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Bill Maher: Bomb Thrower from the Left

We hear a lot about conservative pundits and how their rhetoric often crosses the lines of decency and civility. I made an example of Ann Coulter a couple days ago to illustrate the point. But there are also plenty of bomb throwers on the left who paint large segments of the population with the same big brush they use to attack individuals who may deserve it. Take Bill Maher, for example.

Maher is a comedian and political commentator. His stock-in-trade has always been to bait people with over-the-top insults. That’s what Politically Incorrect was all about. As Coulter does against liberals, Maher makes a lot of valid observations about conservative stupidity but ruins it by resorting to hate talk and rhetoric that borders on racist.

Mychal Denzel Smith, a writer, social commentator and mental health advocate, offers an example in an NPR article, “The Root: Bill Maher’s Off-Color Jokes Go Too Far“:

Lately he has come to depend on this style of joke to bring home laughs in a way that distracts from the insightful sociopolitical commentary he has to offer. Moreover, he has forgotten the first rule of comedy: Be funny. It simply wasn’t funny when Maher suggested that he wanted President Obama to act like a “real black president” in his handling of the BP oil spill last summer by flashing a gun in the face of its CEO and asking, “We got a motherf – – – ing problem here?!”

Maher is no racist. But, as I wrote in another post a few months ago, the language you use still says something about the kind of person you are.

That aside, what really burns me up about Maher these days is his attack on religion. I’ve written plenty about the crazies who attach themselves to religion and distort reality for their own gain, usually burying the truthful, illuminating aspects of faith beneath the rubble of hooey dumped on us by a minority of nuts like evangelists Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, both of whom suggested 9/11 was God’s punishment upon society for homosexuality, feminism, paganism and groups like the ACLU.

With comments like that and their constant penchant for blaming everything bad in this world on homosexuals, liberals and judges who don’t share their worldview, Robertson, Falwell and other like-minded souls are legitimate targets for someone like Maher. But it’s not enough for Maher to go after the individuals who give conservatism a bad name. He denounces all religion and everyone who believes in it. In his book, if you have faith, you’re delusional. He made a whole movie on the subject, Religulous.

As someone who practices Catholicism, I find that insulting.

I’m the first to admit there are a lot of buffoons in the Catholic Church, as evidenced by “Screw You, Cardinal Egan” and “A Rebellious Catholic’s Analysis of Rick Santorum.” But as I’ve said many times before, I believe in Jesus Christ and the Sacriments of the Catholic Church. People often lose their faith because they spend too much time getting angry with church officials and not enough time on the main point of their faith. I also reject the idea that God will send you to Hell because you’re gay, liberal or a devotee of some other religion.

Maher’s worldview is that if you have faith, you’re a racist, conservative, homophobic sheep.

I’ve heard that despite their political and religious differences, Maher and Coulter are actually good friends. Given their tactics, I’m not surprised.

Bill Maher

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Ann Coulter and the Politics of Hate

Of all the political commentators out there, I think Ann Coulter and her politics of hate best illustrate why I’ve come to hate politics.

I don’t dislike Coulter because she’s conservative. There are many conservative voices out there that I admire. I dislike her because everything that comes from her mouth is coated in vitriol. One example that has always stood out is this interview she did with self-proclaimed right-wing blogger John Hawkins. Some could argue that Coulter and Hawkins were just having a lighthearted discussion that was meant as humor. But when she suggests it would have been fine for Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh to walk into the New York Times building and blow up all the reporters and editors, I have trouble seeing what’s funny:

John Hawkins: You’ve caught a lot of heat for a couple of quotes you made. In your column three days after 9/11, you said, “We know who the homicidal maniacs are.They are the ones cheering and dancing right now. We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” You also said in an interview with the New York Observer, “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building.” Do you stand by those quotes or do you think that perhaps you should have phrased them differently?

Ann Coulter: Ozzy Osbourne has his bats, and I have that darn “convert them to Christianity” quote. (Thank you for giving the full quote. I have the touch, don’t I?) Some may not like what I said, but I’m still waiting to hear a better suggestion.

