A lot of us in my family like to joke that no matter what we say within the family, we're wrong. For example, if at a family gathering, one family member says "I'm cold," chances are another family member will say "No, you're not." We somehow found a way to meld opinion and fact and feel the need to rule on opinions as though they are facts. Not being able to afford a team of psychologists, this habit will remain a mystery amongst the Rose family.

However, this practice seems to have invaded our culture. There's a lot of head-shaking over the fact that former Baltimore Raven Ray Lewis, a man who pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in a murder case, is offering opinions about a possible cover-up by the Ravens organization and the NFL in the Ray Rice case. How can Lewis possibly offer unbiased commentary on the subject being a former Raven and being a former criminal who covered-up a crime? However possible, it's happening and ESPN is letting it happen all the while acting like Lewis's past never happened.

This is partly due to the postmodern culture of which we live. Postmodernism is mostly based in irony and criticism of realism and any and all belief in absolute truth, but Ray Lewis takes us into uncharted territory.

I'm reminded of the classic mockumentary (see?) Spinal Tap: (start at 3:43)



These goes to 11. It's not really louder than 10, it's just numbered differently, but to Nigel...it goes to 11.

For Ray Lewis, his "goes to 11" moment came when he stated this:

“There’s some things you can cover up,” Lewis said Sunday about the Rice situation.  “And then there’s some things you can’t.  This is a sad day for me because the reputation I left in this organization, this isn’t it.”

Those of us still clinging to "realism" will shake our heads or scream at the TV, but in the ultra-postmodern culture we've gone from irony to straight-up denial where Ray Lewis is pure, Nigel's amp goes to 11 and I'm not cold at a parent's house...and if you try to say otherwise, well, you're just not fitting in.

I wonder where this road will lead...

Rush Limbaugh hit on the heart of the matter yesterday when he said the outrage over the Ray Rice videotape proves that feminism is "artificial." The bottom line is when we see a woman get punched, we see it differently than a man getting punched. Thus, proof that men and women are not the same...they are different in the eyes of all human beings.

This is what I believe happened with the NFL. They knew what happened with Ray Rice and they may have seen the video beforehand, but once the video went public, they knew what the reaction would be. Forget the feminism malarkey, they knew people would be outraged at seeing a woman get her clocked cleaned. If it had been a guy, we'd still be outraged but not in the same way. Despite what our pop culture tries to dictate, you can't change baser instincts. Women are the vessel of the species and we revere them. You don't hit a woman if you are a civilized man. Men hitting men has a lot of extenuating circumstances (especially if it's over a woman), but hitting a woman, not so much.

The NFL brass knows this and that's why they panicked and handed down the indefinite ban of Ray Rice. The release of the video to the general public screwed up their initial plan to just ban Rice for two games to protect a talented player from having his career destroyed and the Baltimore Ravens season from being ruined. Let's face it, there are a lot of Ray Rice's in the NFL. "Protect the Shield" also means don't ban the NFL out of existence. This is the quandary the league faces.

So that's what I believe happened. And now the NFL is trying to figure out how to explain themselves without resorting to the cold, hard truth.

Some are speculating that Joni Ernst may be the first Senate candidate to do a quasi-Akin as it was revealed that she supported a bill in Iowa that grants "personhood" to an unborn child at the moment of conception. It's theorized that this is a bridge to far for the general public which is split on the issue of abortion.

To me, it points out an important facet of the human condition. We like to tell ourselves that we love our fellow man and have compassion for all living things and, in a sense, we do, but when it comes to riding to the rescue, human beings only really care about those they live with. Blood isn't even accurate enough in this scenario. "Family" are the people that you live with, eat with and are part of your daily life. After that, it's not really your problem.

I'm not saying this is great, I'm saying this is the way it is. I feel bad for homeless people, but I'm not out building them houses. If my brother was homeless, then I'd be building a house. That's natural...that's the human condition.

The abortion issue splits a lot of people, but I suspect most are agnostic. The more you know about the procedure, the more disgusted you are, but how many people are prepared to stop it at all cost? Only if it's in their family.

That's why I laugh when liberals claim to be horrified that so many Iraqis died in the Iraq War "thanks to George W. Bush." Don't see that much bleating from the left about the Iraqis dying at the hands of ISIS (ISIL?) or even way back in the day when Saddam was doing the gassing. It's all politics. Nobody really cares about anybody except their inner-circle. 

That's a pretty damning statement, but I've yet to hear a good counter-argument.

In between rounds of golf (and part of me doesn't care he golfs so much...less time governing), President Obama and his team of mutants have decided not to illegally grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants via executive order. As Ace aptly pointed out a while back (hat tip: @redsteeze), the idea, no, the FACT, that this act would be illegal doesn't even come into it with the MSM and they merely worry about Obama's Odysseus-like journey through life rather than the rape of the Constitution.

Anyway, they've decided not to do anything until after the elections in 2014. A good move. This election, to paraphrase Harry Reid, is lost from the Democrat's point of view. There's still time for the GOP to blow the Senate, but they will make some gains regardless (Montana, South Dakota, West Virginia) and definitely hold onto the House, so why make things worse and guarantee (maybe) the Senate flips by granting amnesty now?

Simple solution is to wait until after the election when the next ballot box is two years away which gives the public plenty of time to forget and the Democrats plenty of time to get these amnestied folks on the voter rolls either legally or illegally. Simple. Easy.

When in doubt, what do you do? You get younger. Obviously you can't do that for yourself, but you can with your NFL team, your company, your news organization.

With Diane Sawyer leaving the anchor desk for ABC's World News Tonight, the network decided to to turn the seat over to a young hotshot named David Muir. Forty-years old soaking wet, Muir has served his time overseas and as Sawyer's fill-in, so the network decided, hey, why not put a young guy in there and see if we can get a younger audience, especially women, and if and when the numbers tick up we can say, "See? Journalism!"

It's no secret that the evening newscast, once your only source of up-to-the-minute news, are as good as dead in the age of the Internet and 24-hour news. However, networks like ABC will cling to the old format as long as they can and continually scratch their heads wondering what's wrong?

What's wrong? Stop me if you've heard this, but the major networks, sans Fox News, have made the decision they'd rather die than serve the interests of the non-liberal populous. MSNBC and CNN are glad to be a distant second and third in the cable race. It's a far better fate than hiring people who do actual journalism and give conservatives a fair shake.

So congratulations to David Muir. It's a cushy job and I'm sure he worked hard for it. The Correspondents Dinner will be fun, joking with the president while the world burns. Kudos.