Cheating At Badminton? Say It Ain't So.

Just about the time I'm really starting to enjoy the Olympics, a cheating scandal rocks the games. No, I'm not referring to the 16 year old Chinese swimmer, Ye Shiwen, who has raised more than a few eyebrows with her man-beating times in the pool. And, no, I'm not talking about some roided up weightlifter from Kyrgyzstan. No, this cheating scandal  is disturbing on an even more visceral level. I, for one, will always remember where I was when I got the news that eight Olympians were kicked out of London for cheating at....Badminton.

Yes, that lovely game we all grew up playing at picnics in the summer has now arrived at the place where people care enough to cheat at it. And the people doing the cheating aren't your Uncle Ted, with a racket in one hand and an Old Milwaukee in the other. No, these cheaters are the best of the best, and in every article I could find about this story, they are described as "athletes". Apparently, the desire to reach the pinnacle of the Badminton universe so corrupted eight "athletes" from China, South Korea, and Indonesia, that they conspired to throw their matches in order to obtain a more favorable opponent in the elimination rounds to come. As you can imagine, this lackluster effort did not go over well with the thousands who had paid good bribes to get their hands on tickets to see first rate badminton. Kang Young Joong, current President of something called the Badminton World Federation, wasn't happy. "Not giving one's best effort in a match does not reflect well on our sport." So, the eight offending Asians are now ex-Olympians, but clearly, the damage has been done. So what is an Olympics fan to do? What am I to think when I watch the long anticipated Croquet finals between Great Britain and Liechtenstein next week? Will I have to wonder whether that handsome man with the silky mallet is doping? And what about the Horse-Shoe Pitching finals this weekend? Are those guys playing with magnetized shoes?

Now, I'm aware that what I'm about to say isn't politically correct, however, I can't help but notice the preponderance of Asian athletes involved in nefarious conduct at these games. What's the deal with the Chicoms anyway? In the 1990's over 60 athletes from all sports tested positive for banned substances. Of that total, 28 just happened to be Chinese...swimmers. So, pardon me for being just a bit suspicious of Ye Shiwen. And when I see any North Korean athlete winning anything, a red flag ( pardon the pun ) starts to fly in my head. Although I guess I shouldn't be surprised by amazing athletic feats by North Koreans, since their supreme leader carded a 38, including an amazing 11 hole in ones in his very first attempt at golf. Since this otherworldly accomplishment was reported by the Official News Service of the North Korean Communist Party, it had to be true. Even though there is presently no evidence of cheating, I will still keep a sharp eye out for any irregularities in what I'm sure will be an all-Chicom ping pong final later this week.

One Month Ago Today

One month ago today, my Mom passed away. In some ways, the time has flown by, but in other ways it seems like an eternity. The frantic atmosphere of the first few days has been replaced by a less emotional, more practical phase. We have made some adjustments, had time to process things. We are calmer now. Plans for Dad's care have progressed and seem less daunting. Still, there are hours in the day, days in the week, when the pain of the loss is still fresh. There are times when the thought enters your mind that you should call her to ask about some such thing, or to tell her about something that happened with the kids. Then, you catch yourself, the realization that she isn't here to take that call brings a brief wave of incredible sadness. But then you shake it off and get about your day, taking comfort in the hope of eternal life.

People have stopped bringing food, the cards have slowed to a trickle, and I am glad. Each card serves to freshen up my grief. I would rather not be constantly reminded. But oddly, the late arriving cards have been the most eloquent. Most have been hand-written and have benefited from the passage of time, and the power of reflection. Therein lies a lesson for the future. When a dear friend suffers a loss, I will wait a while before writing a note.

So, today, on the first month anniversary of her passing, I will be teaching in Rush Hour. My topic?...The Seven Deadly Sins...envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, sloth,  and wrath...none of which applied to my Mom. Well.. except maybe wrath.... that time she told me never to stick my tongue out at her again, and I went into the bathroom , found a long comb and defiantly stuck it in my mouth and angrily pointed it in her direction. As I recall, she put on a wrath clinic, with the aid of a fly-swatter, on my bare legs. I never have used a comb since, clearly scarred for life.