RE: McVeigh quote. Of course I regret it. I should have added, “after everyone had left the building except the editors and reporters.”

In her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism, she has this to say about some of the 9/11 widows:

These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. These self-obsessed women seemed genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them. … I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much. …

The Democrat ratpack gals endorsed John Kerry for president … cutting campaign commercials. … How do we know their husbands weren’t planning to divorce these harpies? Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they’d better hurry up and appear in Playboy.

Her basic message is always that people with liberal views are godless and unpatriotic. Looking at it from my own corner of the universe, I know many liberal-leaning people who go to Church every Sunday and proudly fly the American flag from their homes. I also know a lot of conservatives who think religion is a bunch of hooey and don’t show much patriotism.

It’s a shame Coulter has to use hateful and derogatory rhetoric the way she does, because I do think there’s a genuine conservative intellectual buried in there.

I generally agree with her when she says liberals were wrong to think Ronald Reagan crazy for ditching détente and seeking to run the Soviet Union into the ground. In hindsight, we can see that Reagan forced the Soviets into a military spending game they couldn’t win, and they got buried beneath the rubble of an economy that rotted from the inside out because of their rigid communist system.

I also think it’s daft to ban all forms of religious expression from public schools. I think kids should be learning about all religions. When they decide what to believe in adulthood, they have some real reference points to draw from. Of course, Coulter would not approve of including Muslims in that mix because, as she has said, all terrorists are Muslims.

Some of you will read this and think I’m being one-sided, but the fact is that I don’t think Coulter represents everything wrong with the Republican party. I think she represents everything wrong with the political discourse in general.

In a future post, I’ll write about a liberal commentator who poisons the political well as the conservative Coulter does, because unlike FOX News — and MSNBC and CNN, for that matter — I believe in doing things the fair and balanced way.

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America’s Struggle Through Puberty

In yesterday’s post, “It’s the End of American Dominance and I Feel Fine,” I suggested that it’s no big deal if America is no longer number one. But if it’s no longer the top dog, what is it? America is like a confused, emotionally exhausted child trying to find itself.

Mood music:

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My friend Dave Marcus offered this reaction to yesterday’s post:

Not so sure I fully agree with the tone. I think its more that America shows signs that it needs to evolve and neither party wants to as it would mean an end to their bureaucratic hold.

That’s certainly true. If you compare America’s age to that of many other countries in the civilized world, it’s still a child. The Democrats and Republicans are a couple of drunk parents in the middle of a bitter divorce, grabbing the child by each arm and pulling the limbs from the sockets. And it’s been that way for a long time.

Now that child has hit puberty, and the shit is hitting the fan.

Like any tortured kid, America is trying to be what both parents want it to be: the winner; the one who always brings the awards home and walks away from schoolyard fights unscathed. But the parents are clinging to old, unrealistic ideas the child can never live up to. 

The old ideas of prosperity are obsolete. An increasing number of us no longer live in a world where you go to an office or factory for eight hours a day, five days a week, then leave the work behind. We’re always checking email on our smartphones and the Internet allows us to work pretty much wherever we want. Work and personal time have been woven together. In this new environment, we have to re-evaluate what it means to successfully compete and prosper while also enjoying our friends, families and personal pursuits.

And so we have a country in economic turmoil and divisiveness coated in hateful rhetoric. In a sense, the child realized it can never live up to Mom and Dad’s expectations and decided to kill the pain with a bottle and a handful of pills.

Our country needs to find itself.

Finding ourselves is not about trying to be number one. It’s about trying to be better than we are.

America can still be a winner. It will never lose its ability to compete, innovate and lead. I’m proud to call myself an American, and I cherish our history. But we can’t stay atop the heap forever. We can only get so big before the load gets too heavy to sustain. The Roman Empire couldn’t do it. Neither could the British Empire. The empires are gone, but the cultures that sprung from them are as prosperous and vibrant as ever.

I know plenty of Brits who are proud of where they’re from, and it has nothing to do with being the richest and most powerful country, which they’re not. I know some folks from Ireland who are pretty happy to live where they live and are proud as hell of their rich heritage. By economic, military and population standards, Ireland is not number one. Not even close.

