mostly, because America hates/loves poor people. That’s beside the point.

The point is, no matter how shy and retreating you are, it would take extremes for someone to fake a stutter for years and years. She said she did it because she didn’t want to give a speech on the Missouri Compromise and then kept it to push people away. So, she joined glee club…? Also, it would take a lot to sustain a fake stutter. Stutters, as my dad could tell you, are not easy.

Also, why did the school never make her go to speech therapy? Or, maybe counseling as she obviously is in need of some if she is so adverse to social situations.

Now, I know you Glee fans are like, “It’s a TV show! It’s fiction! It’s campy and a musical and over-the-top, it’s supposed to be unrealistic!”

Right. Agreed. But, isn’t it also supposed to be celebrating diversity? To truly take away a deep, authentic message from this episode, I should be given real, deep, authentic issues explored in a real way. And I believe that can happen in a campy, unrealistic setting. You just have to push past the Crash mentality of the obvious stereotype, the black and white answers and addressing the most minute issues.

I see the greater issue as why the school allows the students to be so nonchalant about Artie’s struggles in the first place. That is the same issue that we live with outside the television. And, let’s say for a second that the fake stutter is a valid learning moment. So why is Artie the only one to call her out on it? We shouldn’t leave the differently abled to be the only voice. We should take their lead and stand behind them.

I have more to say about this. But, this is long enough already. I hope you didn’t happen to be standing where I put my soapbox. I tend to be a pit impassioned occasionally.

If you read this whole thing, you just made my day. It’s been a bit of a rough one, so thank you for letting me vent about this one thing which was therapy for all the other things.

Every time I sit down to write I think of a thousand other things I have to do. I clean the desk, feed the cat, check my DVR (the three movies I recorded a month ago are still unwatched and have not magically deleted themselves), read a gossip site (is Rob [Edward] in love with Kristen [Bella]?), check Facebook, play Mob Wars, read my email, defrost something for dinner, call my mother, surf the web, check my bank account (dwindling) and before I know it, it’s time for One Tree Hill (is Austin really dating Sophia, because he has a slight lisp and a weak chin. Their characters are dating and they aren’t very believable, either. Also, oddly enough, Austin’s character also lisps and has a weak chin).

I haven’t been working on the Nanowrimo thing, or doing much of anything except fretting about my future, which is rapidly approaching. And that’s boring to read about, scary to think about and hard to write about. I brood a lot. It’s what I do best.

Maybe writing about not writing will help me break the cycle and force me to face … myself. Eeek. In the meantime, I’ll tell you random stuff.

The neighbors who had the Evil Twin moved out – and left the Evil Twin.

Not Indy

So, being a sucker, I started leaving food out. When I was feeding the fluffy tailed step cat, the Evil Twin would munch the food sometimes, but he was never overly interested in it (because his owners were feeding him). I knew for sure he’d been abandoned when he started waiting for me every morning near where I put the food. I feel really bad because it’s getting cold and I can’t let him in (hush, Lass), but at least he’s getting some food. Guess I can’t save them all. Who knew I’d become such an animal lover? Oh, and the fluffy tailed step cat disappeared right around the time the family moved in downstairs. I’m almost positive they didn’t eat the cat. Although, maybe …

tasty step cat

I’m not used to living above such rambunctious kids. And by rambunctious, I mean constant thudding and running and yelling and slamming every night. MoC keeps telling me that they’ll move out eventually and maybe they will. But maybe I will move out first. Sometimes I resort to the ear plugs, but they make me feel paranoid because then I wouldn’t know it if a stranger broke in until they tapped me on the shoulder before they killed me. If they tapped me on the shoulder, I would probably have a heart attack anyway, so I guess it doesn’t matter.

