jail

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death-penalty

Funny thing that happens as you get older….you actually do get smarter.  Knowledge is the key to faith and in order to obtain knowledge you have to seek wisdom.  When you are open to obtaining wisdom you must realize that you may understand things that used to confuse you and your opinions on “things you have figured out” might just change.  That happened to me recently on my view of the death penalty.

I recently took a two week sabbatical away from the news and social media and I read the Bible.  Parts of the Old Testament were not easy for me but it answered a lot of questions that I had been pondering.  I used to be for the death penalty but now I am against it.  First of all the criminal justice system fails more than you know.  A LOT of people incarcerated are the victims of a bad judge, a greedy prosecutor and an inexperienced defense attorney or a combination of all three.  If innocent citizens are in jail then there is a pretty good chance an innocent life has already been taken.

You may argue in the Bible it says “An eye for an eye.”  It also says “Turn the other cheek” and “Vengeance Belongs To God.”  We are not God.  We should not play God.  For these simple reasons I believe life was given by God and shall be taken by Him as well.  Thanks for reading.

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browns

I am a football fan.  I love my hometown team which is the Cleveland Browns.  The Browns are the laughing stock of the NFL.  Even those that aren’t football fans like to make jokes about my team and that’s okay.  I cheer for them every week and never miss a game.  I also laugh very hard during those three hours as they resemble a Stooge routine minus a pie fight.

Anyone can cheer for a winner but I believe a real winner cheers for a loser.  The Patriots are always in the play offs and probably will win the Super Bowl again this year.  That doesn’t sound like a lot of fun to me.  How can winning a championship be fun when it happens all the time?  Every week the Browns find a new way to lose.  Every week we have a new quarterback.  Every week we have a player get hurt.  Every other week a player gets arrested or goes to rehab.  If the Browns season were made into a Hollywood script no one would buy it because no one would believe it.  They say misery loves company and that company is the Cleveland Browns.

The journey of life is full of disappointments.  The life of a Browns fan is nothing but a disappointment with a side dish of frustration and I love it.  I know that every Monday my hometown will do two things:  bitch and moan.  Being a Browns fan is a great way to relieve stress.  Anything that goes wrong during your week will never match the disgrace that you witness on the football field every Sunday.

The Super Bowl is the ultimate game of the year.  The Browns have never been to the Super Bowl.  I hope, in my lifetime, I will witness the Browns win the Super Bowl but you have to be careful what you wish for.  We would be world champions.  The struggle and disappointment would be over.  There wouldn’t be a reason to bitch and moan.  There would be a parade downtown.  Thousands of people would faint from disbelief.  The four horsemen would appear and the seven seals would begin to open.  Our coach would hoist the trophy in front of the world and I assume he would drop it.  I don’t think I would ever be properly prepared for that day because I would have to be happy.  I don’t want to be a champion and that’s why I am a Browns fan.

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yeller

I used to be a yeller.  I would yell at just about everyone and everything.  Someone would disagree with me and I would raise my voice.  Someone would yell at me and I would be sure to yell back.  Someone would cut me off in traffic and I would be sure to yell in anger (now I just flip them off).  Recently I had an epiphany:  yelling really affects your credibility.

There are three good reasons not to yell:

  • It takes too much energy.  I look at energy as fuel in your tank and yelling just burns too much gas.
  • If someone yells at you and you take a deep breath, pause and respond with “I’m sorry I didn’t realize what you were saying because you were yelling.” That makes them look like what they truly are; an asshole.
  • Yelling leads to anger. Think of all the times you made bad decisions in your life.  Chances are it was preceded by you yelling and then followed by making a bad judgment.  The only exception I can think of is years ago doing too many shots of patron and waking up to see two female tundra twins making ham sandwiches in my kitchen while passing a crack pipe.

When is the last time that yelling lead to a positive result?  Yelling at a loved one makes you feel bad afterwards.  Yelling at your spouse or better half usually leads to a slap in the face or at the very least a slamming of a door.  Yelling at a cop will never get you out of a ticket and yelling at a water park while making balloon animals and wearing clown makeup will get you arrested.  Perhaps the latter was not the best example.

Life is too short.  Realize there are a lot of stupid people in this world and try laughing at them instead of yelling at them.  I may not be the smartest person in the world but it’s amazing how people will suddenly view you as a superior intellectual just because you don’t react to adversity by raising your voice.  So this week try to remain calm, cool and collected or I may just have to yell at you.