I Don't Understand

Not only do I not understand what I am about to write about, but I don't even know what to write about it. Quite the quandary, I suppose. I really don't even know where to start…but here goes anyways.

Something has been on my mind for about the past month and considering a couple of stories that I have read in the past couple of days it has reached the point where I felt it was appropriate for me to write about it. Actually, appropriate probably isn't the right word. Necessary makes more sense to me. And by necessary I mean necessary for me to express my feelings on the matter, not necessary to or for anyone else (hope that phrasing didn't fracture your brain).

What has been on my mind the past month or so and especially the past couple of days have been the stories I have read or heard about which involve murder-suicide of an entire family and one story that was one of the more disturbing things that I have ever read about. I know, not rosy subjects and not subjects that many, if any, would want to talk about, but I think that these crimes have been occurring more often (or are being reported more often) and it has, again, been on my mind constantly in recent days.

Here are some of the stories I am talking about...

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/12/25/santa.shooting/

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/12/26/santa.shooting/

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/01/28/family.dead.california/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/01/29/ohio.family.dead/index.html#cnnSTCText

If you've spent a reasonable amount of time around me you have probably noticed that I talk about a lot of things that really aren't important in the grand scheme of things (just like most people). What I'm talking about here are those casual everyday conversations about sports or a TV show like American Idol or a person like Paris Hilton; conversations that only have a surface. Most people have an opinion on those things, but most of the time these conversations turn into endless rants about things that don't really matter. These recent stories though, have really made me think about life as well as people. I understand that people die everyday. I understand that people are even murdered everyday. I understand that these things are bound to happen in the world we live in, but the outright senselessness of these incidents I don’t understand and it has really left me, well, a bit shaken.

I just don't understand how someone could think that their life is going bad enough that their ultimate solution to their strife is to not only kill themselves, but to also think that it is necessary to kill their spouse as well as their children. The whole thing is just really shocking and unsettling to me.

A few days ago a married couple that had just been fired from their jobs a few weeks earlier decided that their situation in life was at such a low point that they thought it would be best if the husband would shoot and kill his wife and their five kids (ages 8, 5, 5, 2, 2) before shooting and killing himself. A fax that he sent to a local TV station read, “after a horrendous ordeal, my wife felt it better to end our lives; and why leave our children in someone else's hands ... we have no job and 5 children under 8 years with no place to go. So here we are." I don’t understand how two people could possibly think that ending the lives of their entire family was their best course of action. I simply don’t understand.

One thing that has made a connection with me while these stories have been on my mind is the film that won Best Picture at the Oscar’s last year, No Country for Old Men. The first lines and opening narration in the film somewhat connect with my feelings about these recent stories and are spoken by Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones)...

“I was sheriff of this county when I was twenty-five years old. Hard to believe. My grandfather was a lawman; father too. Me and him was sheriffs at the same time; him up in Plano and me out here. I think he's pretty proud of that. I know I was. Some of the old time sheriffs never even wore a gun. A lotta folks find that hard to believe. Jim Scarborough'd never carry one; that's the younger Jim. Gaston Boykins wouldn't wear one up in Camanche County. I always liked to hear about the oldtimers. Never missed a chance to do so. You can't help but compare yourself against the oldtimers. Can't help but wonder how theyd've operated these times. There was this boy I sent to the 'lectric chair at Huntsville Hill here a while back. My arrest and my testimony. He killt a fourteen-year-old girl. Papers said it was a crime of passion but he told me there wasn't any passion to it. Told me that he'd been planning to kill somebody for about as long as he could remember. Said that if they turned him out he'd do it again. Said he knew he was going to hell. "Be there in about fifteen minutes". I don't know what to make of that. I sure don't. The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But, I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say, "O.K., I'll be part of this world."

Again, none of what I wrote is directed at anyone else necessarily. It can if you want it to be, but I didn't intend for it to be. I just needed to write this because it has really been on my mind recently.