The Olympic Games...Enemy Of The Future

There are just so many things wrong with this picture...if you're President Obama. Four years ago, Michael Phelps made Olympic history by winning, count 'em, EIGHT gold medals. For Progressives of all stripes, this has to be an abomination, and the prospect that he might add to this obscene total in the 2012 games set to begin tonight will only add insult to injury. I know what you're thinking.."Dunnevant, this time you've gone off your rocker. What in God's name are you talking about??" Bear with me.

This photograph is a perfect encapsulation of the unfairness of competition. Michael Phelps is the poster boy for the 1% of sport. Thousands of American boys with nothing but a Speedo and a dream trained day after grueling day, in pools great and small, for the chance to step up on that medal stand and hear the National Anthem. They all worked just as hard as Phelps, most of them were every bit as smart as Phelps. Hell, most of them had better teeth than Phelps. But in the end it didn't matter. Michael Phelps won every event and ended up posing for this insulting picture celebrating his individual accomplishments, rubbing it in the face of all the other competitors.

Micheal Phelps was born aquatically gifted. It wasn't hard work and dedication. Just look at that body, those gangly arms, the almost concave chest, the lithe, sloped shoulders, with not an ounce of body fat.Those are genetic gifts, not the product of training and desire. When I was in high school, I was always annoyed by the 6'5", 210 pound guys who ran the 40 in 4.7 seconds and a had a 30 inch vertical leap, who thought they were more athletic than me. The nerve of those guys! It's the same with Phelps. You put an inner city kid in THAT body and he would win a chest full of medals too.

Besides, is it really fair that he had to win EVERY event? Wouldn't so many more people have benefited had those medals been spread around more equitably? And speaking of medals, why is it that the guy ( or girl ) who finishes first is so exalted over the second and third place finishers? Even the medal stand reflects this winning-worship obsession. There is Phelps, head and shoulders above the poor silver medalist and towering over the pitiful bronze medalist, like some Greek God. Has anyone stopped to think of how this grotesque scene might impact the guy ( or girl ) who finished last? The dream of the progressives, and our only realistic future, is the equalization of outcomes for all, the subordination of the self for the betterment of the whole, the banishment of rugged individualism and it's replacement with collective cooperation. And yet...we still have not evolved beyond this outdated Olympian worship of excellence. Is it a coincidence that this orgy of conservatism occurs every four years, during our Presidential election? I think not.

The Three Stooges Movie...Oscar Committee, listen up!

A few nights ago I found myself in dire need of a mindless diversion. Losing your Mother and dealing with the demands of caring for your 87 year old Father and all of the decisions associated with it has the effect of casting a debilitating shadow over your life. You find yourself thinking constantly about very serious things. Do that long enough and you become serious. Which is fine, I suppose. But the other night I needed an escape. I turned on the TV and saw it "on demand"...The Three Stooges movie was finally available!! Jon was here at the time and we both were wildly enthusiastic. Pam rolled her eyes, but even she was up for a little sophomoric humor.

I grew up with the Stooges. Every Saturday morning at 7 am in glorious black and white, Larry, Curly and Moe would stumble and fumble their way through an hour's worth of rediculous situations, all the while slapping, poking, and torturing each other amid cries of "Nnnuck, Nnnuck" and "woop,woop,woop!!" Ok..granted, it wasn't Shakespeare, but to a 7 year old boy it was great fun. I was very skeptical of how the Boys would be treated by Hollywood in 2012. I was doubtful that their brand of physical humor would work in today's car-seated, helmet-wearing, peanut allergy world, where we can't even bring ourselves to keep score in T-Ball since somebody's feelings might get hurt.

The movie was AWESOME!!! The actors who played Larry, Curly, and Moe were spitting images of the originals and they had every pratfall down perfectly. The plot was ridiculous, something about an orphanage, being put out of business by high insurance claims brought on by the young stooges who had been dumped on the doorstep in a army duffel bag by a drive-by Ford Fairlane. One of the nuns looked suspiciously like a man and went by the ominous name of Sister Mary Mengele, and took an instant dislike to the three infants when she was greeted by a swift poke in the eye upon opening the duffel bag! It was all downhill from there. At first, Pam was watching the movie with that wide-eyed look that women get when watching something that they just don't get, shifting her eyes from the screen to me and back to the screen as if to say.."Who ARE you???" But before long, even she couldn't resist. In one particularly hilarious..and painful.. scene, Pam was doubled over laughing along with the rest of us. I mean, a person can resist only up to a point. How can you NOT laugh when the boys find themselves in the laundry room of a hospital trying to resuscitate a police officer who they themselves had knocked out somehow. When Moe tells Curly, "Give me the pads!!", of course, Curly gives him two hot steam irons ??

