The Key To Winning At Life

On Fridays, we often turn away from politics and try to tackle something lighter and more humorous. We know with heavy stuff like the ongoing tension in Korea, or the ever-worsening effects of the sequester, that's not easy. Still, personal events and anniversaries in the lives of our staff seem to make humor something a bit out of place today. That doesn't mean we can't inspire you though, just as the four people we're thinking of today have inspired us.

Much of America is lamenting over the passing of legendary film critic Roger Ebert, and we have to admit, we are too. Ebert, at 70, was still interested and willing to try new things in life, in writing, and often in the realm of technology that surprised many people a quarter of his age. We can't say we always agreed with Ebert on his movie revues, though we did agree with one element of his style.

Roger Ebert didn't fight WITH you, so much as he fought FOR you - to understand where he was coming from, and for him to understand why you didn't agree with his opinions of movies, politics, and more. That passion to want to make everyone else better is one we wish all people shared.

Another great writer America lost this week did share that passion, legendary sportswriter Stan Issacs. For those in the media who knew Issacs' work, there was often a sense of two minds about his work, especially for those hard-core sports media junkies. When talking about the best sportswriters, we've often heard Issacs' work derided as not "pure" enough, or too "elite", with references to pieces like his legendary David vs. Goliath postgame interview.

Of course, many of these same sportswriters would quietly admit to us later that they only wished they had half the talent Issacs did - or half of his courage. Issacs' courage wasn't as evident in his actions like swiping the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers pennant from L.A., as it was in sticking to Joseph Pulitzer's legendary ideal that news media - including sports - should "inform and enlighten." We hope our friend and media colleague Dave Zirin of The Nation doesn't think we're overreaching when we say we see hints of Issacs all over his work - and we're frankly glad for it.

Another great media talent we had the pleasure of working with also passed on this week, Matt Cooper, a radio producer and professional broadcaster few in front of the scenes knew. The best producers in media - and in life - are those people who do their jobs so well everything they touch seems to be made better simply by their presence. Matt was certainly in that class of superstar, knowing the right song, the right words of encouragement, or the right comment to make, turning every show he worked with into a first class event. His absence is as obvious to us as his presence ever was.

Our staff is also thinking this week of the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, who was assassinated forty-five years ago yesterday, as he fought for fair wages and benefits for impoverished workers in Memphis. Some of the lowest wage workers in the most expensive city in America - New York City - were striking on Thursday, and we have a feeling that if Dr. King were still alive, he'd have been proud to stand with those young men and women.

Each of these individuals had several traits in common that many of the most successful people in life have. None of them sold out their ethics, none of them ever stopped trying to improve, and none of them ever really quit working until death stopped them. That we're still talking about them now proves they were even able to defeat death, in a way - a victory we each hope someday we'll be worthy of achieving.

The key to winning at life that each of these four men shared was something even more simple, more honest, more pure. Each man usually did the right thing, for themselves and for others, regardless of what everyone around them said they should do - and often, in spite of what others said.

If each of us on Earth were like these four, in that regard, we think life would be a lot better for everyone.

Of course, a good movie or baseball game, with a bit of rock and roll or gospel music also would help make things better, something we think these four winners would certainly agree with.

Enjoy your weekend. Make the world better, if only by your presence.
And choose to do the right thing.

You won't regret it.

Telltale Signs And The Truth

A friend of a friend has been saying for years - long before the great Maya Angelou is credited with saying it - that, "When they show you who they are, believe them."

With all of the insanity going on in the world right now, that phrase has never seemed more appropriate.

Lately, on almost any topic, both the narrative thread usually spun by those in power, and the truth behind the lies seems to be leaking out everywhere, even more than usual. Sadly, that hasn't stopped some of those in power from desperately claiming there's nothing really to see.

One obvious place to see this Orwellian duality is in the ongoing Exxon Mobil oil disaster in Arkansas. Exxon has promised to the media and the residents of Mayflower, Arkansas that they will cover the oil disaster cleanup costs. However, their past history, and a 1980 law - reasserted as still valid in a 2011 IRS memo - say that Exxon Mobil doesn't have to pay into the Federal fund to clean up disasters like this one, and Exxon Mobil's history has all the property owners in Mayflower scared to death about the future. Further, Exxon Mobil appears to have convinced the FAA to put up a "no fly zone" over Mayflower, Arkansas, overseen by the corporation, until further notice.

That could be a long time, as Rachel Maddow noted last night, when she cited the only other tar sands oil spill in America, back in July of 2010 in Michigan. Nearly two years and $765 million dollars later, cleanup continues from that Enbridge disaster in Michigan - a disaster that the company said would only take a few short months to clean up.

