Impeach The "President"

All I can do is think. Given my current position, living with my mother in Baltimore, anxiously waiting for the next two and a half weeks to go by so I may return to LSU, all I can do is think. I shouldn't claim that a call to action is needed. Hell, only about four people have read any of my previous blogs, and I doubt many more will read this one. But has anyone noticed who is running the country? Has anyone noticed the widespread devastation across this once great land? The bombs, the guns, the blizzards, the raging wildfires, the lies, the division? Has anyone else noticed that America is not the same as it was? The time has come to impeach our so-called "leader", George Walker Bush.

Does anyone really believe that New Orleans would still be in the state she was in if Al Gore were President? If the actual President were in charge of the country, I might be back in New Orleans tonight. I'm not saying Gore, with his massive wind-breath, would have blown Katrina back out to sea. The hurricane would have still hit, and lives would still have been lost. But recently the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans released a 92-page report, describing in great detail what needed to be done to fix the city's canals, pipes, and drainage systems. The estimated cost of this job hovers around $5.7 billion, and experts believe that completion of this gargantuan task would take about 25 years. Meanwhile, the compulsive liar and his beer pong buddies spent $20 million on an Iraq War victory party. Yes, a victory party. A party that hasn't even happened yet. The Iraq War will end up costing America at least a trillion dollars, and the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans needs $5.7 billion to fix the city's pipes and drainage systems. Where do you think America's priorities lie? What else in America lies?

When the two planes hit the Twin Towers five years, three months, and ten days ago, America was swept away with a new definition of "hero." The hundreds of policemen and firefighters who died trying to save lives were heroes. The average passengers on Flight 93 who took control of a bad situation were heroes. There are no stories of people in New Orleans that could be called heroic. The policemen and firefighters lost their homes. The people normally viewed as heroic were in the same predicament as anyone else. Meanwhile, President Liar is increasing his personal bank account fighting people on the other side of the world. He's worrying about whether or not to send troops halfway around the world to die in the name of his stock, while a mere 1200 miles away, Americans are still without power, water, food, or hope. The current administration is fighting against an insurgency to which he has never spoken or met. But he has campaigned furiously in New Orleans and throughout the Gulf Coast region. He knows who we are. He knows where we live. But apparently, he doesn't know how to help.

So, Mr. Bush, I offer you three suggestions, and I hope you take this seriously. Suggestion #1 is to burn the cities of Midland, Texas, and Houston, Texas, to the ground. Destroy your hometown, so you will feel the sadness I do about losing your home. Suggestion #2 is to leave Iraq and fix New Orleans. Use your power for good, not evil. Suggestion #3 is for you and the Dick to leave office immediately. I suggest you follow Suggestion #2, because if you don't, America will make #3 a mandate for you.

Bush is a deeply religious man, and I'm going to end this blog with a quote from Matthew 19:24. "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God." I'll remember that when Bush is burning in Hell.

Merry Christmas.

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Grim Memories of a Consistent Disappointment

To Eric, Brad Radke personifies his fantasy baseball failures.

2001 was my first season of fantasy baseball. I was swept into a world where it didn’t matter whether or not the Cubs won that day, as long as Ricky Gutierrez got me some fantasy points. Division standings and wild-card races took second place to my unquenchable thirst for fantasy points. Needless to say, I sucked (and the entire Baseball Evolution staff will tell you that I still suck) at fantasy baseball, constantly trading for “promising” players, only to be racked by injuries, suspensions, and Tim Wakefield. But there was some satisfaction to be had from the experience, and his name was Brad William Radke.

Four years removed from what would be his only 20-win season in 1997, Brad Radke appeared to me at the top of the free agent standings, and he looked good. Sure, after his only good year, he amassed three straight 12 win seasons, and his career ERA hovered around the 4 mark. Anyone else with common sense would have stayed away. They would have seen the tendency for mediocrity, and would have not clicked on “Add to Team.” But I only saw a 28-year-old pitcher on a solid team that would eventually get it together and start challenging for the division. Ah, to be 14 years old, pining after a relatively solid pitcher on a team I couldn’t care any less about.

I hate you, Brad William Radke.

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Hypocritical Holidays

There is only one thing that would merit eating turkey on the third Thursday of each November: being with my family. That's the only reason why I indulge in this piece of crap holiday: Thanksgiving. And I know that I'm pessimistic about a lot of things, including life itself, but I hate Thanksgiving more than any other holiday. What happens is, we "give thanks" for all the blessings we have, like our health, our family, our friends, and that fat turkey sitting on the table waiting to be devoured. But has anyone really thought about the history of Thanksgiving, or what happened subsequently afterwards?