2009 Film Outlook

15 Most Anticipated Films:

1. Up (5/29)

2. Inglorious Basterds (8/21)

3. Shutter Island (10/2)

4. Public Enemies (7/1)

5. Avatar (12/18)

6. The Informant (9/18)

7. Watchmen (3/6)

8. Funny People (7/31)

9. Revolutionary Road (1/23)

10. Duplicity (3/20)

11. The Lovely Bones (12/11)

12. Bruno (7/10)

13. Sherlock Holmes (11/20)

14. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (5/1)

15. State of Play (4/17)


Other films that I have an interest in at some level:

Star Trek (5/8), The Year One (6/19), Where the Wild Things Are (10/16), Land of the Lost (6/5), Observe and Report (4/10), I Love You Man (3/20), Adventureland (3/27), Terminator: Salvation (5/22)

Films that may come out this year at some point that I would be interested in:

Arrested Development, A Serious Man, This Side of the Truth, The Human Factor, Green Zone, The Road

I am interested, but not caught up in the series:

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (7/17)

I know I'll end up being coerced into seeing this movie, but I really don't want to:

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (6/26)

Various College Football Thoughts

Another college football season has ended, but just like most seasons so much is left undecided.


About last night's BCS "Championship" Game:

First off, congratulations to the Florida Gators they had a great season, they were a great team.

I really didn't think that the game was all that great though. It was actually pretty sloppy. There was never any rhythm to the game. It was either a penalty, a turnover, a clock issue, or a timeout that led to more commercials. The game never really got going for me.

Can we stop treating Tim Tebow like he is God? I am not attacking Tebow here, he seems like a really quality person. There is no denying he's a great player and will go down as one of the top college football players of all-time. But listening to the announcers of last night's game made me want to vomit. They talked about Tebow the same way announcers typically talk about Brett Favre and Derek Jeter. Announcers act like those players win games all by themselves and no one wants it more. His emotions are quite visible so announcers praise him endlessly for it. You heard statements like,"Look at Tebow willing his team to victory." and "Look at the determination." They show his reaction after every play! Tebow played really well in the second half of the game, but he also threw two interceptions in the first equaling his total for the entire season leading up to the game so it wasn't like the guy was perfect. There are dozens of other players on the team and they deserve some recognition as well. It's not like they didn't work hard to get to where they are. It's not like they don't want to win. It's not like those players aren't working as a team to win a game. Tebow wasn't blocking Oklahoma's defensive line last night. Tebow wasn't catching the passes he was throwing? Tebow wasn't defending passes or making tackles (except on his own interception) either. He has to rely on other players to win the game. He recognizes that and gives the team the credit as he should. Why can't the media understand that too?

Neither Florida or Oklahoma played their best game in the BCS Championship game. Both Heisman winning quarterbacks (Tim Tebow and Sam Bradford) threw two interceptions a piece. There was a lot of praise about Tebow and the Florida offense last night. Going into the game Oklahoma gave up 24.5 points per game making them a pretty average defense. Against the unstoppable Florida offense they gave up 24 points...or less than they usually give up. Coming into the game Oklahoma scored around 54 points a game...they managed only 14 points in this game. At the same time I suppose one could say that those numbers mean that there was great defense played. Oklahoma also came in sporting the best "redzone" offense in the nation coming into the game scoring TDs about 80% of the time (or something close to that) they got into the "redzone." In this game they twice went down to the Florida 5-yard line or closer and came up with nothing. Once it was an interception and the other time it was Florida stopping them on 4th down. There were far too many dumb and ill-timed penalties in the game.


BCS in general:

Does anyone support the BCS at this point? This is no way to decide the champion!

There needs to be a playoff, plain and simple. Either an eight team or sixteen team, I won't go into detail besides that, because I'd be writing all week long and that's something to write about another day.

What does the BCS attempt to do? Is it trying to find the best two teams to match-up for the championship? Is trying to find the two most deserving teams? I don't know, and no one in charge of the BCS has ever made that perfectly clear.

The computer rankings, which make up one-third of the BCS calculation, can tweaked to come up with any data the statistician wants to arrive at. Teams aren't really being compared effectively as the statistician thinks of some formula which ranks different teams, but it doesn't necessarily mean that those formulas actually convey anything that effectively ranks the teams based on how good they are.

Another third of the formula, the coach's poll, is a problem as well. Several coaches have openly admitted not being able to follow other teams and therefore don't have the best grasp of who the best teams in the nation are. Coaches also vote with favoritism to their conferences and their colleagues.