Anyway, for the first time in a month, I felt normal. I was laughing like a school boy at the antics of three of my childhood heroes. When the inevitable fart scene finally appeared near the end of the movie, I proclaimed it a complete victory, and instant classic. Then something very strange happened. Right after "The End" appeared on the screen but before the credits rolled, the two guys who co-wrote, produced, and directed the movie appeared alongside a table with many of the props from the movie. There was the sledge hammer that Moe had used to hit several people over the head. There was the huge church bell that had slid off the church roof directly into the face of Sister Mary Mengele, knocking "her" out cold. There was the needle-nose pliers used to remove Larry's
nose hairs. But there were Bobby and Peter Farrelly telling us all that , in fact, these were not REAL. Shockingly, they were all made of rubber. Nobody was actually hurt in the filming of this movie. Oh, and you kids at home shouldn't try to recreate the stunts of the movie because if you used a real chainsaw on your friend's head, it wouldn't wear out the blade like it did on Curly's head, it would actually slice his skull in two. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. In 2012 we have to run a disclaimer after a Three Stooges movie reminding the audience about the laws of physics. Whoa.

Time To Set New Goals?

What do you do when you lose the ability to dream? No, not the ones at night that feature you standing naked in front of a stadium full of homeless people trying to remember the words to The Star Spangled Banner. No, I’m talking about those life goals that you set for yourself when you were young that represented the vision and hope of your life. They provided the fuel that drove the engine, they gave you a target at which to aim, a guiding star on which to focus. Some of them fell by the wayside. You didn’t have the chops to become a Major League baseball player. It turned out that you hated politics too much to become President of the United States. But what happens when you realize that practically every other big dream you had…has come true?

In no particular order, here is a list of dreams I used to carry around with me when I was in college. It was folded up in my wallet and I never showed it to another human being.

# Marry a beautiful blond. 

# Start my own business, be my own boss

# Buy a nice house.

# Travel the world.

# Have at least two kids, a boy and a girl.

# Break 80 at golf

# Attend a game at Fenway Park.

# Write a novel.

# Earn $100,000 in one year.

Ok, that list was compiled roughly 35 years ago, so the 100K is dated. But everything on that list has been checked off. Although I don’t suppose I can say that I have “Traveled the world”, the world being a huge place and all, but I have seen an awful lot of it.  Do I break 80 every time out? Hardly. But I have 6 times so that qualifies.  And yes, I have written a novel, but it is unpublished and unread, and hand written on two spiral notebooks, but it does qualify as a novel in every other sense. In addition I have accomplished other things that I never put on the list, but are remarkable to me like, educating my children at two private, out of state universities.

All the smart guys I talk to about this say that the solution is simple…I need to set new goals. Ah, yes, new goals. That’s not as easy as it sounds. The problem lies in the fact that many of my goals are at cross purposes with each other. For instance, I would like to learn how to fly an airplane and eventually buy or lease one of my own. I would like to purchase a vacation home on a lake in Maine where I can live during the summer and then bequeath to my children as a legacy. I would like to spend a month in Florida every winter playing golf and attending spring training baseball games every day. All of these worthy goals require lots and lots of money. My business produces (most of the time) lots of money, so what’s the problem? Well, what do you do when you’re good at your job but that job has worn you out? It’s all you’ve done for 30 years and it has been very good to you, but you would really rather be a freelance writer. The stress associated with the financial world has had a cumulative effect on me that has taken a toll. But would the stress associated with being a working writer be any easier? Probably not.

Having stopped to read through this, it really sounds whiny. I have so much to be thankful for in the life I have. I suppose it’s time to suck it up. As my Dad used to say, “Even though the grass may look greener on the other side of the fence…it still has to be mowed!”

Lawlessness Epidemic In My Neighborhood!!

Woke up this morning, sat down at my usual perch looking down on the neighborhood through my upstairs paladin window, and witnessed the most lawless outbreak of greed and economic exploitation I've ever witnessed since..er..last year around this time. Yes, today is YARD SALE day in Wythe Trace. Below my window, a teaming mass of unequally yoked buyers and sellers were engaged in wild and unregulated commerce, and I dare say that more than a dozen of our nation's laws will be broken before it's all over.