The original Plymouth colony and the Wampanoag tribe of Native Americans sat down to have the first Thanksgiving in 1621, and it was peaceful. Thanksgiving was meant originally as a day of reverence to God for a bountiful harvest and blessings showered upon man. But as the 17th century unfolded, more and more Puritans came to America, and because they were dying of massive famine, they persecuted and all but annihilated the Wampanoag tribe with a new element of America: bullets. Today, there is so much disdain for the holiday amongst Native Americans that they renamed it a "National Day of Mourning" in 1970. Just think about how the Native Americans view Thanksgiving: a day of feasting, resting, and eventually running from the new white people in their land.

Now, I'm not advocating the abolishment of Thanksgiving, that is to say I love the turkey part. But we must understand the true foundation of the holiday, and the subsequent years afterward where there was only an interest in survival and hatred. I don't want to put a damper on this holiday, but I can't help but think how truly hypocritical it really is. Maybe I'm being overly dramatic and standing up for a meaningless point, but it is worth noting that the original people in this land don't recognize this highly Christian (and commercialized) third Thursday of November. If I'm making too big of a deal about this, then you can ignore this whole blog, but those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it, and I don't plan on persecuting anyone anytime soon. We should all cherish this holiday. We should all understand what it means, and what our actions in our daily lives will do to others. Even if you're stuffing your face with turkey and cranberry sauce, please realize that a lot of people aren't, and that when we can all get along in the spirit of being good human beings, we can truly call this day Thanksgiving.

Enjoy the stuffing.

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Statement of Purpose

August 29, 2005.

I was standing on the Mississippi River levee, in Baton Rouge (in other words, no, not that levee). Four friends and I fought through the near-horizontal rain that soaked our clothes. The 60 mile-per-hour winds literally whipped us back and forth as we neared a meterologist for Channel 2 news in the hopes of getting on live TV. The river's thunderous waves beat against the bottom of the levee, but the surge was nowhere near dangerous height. We pressed on, laughing and smiling, lucky to have gotten out of school for a week. When we finally made it across the levee to the weatherman, we became hurricane hunters from St. Paul, Minnesota, and eventually started a "Go Katrina (clap clap clap-clap-clap)" chant. All five of us LSU Tigers were swept away in a force of nature, and we sang and danced in the pounding rain, only subconciously aware that while we were playing, others were drowning.

As we returned to our dorm, Kirby-Smith Hall on the northside of campus, CNN was reporting a breach in the 17th Street and Canal levee in Downtown New Orleans. From there, I was silenced. The four others had not known New Orleans as their hometown for the past 18 years. They did not recognize the streets that were being inundated with water. I could only watch quietly, and expression-less, as news anchors in swanky New York studios were telling me what I could very plainly see for myself: my hometown was underwater. Sitting in the lobby of Kirby-Smith, clothes still soaking wet from the torrential downpour, I wasn't quite ready to cope with the reality of the situation. But I kept staring, mouth tightly closed, nervous at what the latest reports and images would bring.

That was a year, two months, and 23 days ago. And a lot has happened since then. I left LSU, moved to Baltimore, currently working as a waiter on the Inner Harbor, I have a niece, the Democrats took control of Congress (although not official for another two months), Donald Rumsfeld resigned, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have turned into the voices of truth, Britney Spears got her damn mind back, and I've been re-accepted to LSU, with plans of retuning in January. Oh, and I've lost at least 50 pounds. But I'm getting to the reason of this title, "Statement of Purpose."

Whatever I decide to do in life, writing will be a factor, and it's good to voice one's opinion. It's what made this country great. But now, in the closest thing to fascism that exists, we have gone from democracy to hatred in about 6 years. Actually, 6 years, 2 months and 10 days. September 11th, 2001, changed this country. America transformed from a respected superpower to a feared, out of control wasteland of hatred and disrespect, and it's true. The tragedies of that day (and I am in no way making light of that, it was a tragedy) enabled the hacks in power to send its brave soldiers into battle over a platform of lies. America was afraid that something like this would happen again, and they had every right to be. But the additional fear of another attack led to our invading of a country we now know had nothing to do with arguably the worst day in American history. And it is in this lie that a harsh reality emerges: The estimated cost of fixing New Orleans is roughly the same as the War in Iraq costs.