I had a class scheduled to begin tomorrow but then I decided to drop out of Phoenix until after I took my CCNA exam. Then I was going to look for a job, start my life and then re-enroll. My finance counselor told me that was perfectly fine, but that because of the way my financial aid was set up, the funds on my account would be returned to the lender and since I couldn’t get those funds again (because the new aid year begins in January) I would have to pay for the class when I re-enrolled. Which is a LOT of money. Now I’m stuck. I have to take the class now or pay for it when I take it in January. Technically, I’ll pay for it anyway, but I can do it over ten years, so it’s almost like not paying for it at all.

I feel very squishy, like everything is pushing in on me.

I thought the cat broke my foot last week. I woke up one day and it was very sore. And the next day it hurt when I walked. There was no other explanation other than the ninja assassin cat attacked me.  The next few days it got progressively worse until I finally went to Urgent Care, where the doctor told me he didn’t really know what it was, but he offered me Vicodin. I turned him down because Vicodin makes me hallucinate, which was fun when I was nineteen but not so fun now that I am forty-two not nineteen. So he offered me Darvocet. I turned that down, too.

I am an idiot.

If I tell her, I assume there’ll be about a month of akwardness. Just enough time for Christmas. Social Maths win.

I was actually going to write about the gays tonight but I decided against it while I was going through some coarse material for my studies. However, don’t be disappointed, I will in the near future, I promise you, be writing extensively on homosexuality and all its’ glory.

To bring attention to the theme under review I will explain to you how this topic came to mind. While filtering through some of my class-wide emails I come across a message from a young pupil of mine who seemed to not understand what was meant by having an assignment do BEFORE class began. And my answer to him is: what the fuck do you think that means? Hand in your goddamn, shitting, C-, piece of living kife in before the start of the boring fucking lecture. This Doctor IQ seemed not to be able to rap his mind around the concept of putting a piece of paper in the hands of the professor outside of the allotted time on his class schedule.

Excuse me sir you’re actually going to need to split the fucking atom or your genitals will be exposed to everyone in class – that is what is meant by handing in an assignment prior to the start of the lecture.

Why do people ask such stupid fucking questions? – “How do I hand it in?” – Shouldn’t you be more concerned with the actual content of your assignment than the obvious protocols for submission?

Another popular question concerning paper due dates is when people ask the professor “can I hand it in early?” To these people I say: “A: no, because you’ll be castrated if you hand it in early; B: get a fucking life and work on your assignment like everyone else by writing its’ entirety the night before it’s due; and C: are you an idiot?”

There seems to be many obvious questions being asked by people that are supposed to be graduating from a post-secondary school at some point in the future and will be a part of a responsible working and business class. You’d think they’d realize that there’s going to come a day in their lives when they are going to have to make a decision themselves without asking an authority figure for permission or advice on something blatantly obvious.

Another thing that gets my panties in a naught is when students ask instructors, or their peers, for information that can be easily obtained by accessing a central database that stores and delivers megatons of knowledge daily – this being the World Wide Web. I don’t how many times I’ve heard someone ask where and when something is due and/or the date and location of an exam or test. Did they think that this information was only available through word-of-mouth? The university doesn’t post exam schedules or coarse outlines you have to interrupt the lecture by inquiring the prof on such crucial particulars. This isn’t directions to a fucking party, this is information that is important and organized through the use of technology that has existed for the past two decades. “What day is the test?” It’s on this invention called “the Internet,” you’re actually supplied with what is called an “email address” by your university/college where you can exchange, post and obtain such trifling facts and figures. It’s not like the prof has memorized the exact room number of an exam that is not going to take place for another two months, or everyone in class knows the day of the week that the final assignment due date falls on. What am I going to pull out a fucking calendar in the classroom? Look it up, stupid!

This kind of paradoxically, hypocritically and ironically (as well as rather eloquently, if I may say so myself) brings me to my next case in point. Over and over again I’ve overheard random kids ask each other what the date is. “What’s the date?!” I should be asking you what millennium this is. Who the fuck doesn’t have a cellular phone, portable computer, or the sense of sight in this year of our lord, 2009? Check your fucking phone for the date! Believe it or not the technology exists for there to be a telephone-clock-calendar hybrid. And what do you need to know the date for anyway? You date your notes? If you’re writing on a laptop that shit is stored! Fucking dates? Who gives a shit?!

