It took a week for him to emerge from seclusion to explain the incredible inept handling of the so called Ray Rice affair.
A week.
Total silence.
Then a news conference on a late Friday - just the same kind of hiding in plain view that modern politicians do all the time when issuing bad news to the taxpayer.
A week.
But... he only came out to talk after a number of big money paying sponsors (indeed, one brewery spends over 1 billion - yes, with a B!) complained and vaguely talked of doing "something" with their money.
Then he showed up.
A week.
Never did address the issue did he?
Nope.
A week.
What a hero eh?
Then about a half hour after the end of this farce, a report hit the airwaves that said the team employing the player - well officials actually saw the video of the player hitting his fiance. And that the billionaire owner helped devise a plan to only suspend the player for 2 games, enter an abuse program thereby hiding the video forever from the public and that the commissioner went along with this.
And you know what?
One suspects absolutely zero will come out of this tragedy.
Ordinary folks will still fill the coffers of the team owners to overflowing.
They will still attend the games.
Nothing will change.
Most likely.
You hope not but one doubts it.
After all, society (and not just North American by the way) worships athletes - indeed they can do no wrong and it is difficult to see this obsession ever changing.
And there are the 2 victims in this and they will be the only ones to pay a horrendous price.
The woman who was punched in the face and ended up marrying the man.
And the man himself - put into obscurity, never to earn more mega millions - probably never to understand what was wrong with what he did.
An American tragedy all around.
In Scotland this week, a vote to separate from the United Kingdom was defeated. Avid separatists from the Canadian Province of Quebec ( home of 2 failed votes to get out of that union) vowed that they were re-invigorated and have new energy to start the drums a beating in that part of the world.
OK - but this time, let the country take a lesson from the details of the Scottish action.
Leave Canada - pay your portion of the debt that you incurred.
Leave Canada - get your own currency, not the Canadian dollar thank you.
Leave Canada - no access to Canadian Pension plans - they are for Canadians only.
Leave Canada - form and supply your own military.
Leave Canada - you deal with the First Nations people who have their own ideas of Nationhood.
Get the picture?
Times and attitudes change, evolve and in some cases - harden.
Sierra Leone has enforced a 3 day lock down of the entire country in order to find, isolate, hospitalize (and also educate the populace) people infected with the Ebola virus. A desperate step in the fight against an ever spreading disease that is claiming more and more every day.
Will this work?
One hopes so but based on the way humanity has acted through the ages, probably not.
A cruel irony is that there are so many medicines available these days compared to the zero amount centuries ago and scourges like this continue to exist.
Sometimes it seems the world goes 3 steps forward, 1 step sideways and 4 steps back doesn't it?
On the plus side, reports issue that say there might be a reliable blood test available for the diagnosis of depression. Instead of solely relying on the words of the afflicted, medicine might be able to spot this insidious disease via a simple style blood test.
And what a great thing that would be.
I think we all have known folks that have endured this demon.
Sometimes successfully.
Sometimes losing to it.
And never just a single victim, no, entire groups of people are impacted by this disease.
As said, sometimes a step forward.
In a sure sign of fall - the first sighting of a humpback whale comes from the Sandwich Islands.
More reliable than the first frost or leaves falling, that's for sure.
It is a truly awesome sight when one breaches the water, takes your breath away in fact.
We have had the pleasure of this viewing a number of times over the years and never grow tired of it. And as hinted, once again in the New Year, we are off to the Isles to spend a short time there.
Here on my Island, Fall is truly underway as the Province wide teachers strike is finally settled and parents can now send their kids back to subsidized day care...oops.. school again.
Also the main deluge of tourist traffic is slowing to a trickle and one can venture out on the local "autobahn" and not endure the dreaded 15 minute traffic jam!
We are in the process of bidding farewell to "member" of our household.
She came into our lives about 2 months ago.
Tiny little thing yet able to melt my heart with just one look.
Next week, she will be moving to a new place across our small "dorf".
Never thought I would have another kitten in my life after saying farewell to the "old guy" as he passed on just a couple of weeks before we moved from the Prairie Flatlands to this Island.
Never again I said.
I will miss her.
Darn.
take care out there,
flatlander52
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