Wow, I Was "Flagged" by Blogspot

Evidently there was some kind of concern over the title of my blog.

Cool.

I would like to take a second to re-state my mission here.

I'm a white person. I grew up in an upper-class white community (Carmel, California). White people have their demons , but there once was a time when those demons were quietly fought and defeated. Today those white-people demons are instead indulged to the point of having their own reality shows. Gone are the days of quiet endurance, if you don't like it you quit. Shame is an obsolete concept, if you run your multi-million dollar company into the ground you don't stick a gun in your mouth, instead you ask for a government bail-out and then retire on your golden parachute. If your kids are monsters because you've neglected them by over-scheduling their lives with lessons and tutors, no problem, give them medication to make them shut up. It's all about what you can get, not how you get it. If someone else gets hurt by your actions its their fault.

I have a problem with this.

There was a time when manners counted, when character was respected more than than a number in a bank account, and when financial modesty expected. Those things should still count today, yet for many reasons they do not.

This blog does not address racial issues or other races. Not that I don't care, I am just not qualified to discuss issues that face the African-Americans, Hispanic, Asian, and other folks who make America a cool place to live. I'm not qualified because I'm white, and I have zero background to discuss other people's problems. However, I can and will continue to point out the decline of white American society as I see it.

Thank you for stopping by.

The New White Go Out To Dinner

I stopped going out for dinner a long time ago. I dated a waitress and I also worked in a couple of restaurants, it totally sucked. Still, in my younger days my friends and I would go out and eat at nice restaurants. The last time I went out was down in Camarillo, CA, at a jumping place that issued beepers to waiting diners (I'd never seen that before and I thought it was clever). We got in and seated. We ordered our food (which was great), and we paid our tab with nice tip. No biggie. Since returning to school I have met a few young people who work in some on the finest restaurants on the Monterey Peninsula, and they tell me horror stories about the people who now patronize these places.

These are very expensive restaurants which weeds out all but the whitest and wealthiest folks.

Allow me to set this up. When I was a child I was taught basic etiquette for the dinner table, no elbows, chew your food, speak in a low-tone, don't talk with food in your mouth and the mysteries of the salad-fork. Then around the age of six we went out to a nice restaurant, and it was a huge deal for me. We had to put on our church suits, comb our hair and wear dress shoes. Before we entered we got a final brief from grandma and our mother, the short version was that if we goofed of or got stupid we would get the spanking to end all spankings. We understood and behaved ourselves. I don't remember much except that the place was really nice and the food was good. I also made a mental note not to put myself in a situation where I would eat at such places; just because I was not comfortable , and this has not changed for me as I have grown older. Still, it was good practice as I would be invited out to nice restaurant by the wealthy parents of my good friends, and I found that my good manners went a long way with them. They were often surprised and they would make a point of telling my mother this when they'd drop me off at the end of whatever event had taken us out. The final event of my early life involved catering at fine private dinner parties (this is fun, if you get a chance to do this it's a great way to make extra cash). I learned to be invisible and courteous. I got to watch sophisticated people in a semi-formal setting, and I learned that all of those manners paid off in many ways.

Flash-forward to 2009. At some of the finest restaurants you can have you meal ruined by some jackass on his cell phone, or conversations about regularity. Don't take my word for it, here's a piece from the SF Chronicle:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/09/DDFT16SDJ3.DTL&hw=bad+manners+in+restaurants&sn=001&sc=1000


For my small fan club, read the article AND the reader comments, many defending their actions. Then read this little advice piece from their restaurant critic on diner who hog tables:

news:www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/mbauer/category?blogid=26&cat=1394

These restaurants are small, maybe 11 or 12 tables and these people make themselves at home.