I am going to now conclude my exposé by taking a shit on all those flipping, annoying son’bitches that put their hands up every two and half seconds in class so they can squeeze a meaningless, ignorant and completely useless comment in for the whole god damn lecture hall to hear. These people can go fuck themselves. Remember in Full Metal Jacket when the whole platoon beats up that kid with soap because he made things worse for everyone? We need to do the same thing to kids that put up their hands too much. Seriously, they’ve got to go. I know every one of you who is in school has at least one of these bastards in each class and every one in that class hates that fucker. Let’s do it and let’s do it quick – gag these mofos. Our education is on the line, people!

After we’re done smothering these douches we’ve got to address the source of the problem. What needs to be understood is that the instructor is the leader and ultimate authority in the classroom. The teacher alone has the ability to refuse questions from hand-up regulars and/or request they’re shutting the fuck up. It takes some balls but you won’t get anywhere in life without a large set of semen producers.  If there is any training what so ever for college and university instructors (which I sincerely doubt there is) the first thing they should learn is when to tell people to be quiet. This goes for assholes that are having a box social at the back of the class, or the cocksuckers who put their hands up too much. Put those son’bitches in place, sir or madam.

Regrettably, I’ve noticed that a lot of professors actually encourage students to speak out and make comments during class. This is horseshit. Professors that are doing this are attempting to bring themselves down to the level of the common man by having a conversation with someone outside of the ivory tower they live in. As a tuition paying, fulltime student I’m not in class to hear some jackass with no diploma or degree talk about the issues under review, I want to hear the pompous dick that is marking my essays talk. There’s a reason why professors have a PhD. While they’re fully capable, and sometimes likely, to be wrong or bias in their teachings, the degree of reliability in their info is irrelevant. All I want to know is what is going to be on the test. I’ll write down that god created the heaven and earth with all its’ creatures in 10 fucking days a few thousand years ago if it’ll get me good marks on the exam.

Now, I know there are a lot of bleeding hearts out there that say students are under a lot of stress and it is a new and intimidating experience to go to university or college and people act differently or they may not be that knowledgeable of social norms and practices.  My rebuttal to that point is: when we have a consensus throughout the registered students of a class that a small minority are being an annoying douche bag, then these people have to go and we’ve got to feed them to the fucking wolves. It’s like in a zombie movie or story about a group stranded on an island or boat; if someone is going against the grain and holding everyone else significantly back we’ve got to through that mofo overboard. We must move forward. Furthermore, if it is just either you or I, you better be damn sure that it is going to be ME NOT YOU when the shit hits the fan! Put down your fucking hand, stop asking ridiculous questions, exercise some obvious courtesy for the betterment of this fellowship we call the human race.

This Just a quick tab i made. deal with it.

Intro/Verse:

E]------------------------------------------|
B]---11-11-x--11-11-x-11-11-11-x--11-11-x---|
G]---11-11-x--11-11-x-11-11-11-x--11-11-x---|
D]---11-11-x--11-11-x-11-11-11-x--11-11-x---|
A]---9--9--x--9--9--x-9--9--9--x--9--9--x---|
E]------------------------------------------|

Repeat until..(if you want)

litlle riff:

E-----------------------------------|
B-----------------------------------|
G----11-8---------------------------|
D----------11-8-8-(8)-11p8-8--------|
A--9--------------------------------|
E-----------------------------------|

Then chorus:

E]-------12-12-------10-10----|
B]----------------------------|
G]----------------------------|
D]--8h9---------8h9-----------|
A]----------------------------|
E]----------------------------|

there, if your a good enough guitarist you'll figure out where it all goes. peace.

