Friday, April 30, 2010

Keep It Up?

"You played well boys, keep it up and good things will come!"

How many times can you hear that before you start to believe otherwise? RSL begins a much needed home stand tomorrow night at Rio Tinto stadium, and it couldn't have come soon enough. I can understand the few reasons (get them out of the way so we're at home down the stretch, set the tone for road games early, etc) behind starting the season with a road swing, but as the results have not produced the points we'd hoped, did we do too much mental damage too early in the season? Many will argue (and have argued) that our play has warranted more points, and I would agree with that statement. I see the battle with Toronto as the key to getting us on track before frustration takes a semi-permanent seat in the locker room. If you saw the post game interview with Captain Kyle last week, a blind man could have seen the frustration in his body language, not to mention his inability to coherently answer the questions posed. After the stunning opener to the 2010 campaign, many of us were cautiously optimistic about the first few games of the season, but after 5 games and 4 points, we've crashed back down to terra firma. I guess this is where Jason Kries (...superstar) earns his salary, and wishes he paid more attention in Psych 101.

My take on probable line-up:
            NIM_Homeboy
Beltran - Olave - Borchers - Wingert
 Will - Javi (Andy) - Kyle - Gonzalez
            Sabo - Findley

Never Gonna Get It

Are we EVER going to learn from our mistakes? Will we ever hear another country say "thank god the CEO of _________ thought ahead"? Look no further than the culture of this country...shoot first, ask questions later...leap before we look. From healthcare to the environment to lives of the American people, we're all about the blame and the clean-up instead of the prevention. Why is the economy in the toilet? Why do miners continue to die in accidents? Why do we have a massive oil slick threatening the coast...again!

Look no further than these recent stories:
  1. AstraZeneca: Sure they're paying $500+ million in settlements, but they made $4+ BILLION on the drug before we learned years later that it had negative side effects.
  2. Massey Energy: racked up how many violations before the latest mine disasters? They challenge them instead of making changes...why....so they could keep digging and making money, because no matter how much they end up paying out to the miners families, they made 10 fold (safe to say a lot more than that) while those safety violations were tied up in court.
  3. Oil Rig Explosion: a massive oil slick is reaching the shore and threatening the eco-system and the livelihood of thousands...why....because safety measures to shut the well down weren't enacted because of the oil company lobbying. Now we have the companies involved in the drilling arguing over who should pay for the clean-up while untold damage is landing on our shores!
  4. Goldman Sachs: sold people bad investments resulting in thousands of people losing millions...why..."hey man not our fault if they bought bad investments (CEO says while checking his Cayman account balance).
See a pattern? Though we cannot and probably should not try and legislate morality, I am sickened, but not surprised that these stories continue to make headlines. The problem is that those in charge of these decisions (accidents) do not reap what they sow....we do! They get rich, we foot the bill, and they're never held accountable. There are lives at stake with these decisions...and we (they) would be wise to heed that fact. To many...Money > Life...and unfortunately they're never gonna get it...and it's more lucrative if they don't.