And again, read the responses:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/mbauer/legacycomments?blogid=26&entry_id=20558

Look at the lead off response, I will quote it for you:

I disagree with your basic premise, and therefore all of your conclusions. I'm 180 degrees out with you on this. I go and eat and enjoy and stay because I want to be there, I want to eat their food, enjoy the atmosphere, and not grab a bite and run.I rent their table to eat their food. They create the atmosphere and food to attract my money and if I'm "someone" add to their appeal to others.I will take my time. It's my time. It's mine to use as I enjoy.It's also somewhat of a competition. If several of us want to enjoy the same situation, we compete. If I get there first, have time and money, you lose. Sorry, but this is about ME and my time and money.If I want to eat and run, I do. If I want to eat and stay I will.UNLESS the restaurant makes their moves to move me... then it's different.So it's not about YOU. It's about me because I got there first. You don't like that. I understand. Sorry. You lost.

"It's not about you. It's about me because I got there first. You don't like that. I understand. Sorry. You lost". Wow, hey guess what? It's not a competition, just because you spend a lot of money on dinner does not give you any special privileges. In fact, the whole idea of fine dining is to display your better self to the public, not be a giant bowel movement. There is zero difference between this clown and the homeless guy in the corner booth at MacDonald's. I take that back, many MacDonald's toss out homeless people after their meal is finished. That single post underlines everything that is wrong with the new-white & wealthy of the United States. The complete lack of shame or humility. The idea that he has won some kind of victory by keeping other diners from "His" table. You can see the roots of all that is wrong in this one post. He pops up a few more times in the comments defending himself.

It is yet another sad state of affairs.

How White People Ruined Baseball

I used to love baseball.

The problem is that the people who run Major League Baseball do not. They love the money but they do not care about how they make that money. They also don't care about the long term health of their players, the men that the fans pay that money to watch play the game. As with other aspects of the modern white American culture, cheating isn't really cheating until you get caught.

When I was a kid, we would watch Willie Mays play with the San Francisco Giants on Saturday afternoon TV games. Guys like Johny Bench and Rollie Fingers were my heroes because they were good players who had a great sense of humor. The Oakland A's became my team in 1972, mostly because on black & white TV their uniforms looked like the uniform of my little league team. That was the first year that they won the World Series, and for the next few years they would win two more. During my teenage years I had lost interest in all sports, but when I was around 22 I got a job at a pro-sports apparel shop. We sold everything from t-shirts to game jerseys and caps. During the day we would put on the radio and tune into whatever game happened to be on at the time. So many a long summer afternoon I would get lost in the game play of the Giants or the A's, the voices of Lon Simmons and Bill King bantering, rattling off statistics and painting a picture of the on-field action. Soon I was once again hooked by baseball, and I would often watch games on TV at home. I even got to watch the A's play the Red Sox one day. Mark McGwire and Dave Henderson both hit home runs and Jose Canseco stole a base on his march to steal 40 bases and hit 40 home runs in a single season. During this time I would begin to hear about steroids and how certain members of the A's were "Juiced" up with them. At the time the NFL was taking steroids seriously and had begun to test for them in it's player ranks. Major League Baseball was a different story, the union somehow had successfully fought testing for steroids and the league office never really pressed the issue. I Like to think the best of people so I didn't take the allegations too seriously. Physical training had evolved over the years and pro athletes now worked out year round.

I began to lose my love for baseball after the second player's strike in the 1990s. If you love the game then you play, if it's about money then I won't waste my time with you. By the time that Jose Canseco wrote his book, and other professional players went public about their own steroid use I was far enough removed from the game that it didn't hit me that hard. As time has passed I have thought about it, and today I'm angry about steroid use in baseball. When the A's were on a 'Roid-fueled roll, I use to watch the incredible game play thinking how lucky I was to able to watch a great team take the field. I thought I could count myself amongst the fans of the 1941 NY Yankees ,and other great teams who shook the baseball world. As it turns out, everything I saw on the field was a lie. Those monster home runs, blinding base-stealing speeds and who knows what else were all chemically enhanced. The fans who saw "Murderer's Row" take the field back in the day can say that their heroes were the real thing, while mine will all have an asterisk next to their names in the record books. I have been robbed. Robbed by the owners, managers, players and the commissioner of baseball. Kansas City sportswriter, Jason Whitlock, wrote a series of articles about steroid use as it related to Barry Bonds but he points out the many underlying reasons for steroid use as well as illustrates beautifully how MLB turned a blind eye to the use of performance enhancing drugs.