~~Smoke Weed Every Day~~

The number of people who have no common sense never ceases to amaze me.  We’ve all been taught that libraries are places where you’re supposed to be quiet, or face the wrath of the shushing librarian.  So why is it that every time I go into the library to read or study, that no matter where I go, there always seem to be people who don’t know how to stfu?  For example, yesterday I was reading my mkt textbook in the reading room, a place in the library specifically designated for silent reading, and a group of students who had a project or something, decided that that was where they were going to rehearse their presentation.  Me and the other people who were curled up in our chairs looking forward to silence, just stared at them like “Wtf?  Why the hell would you do that here when the library rents out rooms for freefor groups to work on projects?  Are you people just f-ing retarded or something?”

So I half-stormed out of the area and went up a couple floors to another quiet reading area.  I hadn’t even been there 15 minutes before these two girls plopped down and decided to share the latest gossip at the top of their lungs.  I glared at them—they saw it and only slightly lowered their voices. Idiots.

And then later that day, during my mkt class, the students would not shut up.  Not that they normally do, but yesterday was especially bad.  Even when the prof looks them in the eye and tells them to be quiet, they start talking again literally two minutes later.  They seem to think it’s okay as long as they’re talking in Spanish or Russian.  Um no, it doesn’t work that way.  Stfu means stfu. It doesn’t mean be quiet for a moment, then talk even louder than before.  Ugh!  How did these people make it to college without being able to follow basic directions?!

Thanks to Friarblog, it has been brought to my attention that UConn is a little pissed off about the Providence College soccer team’s recent overtime victory over them in the Big East tournament and have vented their frustration in their school newspaper.

Check out the article here. Read through it. Go ahead, you’ll enjoy it.

Now, I know it’s only early November, and our meeting with UConn on the basketball court is still well off in the future (January 27, mark it on your calendars NOW), but it sounds to me like it’s time for me to once again tell UConn to shove it up their collective ass.

First of all, I would just like to tell all the UConn fans in the audience that we’re flattered. We really are. It really means a lot that a program like yours that has had so much success (over the last 20 years) and so much history (over the last 20 years) and has won so many national championships (over the last 10 years) would even include a lowly school like ours that has had so little history (only 2 NIT championships that may as well have been national championships and 2 Final Four apperances dating back to long before anyone gave a flying fuck about UConn) in the rivalry discussion.

All that said, I really have to question this whole article. I mean I guess if whining about the other team’s “outrageous” behavior after the game makes you feel better, go ahead and do it. Just know that you really look like a bunch of babies to the rest of the world when you do it after every major loss. I don’t know how the student population at UConn is reacting to this article today (that is, if anyone actually reads the Daily Campus), but personally, if someone put this stuff in the Cowl I would not be pleased at all. Stop and think about the image that you’re basically encouraging people to have of your university before you write this whiny crap.

Let’s take a look at this article paragraph by paragraph:

“It would be one thing if we were out played – we weren’t. Instead, the Friars dropped everyone back on defense and were seemingly playing for penalty kicks. It was luck that got them the ball io the Husky side of the field for the first time in over 50 minutes and a freak bounce of Matt Marcin’s left foot put the shot in literally the only spot where Husky keeper Josh Ford had no chance.”

See, where I come from, the thing that matters is the final score of the game. I don’t care if you had the ball in your end for 80 minutes of the game, at the end of the day, the score was 1-0 Friars. Not being aggressive on offense was probably what our coaches would like to call strategy. And apparently it was pretty effective, since we WON the game. Honestly, the definition of “out played” seems to be pretty skewed here, because from what I’m hearing, UConn had the ball in our end for over 50 minutes and couldn’t score a goal. Sounds to me like either our defense was pretty god damn good, or their offense couldn’t put anything together. Doesn’t mean a damn thing how long UConn had it in our end, the simple fact of the matter is they got shut out. This apparently is a common theme because I can recall some moments when my favorite coach, Jim Calhoun, has played the “we’re actually better than them” card. You lost, you obviously weren’t the better team, or you would have won. Simple as that.

