You Have Got to Be Kidding Me....

And as we're buying our Halloween candy last night for the -maybe- five or six trick or treater's that we will have, I see the above scene.

This is wrong and tacky on so many levels, I don't even know what to say, other than "Come on, Target; are you kidding me?"

Are you as disgusted by this as I was?

A New Coach, A New Attitude

I've never really cared for football. I'm really not a big sports person to begin with. About the only sports that I pay attention to are Clemson sports -- and even at that, the bulk of that attention goes to football.

As a student, it's part of the ritual to go to the games and pull for your team, whether you're a Tiger, Gamecock, Bulldog, Terrapin, whatever. Then as an adult, it's part of the ritual to receive solicitations to join your alma mater's athletic club and/or give money to the the program. And you are kind of expected to be able to at least pull for your team in public conversations, which I do.

I have a lot of school pride and I like to be able to joke around with people who support opposing teams when Clemson beats them. But I've never been big into donating to the Clemson athletic program for several reasons, including the fact that the program is obviously all about football.

For all the time I sat in the stands at Clemson cheering for my Tigers, or cheered at home watching the TV, I never really believed in the evident coaching philosophy at Clemson.

Win at any cost.

Other than the fact that I admittedly don't know alot about the rules or technique of football, even after "attempting" to watch it for all these years, I have never supported the "win at any cost" philosophy.

In the last 16 years since I started college, Clemson has gone through three head coaches. In each case, they didn't come out and say outright that the reason that coach was "fired" was because their team didn't perform up to expectations and that lackluster performance was the coach's fault. But it's Clemson athletics, where football reigns. If the football team is doing bad, that affects revenue. From a business point, OK, it makes sense. But, again, I have a lot of philosophical issues with that.

I've obviously never been a coach. I have no idea what's that's like. But I can guarantee you that any coach has a tremendous amount of pressure on them from multiple directions. That is going to happen to anyone in that type of position.

It's just like a business. There is a direct line of accountability. Everyone has clear roles and duties. If one link in the chain is weak, it effects the entire chain.

I get that.

But the biggest part of a successful business, or team, or whatever, is attitude - how you perceive the situation, or game as the case may be; how motivated you are; and what your goal is and how you want to achieve that goal.

For years and years at Clemson, it's been about being the top dog; getting that ACC championship; going to the national title game and winning the championship again. Sure, it's fun to go up to your Gamecock friends the next day and say, "Ha, ha. Our team beat you."

But, really, to me that's neither here nor there.

One of the reasons why I don't watch pro-football or many other pro sports is because there are so many people who are in that because of the money. They may have at one point had the heart and passion for the game, but over time the money has taken over their focus.

I think it's wrong to put that goal of winning this and winning that out there for college athletics. First and foremost, it's a college. Students are supposed to be there to learn. So in an ideal world, the athletics should be there as a fun, extracurricular activity in which you don't have to worry about whether you getting that touchdown is going to affect your chances of getting a multi-million dollar pro-contract or your coach's chances for advancing to a bigger school.

But you get all these crazed athletic supporters that pump millions of dollars a year into a program to pressure young adults into performing something that really isn't the point of college. They want the win. And, of course, the athletes want the win too. You can't really be an athlete and not want the win.

So while they're in the game, one would hope that those athletes would go about achieving that success on the field with the right attitude.

They've been writing all week long about the change in attitude in the Clemson program since Bowden was fired last week. (They can say whatever they want about Bowden not being there anymore, we all know he was fired). Commentators have been saying that there is an palpable excitement in the air.

Following the Tigers loss to Georgia Tech yesterday, Coach Swinney made some comments that make the new change in attitude clear:

• “I could give a rat’s tail what that scoreboard says. What I was after today was to get a bunch of guys to come together as one,” he said. “To unite the Clemson and try to create some energy. We got that done today.” - Greenville News, Oct. 19, 2008
• “Yeah, we could have done some things better, we stunk it up in the first half. We had a couple of bonehead plays. We made some mistakes that hurt us on the scoreboard. This wasn’t about the game. “They laid it on the line today,” he said, “played with passion. I don’t think that’s been the case. They brought it.” - Greenville News, Oct. 19, 2008

So it looks like now we've got a coach that has the right idea. It's not all about winning. It's about having fun, having and showing heart and enthusiam. And playing with passion. It's all about attitude.