So what?

The difference between those countries and America is that they have the wisdom that comes with age. They matured long ago. When you get older, you realize some of the stuff you found important as a kid wasn’t so important after all.

America will grow up sooner or later. It will stop measuring its greatness by the size of its wallet and the number of missiles it has in the basement. Right now it doesn’t know quite what to do because the careers of old are gone and not coming back. It has to evolve, as my friend Dave said, and that means shifting expectations.

Adjusting expectations doesn’t mean settling for less than an excellent existence. It may mean redefining our idea of what an excellent existence is and adjusting to the idea that America can’t go back to the way life used to be. The dream of a house with a white picket fence and two cars paid for by Dad’s 9-to-5 office job isn’t realistic anymore. Mom has to work now, too, and there’s no gold watch for either of them after 45 years of service. They’re lucky if they stay at one job 5 or 10 years.

That doesn’t mean we can’t have it good. It just means we have to find new ways to get there.

Flag on Boat

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It’s the End of American Dominance, and I Feel Fine

America is a nation in economic decline. But that reality isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

My friend Larry Walsh said on Facebook yesterday:

What neither Obama or Romney is telling us is the world we’ve known for the past 70 years is over and not coming back. Both parties are trying to control the decline of the U.S. standard of living long enough to avoid having to take responsibility. Pathetic.

Mood music:

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It’s an interesting statement that has some truth to it. Most people already know the era of American economic domination is over, but we’re addicted to the idea that we’re number one. And like good addicts, we’re masters of denial.

When I was a kid, I was full of insecurities. Insecurity over my parent’s divorce, my brother’s death, my illnesses and my lack of popularity at school. But I always took some comfort in the fact that no matter how shitty life could be, I was still an American. Therefore, I was still a higher form of life than someone in my predicament who was living in France, Mexico, Saudi Arabia or some war-torn land like Afghanistan.

Back then we Americans felt pretty good about ourselves, because Ronald Reagan told us we should. I always thought that was Reagan’s best quality — lifting our sense of self-worth and destiny, no matter how messy our personal lives were. Fast-forward 30 years and all the folks who idolize the ghost of Reagan like a god are  grousing that President Obama is presiding over the decline of America. But the truth is that America’s slide started long before Obama took office.

That’s right: America is sliding from the pedestal is sat upon since the end of World War II. The oil crisis and inflation of the 1970s couldn’t knock it over. So what gives?

I have my theories, which may or may not be accurate. I think, as Larry suggested, that we’ve been clinging to the false notion that we can restore America to its past glory. But I don’t think it’s that America has lost its ability to compete and shine. It’s simply the fact that technology has made the world a smaller place and the Internet has empowered people from around the world in unprecedented ways. You could say it’s leveled the global playing field.

That may mean that we don’t get to be number one anymore. But so what?

Personally, I’m happier in the face of our national decline. I have my shit together in ways I could only dream of in the 1980s. I have family and friends I adore. I see people conducting themselves with valor in the face of adversity every day. And nationality has nothing to do with it. It’s about personal will, heart and faith.

I see fellow Americans shining at everyday life. And I see friends from around the world doing the same.

Are we Americans going to have to work harder for our slice of the pie in the years to come? Perhaps. But, really now, have we ever gotten anywhere without busting our balls every day? If you’re independently wealthy maybe you have. But most people I know have never had it easy.

Larry’s right: The world we’ve known for 70 years is gone and isn’t coming back. Presidential candidates will never tell you that because their profession is to tell you exactly what you want to hear. So it’s up to us to face reality and get over it.

Fuck being the number-one nation on Earth. Let’s focus on being better human beings regardless of nationality.

I’ve never been much of a Billy Joel fan. But he once sang a lyric that’s always resonated with me: “The good old days weren’t always good, and tomorrow’s not as bad as it seems.”

Ain’t that the truth?

US Flaf

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Chick-fil-A Controversy: Free Speech or Corporate Irresponsibility?

