Ben's weekend top 10

I'm going to start doing this for a while. We'll see how it goes.

Ben's Top Ten Drama movies


10. Mississippi Burning

9. The Hurricane

8. Casino

7. The Godfather parts I & II

6. A time to Kill

5. Pulp Fiction

4. Amistad

3. Goodfellas

2. American History X

1. Rocky 1-6 (Yes all of them, even 5)

Kind of cheated counting the sequels as one movie.
Wow a little telling about myself. Half of the movies have to do with crime/gangs. Also half of the movies have to do with racism/race relations.

Should you fire a coach for winning by too much?

A high school coach was fired by the school for not acting in a Christian way, because of a win of 100-0. The national media has jumped on the bandwagon of this story, and thinks that this is great. Really? There have been rumors that he was still pressing late in the game, and if that is the case he should be talked to. But from most parent accounts this is not the case. Another problem the parents at the event were cheering, only after it became a national story did it become shameful in their eyes. The problem they were still shooting threes at the end of the game. Would it have been better to drive and make high percentage layups, or let your bench players bomb away from outside? Should they have let the other team score? In sports you as in all things are always to do your best. It teaches both sides bad things. Not only to the winning team that do your best unless it hurts someone's feelings, but to the losing team it teaches that if your bad enough people in life will give you a break. Even if they played lackadaisical defense there's no guarantee the score would have been any different. As a former player, sometimes you come against teams that have no business being on the same court as you. (I'm looking at you Westville)

People have been saying that these girls had learning disabilities. (Again Westville I'm looking at you.) It is not like the girls were mentally retarded, as some in the media have portrayed. ADD, which apparently ever kid in America has now, does not hinder ones basketball skills. If these girls weren't up to play the private Christian academy, it is the athletic directors from both schools' fault, not the coach.

Finally, in America we know have the attitude that sports is all about self-esteem and everyone's a winner. I hate to break it to you, but in a game there is always one loser. There's a reason why there are no high school gyms in America without scoreboards. Winning matters. If it didn't they wouldn't keep score, maybe that's just the Matt Bush in me talking. I wonder if this same coach's girls always played with integrity, but lost every game would he still have a job? I doubt it. Coaches are fired all the time for not winning. This coach was fired because a bunch of people in the media want to feel sorry for some girls who can't play basketball. He made his girls play their best, and that was wrong?

To all those who didn't catch on to my PCC (Porter County Conference) references Matt Bush was my basketball coach, and Westville was really bad at basketball, and everything else for that matter.

Wonder why the Black Community doesn't trust cops?

http://colorofchange.org/oscar/

Another man executed by police. He did not pose an immediate threat. He was handcuffed. This kind of thing happens all the time. This one just happened to get caught on video. The police in this country for too long have operated with impunity in our neighborhoods. Is it a coincidence that it is normally white police officers shooting black "suspects". This has gone back for a long time. In south police officers use to take part in lynchings. Now they simply execute them and call it self defense. There is no excuse for this in our society. The problem is that they continually get away with it. No officers were convicted in the Sean Bell or Amadou Diallo cases. These men were shot at more than 50 times, were unarmed, and posed no threat whatsoever to the police. In the Sean Bell case he didn't even know the police were present. I often wonder what those people on the jury are thinking when they let these murders go, and that's what they are. If I handcuffed someone, held them down, and shot them in the back, I would be charged for murder. So why aren't Oscar Grants killer charged? Because the average middle class citizen has two ideas in their heads:

1. The police deserve the benefit of the doubt.
Let me say I know that there are good police, but they are far and few between. Think about it this way. Remember the guys who wanted to be cops when you were high school. How many of them were the kind of people that you would give the benefit of the doubt to? Personally most of the ones I knew were overly violent racists who like shooting guns.

2. Black people are scary and criminals.
Don't think that's true. Ask an average black man what a white woman does with her purse when he walks by. Better yet ask white teachers what they think of their black students. I know that the ones my wife used to work with are scared to death of the black boys, and they are in middle school. (Important to note that none of the students have ever attacked any of the teachers) Just because some people were willing to vote for a black man for president, doesn't mean that we don't still have some serious issues with race in this country.

How can we fix it?

1. Require that police officers have to live in or close to the neighborhoods they patrol. Anymore many cities don't even require them to live in the same city. So it is easy for them to see the people as no more than animals that need to be controlled. If they live in the community, then cops have a need to better the community. They have a vested stake in being liked by the members of the neighborhood.

2. Make it a requirement that if a defendant/victim is black that one black person has to sit on the jury. A bunch of white people saying it's OK for white cops to shoot unarmed blacks isn't working. Why not give it a try. I'm not saying that a black person would always vote differently, but maybe they would have a little perspective.

George Bush is a jerk or inept you decide.

So is George Bush trying to pull one more dick move? For the first time in a long time, the president elect and his family are not allowed to stay in the Blair House. It's booked. So let me get this straight either:

A. He didn't plan ahead for something that would obviously happen, like the president elect's family to move to Washington DC, which would illustrate his entire presidency quite well.

or

B. President Bush is pulling one jerk move on his way out, which would also illustrate his presidency quite well.


Oh and MSNBC I don't care what the Obama girls are having for lunch. Act like real journalists for once.