My next door neighbor is fully engaged in this colossal class exploitation. I look down and see her driveway lined with all kinds of items...a car seat, changing table, crib,( guess they're done having kids). There are  several chairs, a table piled with lamps, bed linens and a treasure trove of primary coloured Fisher Price toys. (Kids sure do create junk). The cul de sac is choked with cars. A steady stream of bargain hunters are picking through the piles. Not a lot of BMW's parked in the street, mostly pick-up trucks and late model Nissans. What in the name of high finance is going on here? I'll tell you what's going on...unbridled consumer exploitation.

Will my neighbor provide the lady who just bought that old car seat with the original packaging it came in that will properly warn her about the potential choking hazards associated with that product?  No. Does there exist any limits on what Lilli can charge this poor helpless woman for this worn out death trap? No. The seller has all the power in this unregulated exchange. Lilli drives a hard bargain. Money changes hands. There is no paper trail, no bill of sale, and no taxation of any kind on this transaction. No sales tax, and no income tax on the capital gains of these exchanges. I am literally witnessing what looks to be a thriving black market operating in broad daylight, with reckless disregard for government regulations. What,...wait..is that a Henrico County patrol car pulling up to the curb? Finally!! Somebody, representing the law is here to shut down this enterprise. No, what the heck is he..? He's going to buy the bassinet? Great, not only is there tax avoidance, and consumer exploitation, now there's official corruption, the police turning a blind eye to this naked pursuit of profit. I've got half a mind to call the President myself.

Happy Birthday To My Wife

My wife turns 50 today. Whenever we go out with friends, she has proudly declared that she is the only one at the table who is .."still in her forties". Well, now she can no longer make that claim. She will have to endure a bunch of stupid "old" jokes today, but not nearly as many as I heard 4 years, 3 months, and 16 days ago when I turned 50. See, age jokes work much better on someone like me, someone who is a loud, trash-talking smart-ass. With someone like Pam you almost feel embarrassed to even bring up the subject. The hardest job in the history of comedy would be coming up with material for a roast of my wife. She is just so incredibly adorable, sweet, and kind...you just can't bring yourself to make fun of her. What would you do, tease her about her cooking? Uh..no...she is so talented in the kitchen she makes peanut butter and jelly taste like fine dining. I guess you could come up with a couple of wrinkle jokes...something like, " In today's news, reports are coming in that President Obama actually had something coherent to say about the economy, and Pam Dunnevant actually found a wrinkle today, proving that there is indeed a first time for everything." That way, the joke is actually about Obama so you don't feel bad about criticizing Pam. See what I go through?

50 or not, this woman is the best decision I ever made. Here are just a few reasons why.

1. Where I am often negative and cynical, she tries to see the best in situations and people.

2. Where for me, "flying by the seat of my pants" is a way of life, she brings order to my life by actually planning ahead a bit more than my routine 15 minute horizon. Her least favorite of my expressions is.."It'll be fine!" Because of her other-worldly organization skills and unmatched powers of risk-analysis, most everything HAS been fine for me and my family for the last 28 years.

3. The woman is a beast with any electronic, technological gadget ever made. I have no doubt that if she had security clearance, she could probably figure out how to command one of the government's drone spy squadrons from her i-pad.

4. Whenever there's a crisis, Pam steps up in an enormous way. Some are paralyzed, others fearful. But Pam swallows her fears and just gets it done. Whatever needs to get done is her target, and she doesn't rest until a solution is found. In the circus world there are show horses and work horses. Pam is a work horse.

5. Now, ok...I just referred to a woman who turns 50 today, as a horse. Even worse, I compared her to a circus animal, proving once again how clumsy I can be with words. My "fly by the seat of my pants" writing style is in desperate need of an editor. See, the thing is, my wife is gorgeous. Every time we walk into a room, she turns heads, especially mine. Tonight at Brio's will be no different. People, will glance up at her and think, "Wow, isn't she beautiful?" Then the men will look at me and think.."What's HE got that I ain't got??" The answer...I've got Pamela Jean Dunnevant, and you can't have her. Bruuhhhhahhhhh!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Sweetheart.