Read his work here:

http://http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/9212720/Furor-over-A-Rod,-Bonds-is-all-about-Babe

http://http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/9215280/Go-straight-to-the-top-with-steroid-outrage

As in the house market/mortgage crisis, MLB knew that there was a problem. They made a decision not to do anything about it because it was good for business. The great home run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, and later Barry Bond's chase to break McGwire's record and then Hank Arron's home run record was great for baseball. Stadium were being filled and TV ratings were climbing. Why ruin a good thing, right? As in the financial sector, Major League Baseball turned it's back on basic ethics, and put on sick puppet show instead of a sporting event. The fact that both MLB and the player's union both gleefully ignored the long term health impacts these DRUGS will have on their players was never once considered. The fact that the union was complicit in the cover-up of steroid use is unforgivable, as it stands against everything that a unions is supposed to stand for. I wonder what the union's stance would have been had MLB demanded that all players use steroids? I would say that the union's part in this is shameful but that would mean that those who run the union have ethics or morals. I highly doubt this today. Then the Commissioner, where was he? Managers knew, agents knew, trainers knew, and every player knew about steroid abuse so how could the Commissioner not know?

From here on out, Major League Baseball will be a joke to most of it's fans. When ever a player has a career season the fans will always wonder what he was taking. The fans have been the worst part of this sickness. As long as their team was winning they did not give a damn. They would call into radio talk shows and insist that players have to do what they have to do, which is a uniquely white way to justify cheating and corruption. It is sad that this has infected the other ethnic groups that make up our great land, it's sad because there is nobody to turn to. There is nobody who is clean. Steroids are dog shit, and the white owners of MLB teams want me to believe that it is chocolate, as they track it into my home, and soil my carpet with it.

White People And Fences

I recently drove through my childhood neighborhood on the outskirts of Carmel, California. Mission Fields was built in 1947-48 in the housing boom after WWI and was tract housing that was a mix of five or six floor-plans in a subdivision of maybe 70 homes. The homes were small but sensible, usually with 3 bedrooms and 1&1/2 baths. They all had a good sized back yards which were perfect for little kids and big dogs. It was a great place to grow up. When we sold the house in 1988 we got $165,000 for it and we felt bad for the price because it needed a new roof and new plumbing. Today the house, because of it's location, is worth $889,000.

If the home were located in Muncie, Indiana it would sell for $35,000, San Antonio, TX, $250,000, and in Minneapolis, MN, the home would sell for around $169,000 based on January, 2009 surveys.

The idea that a county tax assessor or a home appraiser with half a brain would list my old house for more than $300,000 is a sick joke. Since we left our home in 1988, the Carmel River has left it's banks twice to flood our old house up to about 14 inches inside of the house. It sits in a flood plain for God's sake, how can it be valued so high when you'd have to replace the floor and walls every 7 to 10 years? It's just another sign of how out of control the banks and mortgage companies and the state are as far as housing prices go.

The Downside of Sky High Prices

The problem when you have people spending that kind of money for tract housing is that you have people who don't really belong in the neighborhood. They will never be happy in those kinds of homes for what they've paid for them. So the first thing many of them do is add a second story, which is ridiculous because the updated home looks tacky. The next thing that they do is add a fence around the front yard. These fences have been added in about one third of the homes that face Rio Road and they have destroyed the character of the neighborhood. When I was a kid, a few of the homes had tall hedges that separated the home on one or both sides of the home. Usually a fence denoted a home where the wife has emotional issues. Most of old Mission Fields only saw fences in the back areas and most of those were white picket fences. Part of the charm of Mission Fields was that it was a neighborhood full of neighbors. Today it is marred by ugly fences that stand out like an ugly pox.

Driving up into Carmel, along Junipreo I found that the fence problem was even more profound in the million dollar homes that populate this region. I understand that the root of the word "Exclusive" is "Exclude", and this is what walls and fences do. It is sad that a town that once was home to great and talented people is now polluted by people who's only status is money. It is pollution. It is as unwelcome as a broken sewer pipe. I don't know when the breakdown occurred but it is total, there simply are too few wealthy people who have class or good taste in America today.