What I am getting at here is that these two components to the BCS (the other being the Harris Poll) alone are not effective tools in deciding the two best teams in the nation. Why should these ineffective tools decide who gets to play for a champion when they can decide it on the field much more effectively? An eight or sixteen team playoff would solve that problem. The ninth or seventeenth teems in the country may complain, but I think by the end of the regular season there could be a system in place that can at least decide the teams (eight or sixteen) that should be up for consideration for a championship. Does anyone really think that Florida is the best team in the nation hands down, no argument. No way! USC, Utah, and Texas all have legitimate arguments for being number one this year. The point that many people make about there not being a playoff is that a playoff system would add games to the season. Well, how come every other lower division of football has figured out a playoff system, but not the top division? It seems pretty doable. It's unfair to the rest of the teams and players on those teams that have a legitimate complaint about not being one of the top two teams in the BCS after the regular season finishes. You hear college presidents, athletic directors, and NCAA all talk about doing what is right for the student-athletes. Why don't they create a playoff system that is fair for the student-athletes by giving them a chance to compete for the championship and not have them rely on a ridiculous system that takes that chance away for all but two teams that may or not be clearly the best two teams in the country?

I am also sick of people saying that teams that weren't in the BCS Championship Game don't have a gripe with not being there. Sure they do. Before the bowls there were at least eight teams that had a legitimate argument to be in the BCS Championship game. After all the bowls have been played there are still four teams that have a legitimate argument in favor of their team being declared the champion. People argue that USC shouldn't have lost to Oregon St. Penn St. shouldn't have lost to Iowa. Texas shouldn't have lost to Texas Tech. While each team could have taken care of their own business by winning every game that simply didn't happen this year, minus Utah (and Boise St. before their bowl game). It's ridiculous though to think that all these teams had one loss (again not Utah), yet two get to play for the championship and the rest have to live with it. It's just a dumb argument, a cop-out, and it's really not fair to all these teams that are basically standing on equal ground at the end of the regular season. Look at what cost two teams a chance to play for the championship. USC plays one bad quarter on a Thursday night, on the road, at a tough place to play, and after the most high profile game of the season to that point. Texas gives up a touchdown with one second left to lose, on the road and the fourth game in a row against a top 15 team. Could these two teams have taken care of business? Sure. But should they be left out of championship consideration because they lost one game a piece just like the two teams that ended up playing for the BCS Championship. No way! Before the bowls all of the undefeated or only once beaten teams had a legitimate gripe for playing in the BCS Championship Game and it's simply not fair that they didn't get a chance because of some ridiculous formula having the power rather than those teams being able to play for it against each other.

The transitive property doesn't work. Just because Team X beat Team Y and Team Y beat Team Z does not mean that Team X would beat Team Z. This is what some have argued this year. Utah beat Oregon St. Oregon St. beat USC, therefore Utah is better than USC. It doesn't really work like that. Look at it this way Penn St. beat Oregon St. Oregon St. beat USC, USC absolutely demolished Penn St. in the Rose Bowl. These kinds of arguments don't have much merit.

HERE IS THE IMPORTANT NOTE: All these arguments about who should play in the BCS Championship Game are not arguments that anyone should have to have.

For instance people talk about whose loss was better/worse USC @ Oregon St or Florida at home to Ole Miss or Texas @ Texas Tech or Oklahoma on a neutral field to Texas or Penn St. @ Iowa. Or this team scored more points than this other team. Or this team's defense didn't allow as many points. Or this team lost early in the year. All of these types of arguments shouldn't have to take place among a bunch of teams trying to take two spots in a championship game.

We shouldn't have to have these kinds of silly arguments because the games should be decided on the field, period.

2008 College Football Poll - Final Poll

1. Florida 13-1 (1)
2. USC 12-1 (4)
3. Utah 13-0 (7)
4. Texas 12-1 (2)
5. Oklahoma 12-2 (3)
6. TCU 11-2 (11)
7. Oregon 10-3 (12)
8. Alabama 12-2 (5)
9. Mississippi 9-4 (17)
10. Penn St. 11-2 (6)
11. Ohio St. 10-3 (10)
12. Georgia 10-3 (14)
13. Boise St. 12-1 (9)
14. Texas Tech 11-2 (8)
15. Virginia Tech 10-4 (21)
16. Oregon St. 9-4 (18)
17. Oklahoma St. 9-4 (15)
18. West Virginia 9-4 (NR)
19. Cincinnati 11-3 (16)
20. Iowa 9-4 (NR)
21. California 9-4 (NR)
22. Nebraska 9-4 (NR)
23. Florida State 9-4 (NR)
24. Missouri 10-4 (23)
25. Michigan St. 9-4 (19)

Dropped From Rankings: Georgia Tech, BYU, Pittsburgh, Boston College, Northwestern

I am Wesley Robinson and I approve this message.