Let’s take a short quiz: The controversy over Chick-fil-A’s president opposing gay marriage is a matter of:

  1. First Amendment rights
  2. Corporate irresponsibility
  3. Both
  4. None of the above

Mood music:

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If you ask me, the answer is either C and D, depending on your political and social sensibilities.

Yesterday I wrote that I don’t really care about the controversy because I don’t eat at Chick-fil-A and the story looked more like one of political grandstanding than squashed rights. Naturally, some of my friends and readers thought I was missing the point. Said one friend:

Two mayors threatened to deny [Chick-fil-A] licenses. It’s a 1st Amendment issue. Plus, it was Dan Cathy’s personal views. Threatening the company that employs him is thuggery.

Said another friend:

FYI – The Cathy family *owns* CFA – not just an employee. The 1st Amendment only applies to gov’t reprisal for speech. Not private action.

To that, the first friend noted that the reprisals were from Boston mayor Thomas Menino, Chicago mayor Rahm Emmanuel, and NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

And on the Twitter discussion went.

Is this about First Amendment rights? Sure. Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy is an American, and as such he has every right to share his beliefs without fear of government reprisal. True, the mayors of Boston and Chicago joined some other politicians in telling Chick-fil-A to get off their lawns, but to me that was nothing more than grandstanding to score a few points with voters. They can threaten to evict, but in the end we all know they can’t do that.

The mayors deserve big ugly dunce caps for their tough talk. They shouldn’t have threatened at all because they can’t follow through, nor should they be able to. It restricts freedoms.

This is also about the right of Americans to support or protest a corporation based on the political views coming from its CEOs, presidents and other leaders. That’s not thuggery; it’s freedom of expression. I don’t like people shoving their views in my face, but they still have the right to express themselves, whether they’re standing outside with protest signs or standing in line in a show of support.

Is this about corporate responsibility? Perhaps. Consumers have the right to hold companies to high standards and punish them with boycotts when they feel a line has been crossed. But while some see Cathy’s opining as an irresponsible smear against gays, others see it as a courageous stand. There is no black and white here.

To me corporate responsibility is more about the quality of the product, the treatment of the customer and honest bookkeeping, however. That’s my opinion. Feel free to disagree.

There’s another aspect worth considering, which Erin (wife of Bill and managing editor of this blog) brought up. In her words:

If the CEO is open about being against gay marriage, how much of his belief is part of the corporate culture? Are gays hired at CFA, from the highest to the lowest? Are they treated equally? Are there regular gay customers of CFA who are not treated equally? The CEO can believe what he likes and espouse it, but he can’t allow his company to discriminate based on his beliefs. Not blatantly, not subtly. And maybe that’s the real danger of a powerful person espousing his discriminatory beliefs so openly: there are those who will take it as license to discriminate accordingly, whether to please the boss or because they feel safe to act on their own beliefs.

In the final analysis, my feelings are still summed up by this comment, made by another friend on Facebook:

Dammit people, what’s wrong with you? Eat where you want to eat! Love who you want to love! Do whatever you want to do, just don’t expect everyone else to necessarily agree with you, share your views, or hate your enemies. Live life and stop worrying about who the hell ate yummy chicken today!

With that, it’s on to the next subject.

I'm Just Here for the Violence

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I Don’t Give a Chick-fil-A

A lot of people have been pissed off at Chick-fil-A lately. Some are outraged that the restaurant chain’s president, Dan Cathy, came out against gay marriage. Others are outraged because a guy can’t make a social stand without people taking it out on his poultry.

I wasn’t going to write about it because, well, I don’t really care. But the noise has gotten too loud to ignore.

Mood music:

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We Americans love to find things to be pissed about. If you support gay marriage, Chick-fil-A is now synonymous with bigotry. If you think marriage should only be between a man and woman, Dan Cathy is now a hero. If you’re like me and you don’t really care, you’re now pissed off at both sides for getting in your face with their politics.