On a completely different topic, in the last month, the leaders of North Korea appear to have decided they'd like to threaten to go to war - nuclear war - with pretty much everyone else on the planet. Their threats late Wednesday, that they've authorized a nuclear attack on the United States, appears to have both the U.S. and China - North Korea's neighbor - a bit worried. North Korea's belligerent rhetoric, though stronger than ever, still follows the same behavioral role they've been playing against the U.S. since the end of active hostilities in the Korean War nearly fifty years ago. They push, the U.S. and other nations agree to some form of a deal, then North Korea gets the goodies from those concessions - and then North Korea begins the cycle again.

Whether it's extremist Republicans in North Carolina threatening to pass an unconstitutional law declaring an official state religion, or the legislature in Connecticut passing strong new gun safety laws, or people like President Obama and Sec. of Defense Chuck Hagel taking a cut in pay in solidarity with all those Americans who will be affected by sequester furloughs, people all over America and the rest of the world are letting their true colors leak out all over the place.

Even simple, methodically tested numbers are giving up the truth more easily than they seem to have in the past. For example, in a Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday, it's obvious that 43 percent of Americans would support a Democratic U.S. House candidate in 2014, but only 35 percent would support a Republican candidate for the same office. However, the numbers also show that gerrymandering - effectively, cheating by changing the boundaries of congressional districts -  will make it nearly impossible for the will of the American people to be accurately reflected in the makeup of the U.S. House.

If you're looking for the truth, as we've always said, you simply have to open your eyes. Now that it seems to be leaking out everywhere, seeing the truth should be easier than ever. Seeing isn't really the problem, though.

The problem is that far too many people keep seeing the truth, yet refuse to believe.

At least we know who they really are. They keep showing us every day.

It's All About Timing

With a full staff back from vacation (though still under the weather), and everything on the table today from media ethics to the growing damage caused by the sequester, we thought the best use of our time and yours was to focus on timing - specifically, the timing on issues of gun safety legislation.

The NRA lobby, notorious for slow-walking gun safety legislation to its death, once again belatedly trotted out its own plan on Tuesday, a 225-page "school safety" report that may as well have been titled, "Let's Arm Everyone In School Except The Kids" or, even more simply, "Guns For Teachers." The only thing that might be worse than arming all the teachers and school staff everywhere is listening to the NRA in the first place.

It's obvious the NRA's latest document is nothing more than a carefully worded exercise in evading one of the five key components about gun safety we addressed initially last December - that while the media, mental health, economics, and politics are all factors in our national gun violence problem, it's the guns themselves that are the key part of the problem.

One of the other five components of America's continued gun violence problem is our corrupt political system - a system which wasn't always as corrupt as it is now.

Greg Sargent of the Washington Post exposed that reality clearly early Tuesday afternoon when he dug up an old New York Times interview with Senator John McCain from October 2000, along with a television ad of McCain denouncing the private gun seller loophole. Senator McCain, a longtime ally of the NRA, clearly laid out in the 2000 television ad the same problems with the loophole - often called the 'gun show loophole' - which most sensible gun rights supporters agree even today are problems.

The 2000 television ad was designed to help voters in Colorado and Oregon push to pass state laws for background checks on private gun sales, something the Colorado legislature and governor just put into law in their state last month. McCain's October 2000 interview with the New York Times made it obvious that the Senator wasn't just pushing for changes to the laws in Colorado and Oregon though. Indeed, in the Times' piece, McCain claimed that he would push to pass the gun-show bill in Congress in 2001, though history clearly shows McCain did no such thing.

In fact, these days, Senator McCain seems to be trying to time his media appearances so that he doesn't have to face the 2000 version of himself on gun safety.

Not surprisingly, McCain isn't the only one with bad timing.

Asa Hutchinson, the former GOP congressman from Arkansas who presented the NRA's school "plan" midday Tuesday agreed later in the day in a CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer that universal background checks would in fact be a sensible idea. Of course, the NRA, in a move as well timed as snowshoes in June, immediately followed up Hutchinson's CNN appearance by saying the former congressman didn't currently speak for them on background checks.

Maybe Hutchison was thinking about a different time. In 1999, the NRA's Wayne LaPierre testified in front of Congress that the NRA supported background checks as "reasonable…  for every sale at every gun show. No loopholes anywhere for anyone." The NRA even did a massive ad campaign in 1999 in favor of background checks.

The fact is, whatever ridiculous plan the NRA is pushing for today, any American with sense would need another hole in their head if they were to honestly believe that what the NRA - the gun manufacturers' lobby - has to say on guns is going to be anything other than a message to "Buy more guns."

In life, timing is everything.

The gun makers' time to control the message of gun safety has passed. It's long past time Americans enacted sensible gun safety reform.