What happened to America? What happened to the "land of the free and the home of the brave"? What happened to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"? What happened to "this nation of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth"? What kind of world do we live in where our leaders are not held accountable for their actions, regardless of whose lives they damage or outright destroy? I was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States of America. A natural disaster sent me to Baltimore, but the inaction of our government has stalled my return. Personally, my life does not matter as much as the lives of countless thousands of families, friends, and Americans, who wake up on the same days, require the same food, and have the same need for love that all humans possess. The last time I checked, this was America. This was the land where the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses took shelter from their own countries, longing for some individual concept of freedom. And regardless of where those people ended up, or how they fared, they came to America because this was the land of the free. When our government turns its back on its own citizens, when Americans turn their backs on Americans, it is no longer the land of the free; rather, it is the land of hypocrisy. And that must change.

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Serious Bonds Reflection

Eric gets in on the Barry Bonds Royal Rumble.

It’s about time I started writing about something other than why I love Mark Prior, or the fact that Jeromy Burnitz is the “biggest disappointment in Cub history.” (By the way, Asher, I’m honored that, had I been a professional sports writer, you would have considered me for the Bonehead Sportswriter of the Year Award. Thank you for the recognition.) But the biggest issue in baseball today is, as it has been since 2003, Barry Bonds.

And I was never sure where I stood on Bonds. It’s hard, because there are three kinds of people. There are people who respect and love Bonds for everything he has done in his illustrious career. There are also those who loathe this despicable disgrace of a human being, using illegal substances to boost his numbers and cheat his way to becoming one of the top five players of all time. And then there are those who don’t know anything about baseball, like Zach Braff from “Scrubs” who, when spoken to about the slugger, said “Still, I love it when Bonds wins at the game that he plays.” As far as Bonds goes, if I pick a stance, I’ll have to stick with that decision forever. This is a pivotal moment in my sportswriting career. People’s lives have been changed based on their views toward Bonds, and having all of that been said. I have made a decision.

Barry Bonds is one of the top five baseball players of all time.

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2006 Team Preview: Chicago Cubs

Cubs fanatic Eric Freeman Jr. analyzes the Northsiders with relish.

2005 Record: 79-83 (4^th Place NL Central)
2005 Runs Scored: 703
2005 Runs Allowed: 714
Pythagorean 2005 Record: 80-82

Scott lives in Chicago, Keith lives in Chicago, Asher loves Chicago, and my dad was from Chicago. But my AIM screen name is cubbiesfan217, so I get to write this preview. Rest assured, my extreme (and at times fanatic) loyalty to the Cubs will not get in the way of this preview, although I’m starting to buy into Sportscenter’s week-long expose of the possibility of ending 98 years of heartbreak and sadness. (If I was the host of some late night talk show, I would pray that the Cubs held their “ending of the curse” to 2008, thus spawning a plethora of “The Cubs only win every century. Cubs in 2108!!!” jokes. Enough of my milking this article for everything it’s worth.

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Who Am I?

Eric Freeman makes his BaseballEvolution debut.

Who am I?

I am an 18-year-old 6’3”, 285 pound behemoth of an Aquarius with the appetite of ten men and the strength of 200. I am an active member of the Department of Redundancy Department, and am a barbershop quartet enthusiast. Typing never bothers me, but Stephen A. Smith, Joe Morgan, and the designated hitter rule get on my nerves. In my world, Jimi Hendrix and Peter Gammons are golden gods, but nothing beats walking into Wrigley Field at sunset.

I’m from New Orleans, but have since moved to Baltimore, and I do not care either way about the Orioles. I worship the Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox, along with Crash Davis’s speech in Bull Durham about that in which he believes. (Ending sentences with a preposition isn’t a fatal mistake to me, but if I wanted to pursue a career in sports writing, I should start writing correctly.) I never cared too much for George Will, but Bill James is saint-like, and the New Orleans Saints are better off without the likes of Aaron Brooks (gone), Jim Haslett (gone), and Tom Benson (hopefully he’ll get a stroke).

I’m also Asher’s 'little' brother.

But you’re probably wondering, “What in the world does he have to say?” Well, I’m glad you wondered.

Many things in the past have bugged me about baseball, and I’m just here to give my two cents in the form of a grammatically correct rant. And here we go:

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