I don’t care what Cathy believes for a couple of reasons:

  • I’ve never eaten at Chick-fil-A and don’t really care to. Fast food is the monkey on my back, and I’m better off staying far away from it. Since I lack the enthusiasm others seem to have for the place, I find it difficult to care what the chain’s president thinks about the issues of the day. If I were a Chick-fil-A enthusiast, I’d care a lot more about the taste of the food than the politics of the owners.
  • I’ve already taken my stand regarding homosexuality and have nothing more to say about it. I don’t care if you’re gay or straight. I care about how you treat your fellow man and woman, not who you choose to love.

But now people are really starting to get crazy over it, with name-calling and scapegoating. So here I am with a couple thoughts:

  • If you choose to boycott Chick-fil-A, go for it. But don’t expect everyone to follow suit, and please don’t paint people as villains because they eat there. You’ve never met most of these people, and you have no idea what they feel in their hearts.
  • If you don’t want to boycott, don’t. But don’t start bashing people for taking their stand. Just walk past the protesters, eat your sandwich and shut up.

One’s political and religious beliefs are complicated things. You can’t unlock what a person thinks and feels based on where they eat.

It’s also a safe bet that a lot of people standing in line for their chicken don’t follow news and politics that closely and have no idea the chain’s president said something about gay marriage.

Sometimes, a person is just hungry and needs something to eat, pure and simple. They’re not going to appreciate or understand your support of or protests against Chick-fil-A and, by extension, gay marriage.

They’re just going to be pissed because you’re holding up the line.

Chick-fil-A

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Playing Politics with the Colorado Massacre Doesn’t Help

It’s inevitable. It happens every time we see something horrible like yesterday’s movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colo. People take the tragedy and twist it to fit their political tirades.

Mood music:

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Some people ranted on Facebook that the killer was a registered Democrat and an Obama supporter. Others posted about how right-wingers caused this by suggesting liberals were behind naming the villain in the new Batman movie Bane, to remind moviegoers of all that nastiness that’s been bandied about regarding Mitt Romney and Bain Capital (never mind the difference in spelling).

Beneath all that was the more relevant debate about guns in American society — a discussion full of old slogans like “guns don’t kill, people do.”

Most of the time I don’t mind when people get political; I cherish freedom of speech and expression. But the political talk seems out of place to me in this case. After a tragedy like this, prayers and acts of kindness would be more useful.

According to CNN, the alleged shooter, James Holmes, had colored his hair red and was dressed head to toe in black tactical gear. He told police he was The Joker after he was arrested. Aurora police chief Dan Oates told reporters that Holmes had purchased four guns at local shops and more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition on the Internet in the past 60 days. He’s been described as an honors student and Ph.D. candidate at a nearby college with no prior arrest record. Those familiar with him described him as a loner.

It’s too early for us to know if the guy is a cold, calculating killer or an emotionally disturbed man. Maybe he had political motives. If he did, they likely weren’t based on sanity. We’ll find out soon enough.

Making Holmes the poster boy for everything that’s wrong with liberals or conservatives is not only off the mark but so soon after the event is disrespectful to all those involved.

Most people I know would never shoot up a movie theater over political beliefs, and I know plenty of people who get hot under the collar over politics. Most people will get into political arguments and get thoroughly pissed with each other and eventually put it aside. Many of us like to hate certain celebrities who represent politics we disagree with. Yet we’re not about to rig our homes with explosives and kill a bunch of innocents over it.

Holmes doesn’t seem to represent a political movement. He seems like just one of the many lost souls of history who got a twisted thought that drove him to murder. Whatever his motives, the justice system will deal with him accordingly.

Meantime, we’re better off spending our emotional energy on ways to honor the victims and help the families.

Booking photograph of James Eagan Holmes, accused of killing 12 in Aurora, Colorado Theater Shooting.

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Me and My Dysfunctional Twitter Family

It feels like Twitter has been with us forever. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s still a relatively new toy we’re learning to use.  I see it as my second dysfunctional family.

Mood music:

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My Twitter house has 3,262 people crammed into it; many from the information security profession. Some of the smartest people I know sit around the kitchen table every day, bantering without ever getting tired.

As it is with any family, we often get on each other’s nerves.

For one thing, the house is always LOUD. It’s so loud that it’s normal for half the household to go to bed with headaches while the rest keep pontificating, sharing pictures and arguing.