“Seconds after the victory, my scorn only grew. The Providence bench stormed the field as if they’d just won the national championship instead of staying alive in the hunt for a bid in the NCAA tournament. Congratulations – you live to play another day.”

And congratulations to you, too. You don’t live to play another day. Let’s review: a team that is not expected to get much past the first round of the Big East tournament shocks the top team in the Big East Blue Division with a goal late in overtime. Our players run on the field to enjoy the victory and they’re in the wrong? I’m confused here. I’d love to hear what the UConn fans would’ve rather had us do. Sit quietly on the sideline? Start packing up like nothing happened? There is no way in hell the UConn team doesn’t do the same thing if our situations were switched. In fact, given the situation, if UConn scores a goal in overtime to win it, unless they have zero emotion they’d probably still do the same thing even though they were the favored squad. And you know what? I would’ve been fine with that. They could have done it on our field and I would be fine with it. Sure, I’d throw a couple expletives at them but I certainly wouldn’t write a whiny column in the school newspaper complaining about their atrocious behavior. Why? Because our players are 18 to 22 years old. They can handle it. This isn’t a bunch of 9 year olds who are going to start crying. At least I hope not. This is how sports work. When you win, you’re happy and you celebrate.

“Outrageous celebrations are not new to the Friars as A.J. Price noticed in 2008 after Providence beat the Huskies at home. Not a small feat – but not worth the disrespect that followed.
‘Real disrespectful,’ Price said in March of that year. ‘They don’t know how to win, and it showed. They were laughing, mocking. I usually have a lot of respect for other teams but they showed a lack of respect last game. They beat up on us and made a mockery of it.’”

This is the part I love. Let’s go interview the shining beacon of respectfulness that is A.J. Price. I bet he was really respectful to those kids whose laptops he stole. I’m sure he left handwritten notes expressing how sorry he was that he had to take their property. Oh, and a note to the author of this article, maybe next time you should print the rest of A.J.’s quote. You seem to have left out the last sentence there. It’s OK, I’ll reprint it here. I’m sure it can only reinforce your article, right?

“We’ll be ready to go. … We want to blow them out. That’s what we’re going there to play for.”

Wait a minute. That doesn’t sound very respectful at all. In fact, to me, that sounds like it completely undermines the purpose of including that quote in this article. I’m sure the omission was just a mistake though. Oh, one more thing. The game Price was talking about there? Yeah, we won that one too. And I’m sure we made a mockery of that game too.

“They don’t know how to win because, aside from playing us apparently, they don’t.”

There ya go, insult our program immediately after reminding everyone that we historically have your number. That doesn’t reflect poorly on your athletic department at all.

“Last year the Huskies throughly beat Providence 94-61 – and it felt really good.”

This seems to be a good place to remind everyone that during that game, Stanley Robinson and Hasheem Thabeet probably broke a record for most screams into the air and chest pounding sessions after meaningless baskets by a pair of teammates. But God forbid one of our guys laughs during a game or our soccer team celebrates an overtime postseason victory. By the way, while we’re on the topic, I’d just like to point out that through his first 6 NBA games, Yinka Dare 2.0 is averaging 0.7 points, 1.8 rebounds, 0 assists, 1 block, 0.5 turnovers and 2 personal fouls per game. 6 words you’ll be hearing from Hasheem soon: do you want fries with that?

“Women’s hockey has been victimized by Providence in the past couple years, and despite it being her alma matter, head coach Heather Linstad was not afraid in 2008 to back up what Price said.
‘I think A.J. Price said it best in the Hartford Courant,” Linstad said on the eve of the Huskies match-up with Providence in the Hockey East tournament. “If you lose to them they don’t let you forget it. They don’t know how to win the right way.’”

