Tag Archives: Commentary on Human Condition

Friday musings…

Posted on by

You may have noticed the football news of the last week – Dallas Cowboy’s football coach, Bill Parcells, announced his retirement after 19 years as a head coach in the NFL (Google: Parcell’s Retirement for more on this…) Chief among reasons for the retirement was that he was tired – not so much physically, but mentally. Too tired mentally to be able to make it through the grind that is a 12 month, 365 day, 20 hour/day job.

Some had speculated that having to deal with Terrell Owens had played a role in Parcell’s retirement, believing that T.O.’s on-the-field inconsistency (15 dropped passes, most in the NFL this year,) coupled with his griping about how he was not being thrown to enough (though he had over 150 passes thrown his way,) on top of his much chronicled off-the-field issues, had driven Parcells from the game. He denied it. Bob Knight’s Take

Today, I was watching the NFL Network, as I am want to do occasionally, esp. on my day off. One of the regular segments is hosted in a barbershop by Deion Sanders. Reference: Barbershop: the Movie The premise of the segment is that the gentlemen (the barbers & their clients) debate current events happening in the sporting world, mostly about the NFL. Today, Bill Parcell’s retirement was discussed by the guys in the shop – & Parcell’s retirement was seen as a positive for T.O.’s football career; it was stated that Parcell’s had been overtly working to keep T.O. from achieving to his potential. Really? Some other gems:

“Now that Parcell’s is gone, T.O. gets to be himself.”
“hopefully the next coach will make sure that T.O. gets utilized like the player he is” instead of “being neglected and stigmatized.”
“I’m not saying it’s a racism thing, but you know…”

Racism? When is refusing to give special treatment to a jerk, racism? Is it when the people having the discussion are of the same color as the misunderstood athlete? Under what circumstances, if any, would T.O.’s behavior be considered inappropriate? Are we really believing that the Man is still keeping T.O. down & is responsible for the kind of year that T.O. had? It seems way too easy to play the proverbial race card anytime someone of color does something dumb & their coach (or someone else who is of another color) calls them on it. It is merely a way to avoid personal responsibility, & ends up distracting us from situations where real racism is happening. Please.

The highlight of the segment for me was when Deion Sanders referred to the upcoming Super Bowl, where both of the teams have “African-American” head coaches. This means that the winning team of Super Bowl XLI will have an “African-American” head coach. One of the barbers snorted & replied: “African? Don’t give me African. They BROTHERS. They BLACK!”

Nicely stated.

Incompetence, Part Deux…

Posted on by


Yesterday’s post got me to thinking about another area where somehow, someway, people completely miss the boat – and don’t have a clue that they have missed it. What is it I’m speaking of? Thanks for asking.

Some people are delusional when it comes to describing themselves, or at least qualities & traits that they believe are true about them. Only after observing them for a period of time is it found that in reality, they are as far from how they described themselves as the East is from the West.

An example, taken from scoey’s life as a PERS employee – a person describes themself as:
-a person with an eye for detail,
-a linear, patient, methodical, task oriented thinker
-great at problem solving

Sounds like just the kind of person that you’d want to have on a job where lots of information is processed, where accuracy is not only a good idea but is an absolute requirement, & where certain tasks have to be performed over & over, quickly, and with uncanny accuracy… however, the individual turns out to be nothing like they’ve described themself. First, they were dyslexic, (could that be a problem in a job where alphabetizing paper/100K files is the #1 job duty?) Second, they couldn’t figure out WHY a File Clerk 1 would be required to spend all that time filing in the file room; Last, they don’t notice that it could be a problem to take hundreds of files every day & hide them in the supply room. And the coat room. And in big piles behind their desk. Ultimately, their inability to accurately assess themself ends up costing them a state job (which are hard to lose, BTW,) & also creating mounds & mounds of work for everyone around them. The coup d’grat was when they filed a complaint against the supervisor that fired them for wrongful termination.

I’ve got a mound of other examples to choose from, but for the sake of brevity will stop here to ponder:

How does one person get so deluded? Is there hope for the lost individual? Can they be brought back from the world of make-believe that they live in? If so, how?

stereotypes…

Posted on by


The last post generated some interesting replies, but also some great conversations about stereotypes & roles, conversations that never made it onto the blog. So, I’m wondering if you’d play along. Again. Post a note that details the negative stereotype about the job/profession/role that you do or fill… that is, if it has one. Is there a job/role w/o any negative stereotypes? I wonder…

Stereotyping is easy – just take the extreme (behaviors, actions, identifiers, etc.) about your job/role & lump them together. I think mine is easy, but I’d welcome your input too…

  • Talks slow, & condescendingly to the flock.
  • Uses big words & a special version of Christian-ese without explanation – language usage is one of the things that keeps the separation between the clergy & the rest of humanity.
  • Wears either a) nice suits b) really nice suits, or c) car salesman’s attire (feeding that one too while I’m here.)
  • Big hair. Beautiful hair. Hair Elvis (Vegas Elvis, not GI Blues Elvis,) would be jealous of…
  • Keeps people (the laity) at a distance – otherwise, they might get too close & see the emperor’s got no clothes…
  • Pays little to no attention to what’s happening in the real world
  • Never met a rant he didn’t like…
  • Looks for opportunities to remind people how holy he is (& conversely, how holy they’re not.)
  • Attends every church/city/community social event, fully in the role of pastor – exists to do the benediction & convocation, prayer for the food, etc… If it’s a spiritual exercise that’s needed, he’s the person for the job. (Note: this reminds me of a true story – a church had a softball team, & since it was a church event, the pastor felt it was his duty to be there. And to play. But, in not wanting to let people too close, lest they forget that he’s the Pastor, he would play wearing his suit, tie, & dress shoes. True story.

    On that note, I’ll stop for now. Taking a look at my list, I can think of a ton of pastors that don’t fit any of them. But a few (several. many) fit them all, & then some.