There’s the older uncle who’s perpetually cranky but we can sit at his feet and listen to him for hours because he’s so damn funny. And smart. Let’s face it, every family had a beloved, crazy uncle.

There’s the other uncle who will disagree with you just to start a debate. But he’s such a nice guy you just can’t get angry when he picks your positions apart.

There’s the cousin who never stops talking. Any random thought he has, he says it. You can’t keep up with him, he talks so fast. But he too is smart and talented, so we put up with it.

There’s the cousin who puts everything and everyone down for the sake of starting a conversation. This one usually comes in the house blasted on vodka or wine and talks about tearing someone’s eyeballs out. But this cousin is harmless and, deep down, a good kid.

There’s a brother who is always telling people what they did wrong — that they didn’t work hard enough or made sweeping statements that tarred people who didn’t deserve it. The rest of the family is afraid of this one. Unfortunately for us, though, he’s usually right, so we put up with him and, occasionally, try to stop doing the stupid thing he says we’re doing.

There’s the cousin who will let everyone know the second she stubs a toe, gets charged too much at the auto body shop or finds a hole in her umbrella. She’ll make her grocery list and run down the list aloud for all to hear. That grates on a few nerves, but she’s a sweet lady who is always there when one of us has a problem, so listening to her grocery list recital is the least we can do.

There are the two middle siblings who fight about everything, especially politics. They’ll occasionally call each other names, usually personalized variations of the F-S- and C-words. But they know their politics, so we listen and learn for about a half hour before yelling at them to shut up.

Then there’s me, perhaps the most infuriating family member of all.

I’m constantly shoving the stuff I write in their faces because I want them to talk about how the subject matter plays in their own lives. I don’t say much else when I’m in the house unless I’m excited about a new band I want people to hear or my kids say something too damn funny not to share. But I write all the time, and I have to show them everything, even stuff they may have seen before.

People tell me to shut up and go away; to stop repeating myself and promoting myself. That last one pisses me off and I spit out a few choice words. Then I resume what I’m doing like nothing happened.

People seem to tolerate me because writing is my job and, once in awhile, I write something that resonates with a few of them.

The rest simply ignore me when I get to be too much.

A messy, loud place, this Twitter house is. I’ve thought about moving out a few times, to get away from the so-called echo chamber. But I always decide to stay.

Because love ’em or hate ’em, these people are family.

And because — I’ll admit it — I need a few dysfunctional people in my life.

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This Should Sadden Boston Bruins Fans More Than Losing

Though my home team made the playoffs, I didn’t care. I’m all for the morale boost fans get from winning. Hockey just isn’t my thing. What’s more important to me is how fans conduct themselves, win or lose.

Mood music:

After the Bruins’ overtime loss to the Capitals last night, some Bruins fans failed in the class department. They gave a black eye to the team and the vast majority of fans who handle defeat gracefully.

This CTVNews article explains:

Boston Bruins fans are reeling after a stunning overtime loss in Game 7 Wednesday night, but others are reeling from the racist backlash that erupted over Twitter after the Washington Capitals’ Joel Ward scored the winning goal.

Ward, a Canadian whose parents emigrated from Barbados, scored the game-winner over last year’s Stanley Cup champions at 2:57 into overtime on a rebound from a shot by Mike Knuble, to make the final score 2-1 for Washington.

The TD Garden arena in Boston instantly fell into a shocked silence as fans’ hopes of back-to-back Bruins appearances in the Stanley Cup final evaporated.

But the volume was just starting to build on Twitter, where incensed fans began launching personal attacks on Ward, not over his playing ability but over the colour of his skin.

“The fact that a n***** scored the winner goal makes this loss hurt a lot more,” tweeted someone with the handle @tomtroy12.

Another wrote: “Stupid n***** go play basketball hockey is a white sport.”

Those were just two relatively tame examples in a long list of racist posts that appeared on Twitter following the game, though many were removed by Thursday morning and some of the offending accounts appeared to have been deleted altogether.