And I think we've finally found the right attitude in Dabo Swinney.

Where Did We Go Wrong?

George Bush is bad - he has screwed everything up. It's all George Bush's fault.

Wah, wah.

I am so tired of hearing that.

What has happened in the last few years? Housing foreclosures have gone up, home values have declined, oil prices have skyrocketed, China's economy has taken off while ours has gone into the toilet, we're set to retire our shuttle fleet and leave our astronauts at the mercy of a nation that is trending back towards communism... the list goes on.

Where did we go wrong?

Who's to blame? You may say Bush, I say Congress. Politics 101 - Congress is who puts legislation in place. The power is really in their hands to fix what we've allowed to get broken. Who has been the majority party in Congress for the last two years? The Democrats.

Who else is to blame? Now let's look at the chief executive.

You may say Bush is to blame. Ok. So he's not real smart and he can't pronounce "nuclear," but he had the largest terrorist attack on the United States to deal with along with political and economic fallout that resulted directly from those attacks. His record of intelligent decisions may not be stellar, and some blame can be put on him, his cabinet, and his advisors. But look what he's had to deal with.

I say a large part of the blame is on Clinton. He should have surgically taken care of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban when he had the chance, but he chose not to. Then we wouldn't (hopefully) have had a major terrorist attack on our country, have to deal with being in a multiple-front war right now, and be spending the billions upon billions of dollars to fight that war.

Then we can look at it from a "trickle-back" standpoint, and lay some blame on the Democratic congress under George H. Bush, go back and put some blame on Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon ... and while we're at it, let's put some of the blame on all of us for taking the daring and brave move in creating Isreal following World War II. Most of the middle east has had us in their crosshairs since then.

(Okay, so going back and changing or stopping any of the things that have even in the smallest way contributed to the current state of our economy and our reputation around the world opens up the whole issue of screwing up the space-time continuum and creating innumerable paradoxes)

Fast forward back to 2008 - and we've got McCain blaming Obama and the Democrats. And Obama blaming McCain and the Republicans.

We should just go ahead and portion out the blame so everyone in Congress has some laid on them. And we can continue the blame game all we want. Really, though, it's time for all of these clowns in Washington to stop being politicians and start acting like leaders.

Lead us into a safe and prosperous future. Don't just take a backseat with the nation on autopilot.

After watching the presidential debate the other night, I came to the conclusion that this election for me is really about who is the lesser of two evils and who has less potential to screw this country up even further.

I really don't know. I would like to think McCain. But here he goes off on a $300 billion mortgage buyout. This after a $700 billion bailout, recovery package, whatever you want to call it. Granted, he says, oh yeah most of the money to do the mortgage buyout is already in the recovery package.

You know what, we will all still end up picking up the tab for these predatory lenders, for greedy Wall Street executives, for corporations with no real care in the world for the Average Joe Sixpack (thanks Sarah for the catch-phrase). We are all going to be footing the bill for this for a long time.

And it's time we put an end to coprorate greed, its lobbyists, and the pork they receive. Again, as with everything in the political world, easier said than done.

Both McCain and Obama can say "tax-breaks" all they want, but the sad reality is that with our economy on the track it is and our ability to cover this bailout, get our nation out of debt, and put additional corrective measures into place to fix our economy, it's going to take money out of all of our pockets and I would venture to guess we'll not see any tax breaks, and instead have tax increases under either candidate.

I really have a half-mind to write Fred Thompson in on the ballot because both Obama and McCain grate my last nerves.

I'm sick of this election. And I can believe I'm saying this, but I'm sick of arguing with people over why I am more inclined to vote for McCain over Obama.

Most of it is philosphical and goes back to smart and limited government, and core Republican beliefs of family values and a strong national defense.

Call me a reluctant Republican this go round all you want. I really am.

I'm just ready to get this over with, deal with what we have to deal with for the next four years, hope whomever is elected doesn't screw things up even worse, and hope for better choices in 2012.