I don’t know who Heather Linstad is or why she matters. I’ve also never gone to a women’s hockey game, so I admittedly don’t know how our team celebrates. The way the rest of this article has gone, however, I’m just going to assume they’re high fiving each other after goals, since that obviously is too much for the UConn fans/players to take. The basic problem here is not that we do not know how to win the right way, it’s that UConn doesn’t know how to lose the right way. I’m not going to sit here and say we’re the classiest fan base in the world, because we clearly aren’t. This is college, people are going to yell inappropriate things, and quite frankly that’s not the point here. The real difference here is that when we lose, we accept it, and move on. You will not see any articles in the Cowl this year saying that the UConn Huskies do not know how to win, and are completely disrespectful (at least I hope not). In reality, if you shut up and win the damn game in the first place, you won’t have to worry about it. If you do lose, whining publicly not only will do nothing to change the fact that you lost, but it also makes you sound pathetic and just as classless to the outside observer. Trust me, no one outside of the UConn community is reading this article and feeling any sympathy for you. See you in January. Here’s hoping you’ve learned how to lose by then.

-SM

Check out FB’s take here.

Shut Up Lyrics
Artist(Band):Black Eyed Peas

Shut up
Just shut up
Shut up [3x]
Shut it up, just shut up
Shut up
Just shut up
Shut up [3x]
Shut it up, just shut up

We’re trying to take it slow
But we’re still losin control
And we’re trying to make it work
But it still ends up the worst
And I’m craaazzzy
For tryin to be your laaadddy
I think I’m goin crazy

Girl, me and you were just fine (you know)
We wine and dine
Did them things that couples do when in love (you know)
Walks on the beach and stuff (you know)
Things that lovers say and do
I love you boo, I love you too
I miss you a lot, I miss you even more
That’s why I flew you out
When we was on tour
But then something got out of hand
You start yellin when I was my friends
Even though I had legitimate reasons (bull shit)
You know I have to make them dividends (bull shit)
How could you trust our private eyes girl
That’s why you don’t believe my lies
And quickly said shut up

Shut up
Just shut up
Shut up

We’re trying to take it slow
But we’re still losin control
And we’re trying to make it work
But it still ends up the worst
And I’m craaazzzy
For tryin to be your laaadddy
I think I’m goin crazy

Why does emotion gotta move so fast
Love is progress if you could make it last
Why is it that you just lose control
Every time you agree on takin it slow
So why does it got to be so damn tough
Cuz fools in lust could never get enough of love
Showin the love that you be givin
Changing up your livin
For a lovin transition
Girl its a mission tryin to get you to listen
Feel mad at each other has become our tradition
You yell, I yell, everybody yells
Got neighbors across the street saying
“Who the hell?!?”
Who the hell?
What the hell’s going down?
Too much of the bickering
Kill it with the sound and

Shut up
Just shut up
Shut up

We’re trying to take it slow
But we’re still losin control
And we’re trying to make it work
But it still ends up the worst
And I’m craaazzzy
For tryin to be your laaadddy
I think I’m goin crazy

Shut up
Just shut up
Shut up [3x]
Shut it up, just shut up
Shut up
Just shut up
Shut up [3x]
Shut it up, just shut up

Girl our love is dyin
Why did you stop tryin
I never been a quita
But I do deserve betta
Believe me I will do better
Let’s forget the past
And let’s start this new plan
Why? Cuz it’s the same old routine
And the next week I hear them scream
Girl I know you’re tired of the things they say
You’re damn right
Cuz I heard them lame damn excuses just yesterday
That was a different thing
No it ain’t
That was a different thing
No it ain’t
That was a different thing
It was the same damn thing
Same ass excuses
Boy you’re useless
Woooaaahhh!!!

Shut up
Just shut up
Shut up [3x]
Shut it up, just shut up
Shut up
Just shut up
Shut up [3x]
Shut it up, just shut up

oh nononohhh….
don’t go
now please go
i don’t know
ohohoh….

Stop the talking baby
Or I start walking baby [repeat 9x]
Stop the yapping baby
What happened baby
Stop the talking baby
Or i start walking baby [repeat 1x]
Is that all there is [repeat till fade]