Indulge me as I share this quote from one of Chris Rock’s “Nat X” skits on SNL. It’s humor, but the idiots who wrote the tweets above demonstrated how dark comedy and painful reality are often separated by a pathetically thin line:

NAT X: I was watchin’ a hockey game and I noticed there were no black people. So I looked into this example of the white man once again keepin’ the black man down and found out why there were no black people in hockey. First, it’s cold out there! Second, we might get our gold teeth knocked out! Third, we have no desire to dominate another professional sport. And, finally, no brother is going to go anywhere there is a bunch of crazy white people wearin’ masks and carryin’ sticks!

What’s the racist Twitter rant between disappointed Bruins fans have to do with the theme of this blog? Quite a bit. One of the main themes is how we humans handle adversity. What are the examples of adversity making us better or worse? This post is an example of the latter. It stinks all the more because in this case we’re not talking about life-or-death adversity. This is over a fucking game.

As one of my Canadian friends, Dave Lewis, tweeted: “Stay classy. Wow, just wow.”

I’m not going to tell you I’m ashamed to be a Boston sports fan this morning. My lack of sports savvy alone prevents me from doing that.

But I’m also not ashamed because these turds don’t represent the vast majority of Boston sports fans, who usually acknowledge that the other team did better and deserved good wishes.

These tweeters are probably not even genuine racists. But as I said about the folks who were selling and buying anti-Obama “Do not re-nig” bumper stickers: You may not be a racist, but using the N word says something about the kind of person you are.

Like I said, I’m no hockey fan. But it still inspires me when a sports team does well. It takes someone like me — who can’t play sports to save my life — to appreciate the grit and determination it takes to play professionally.

Which makes it all the more disappointing when a fan or five repays the hard effort their team gave by being assholes.

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Romney’s Lesson: When You Try To Be Someone Else, People Notice

This post is about what happens to politicians when they try too hard to be someone else. Mitt Romney is in the thick of it. John McCain was four years ago, as was Al Gore eight years before that.

Mood music:

It’s not just a problem with politicians. Musicians have fallen in the trap. So have writers. I’ve been there myself.

In the desperate search for success and fame — and getting elected — it’s easy to try to be someone you’re not. The problem is that you inevitably get caught.

The Romney of today is not the Romney that was elected governor in liberal Massachusetts. His brand of conservatism was far more moderate a decade ago. When he decided he wanted to be president, he immediately shifted right. People see right through him, which is why he’s having so much trouble sewing up the Republican nomination.

It’s the same mistake McCain made in 2008, when he was trying so hard to please the right instead of being the straight-talking “maverick” that gave George W. Bush hell in the 2000 Republican primaries. Meanwhile, Al Gore was trying so hard to distance himself from Bill Clinton that he completely denied his role in shaping the policies of the Clinton Administration.

Voters could smell the rat every time.

It’s really no different from what you see elsewhere in life. When we’re not acting like our natural selves, the people who know us best take notice.

I speak from the experience of trying to replace my brother after he died, of trying to be Jim Morrison in college and of trying to be a hard-nosed newspaper editor in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I also speak as someone with an addictive personality who has often lived in denial and lied to bury pain and shame.

The more I talk to fellow recovering addicts and emotional defects, the more I realize we have one big thing in common: We want to please everyone and be loved for it.

I wrote about my own experience with this in a post called “Why Being a People Pleaser Is Dumb.”

I wanted desperately to make every boss happy, and I did succeed for awhile. But in doing so I damaged myself to the core and came within inches of an emotional breakdown. It caused me to work 80 hours a week, waking up each morning scared to death that I would fall short or fail altogether. I wanted to make every family member happy. It didn’t work, because you can never keep everyone happy when strong personalities clash.

In the face of constant let-downs, I binged on everything I could get my hands on and spent most waking moments resenting the fuck out of people who didn’t embrace me for who I am.

I won’t lie. I still struggle with that. It’s possible I always will. But I’m not running for office, so it’ll never be quite so glaring.

But no matter how small your world is, someone will always see through your phony exterior.

The problem for Romney is that his true colors are bleeding through on the big stage.