I also agree with you in being slightly perturbed that after 15 years of living in plain sight, this guy was finally found. Like you noted, I think the most amazing thing about this particular incident is that he managed to simply coexist with other people in the world without wearing his fear like a giant arrow sign.
How funny would it be if this all happened because the neighbor who recognized the woman started to doubt just because of a slight quarrel between the two. "My god! Becky and Steve didn't mow their side of the yard again and it's making my petunias look less than flattering! Time to dig up some dirt and lash back."
Another thing I find interesting is that it always seems that girlfriends are the Achilles' Heel for all less than savory fellows trying to avoid their past. John Dillinger was caught and shot down in front of a movie theater because his girlfriend ratted him out to the FBI. One of the most wanted criminals in NYC was discovered because his jealous girlfriend snooped through his wallet and found a clipping of his crime.
Hmm...I guess they truly are our "better" halves.
JR
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Friday, June 24, 2011
Hiding in Plain Sight
Don't you find it incredible that a mobster who has rested in the top ten list of the FBI's most wanted for over 15 years could live in plain sight in the USA. With the technology of today, the internet and television shows that highlight criminals, I would think that he would have been discovered years ago.
It has always been interesting to me that WWII Nazi criminals were able to move to places like Brazil and live a virtually non-threatening life. They rarely had to look over their shoulder wondering when they might be recognized for their criminal activities. I often wonder at what point they actually felt free from their past regressions. Their discovery chance was almost nil compared to criminals of today's technological world.
The arrest of Whitey Bulger came about because a neighbor recognized his female companion, not him. He was on America's Most Wanted numerous times in the last several years but to no avail. His life remained unchanged though based on interviews with several of his neighbors, it seems he didn't want anyone getting too close. He deflected personal questions and tried to keep both he and his girlfriend out of the limelight, calculating that the less people knew the better. It worked for 15 years but it was her more pleasant personality that led to their demise.
How often did they look over their shoulders? Did they wonder if someone would recognize them every day or as time passed, did they become more complacent? Personally, I would live in fear. In fact, I would look so guilty that the general population would seek my picture out online and I wouldn't last a week.
It has always been interesting to me that WWII Nazi criminals were able to move to places like Brazil and live a virtually non-threatening life. They rarely had to look over their shoulder wondering when they might be recognized for their criminal activities. I often wonder at what point they actually felt free from their past regressions. Their discovery chance was almost nil compared to criminals of today's technological world.
The arrest of Whitey Bulger came about because a neighbor recognized his female companion, not him. He was on America's Most Wanted numerous times in the last several years but to no avail. His life remained unchanged though based on interviews with several of his neighbors, it seems he didn't want anyone getting too close. He deflected personal questions and tried to keep both he and his girlfriend out of the limelight, calculating that the less people knew the better. It worked for 15 years but it was her more pleasant personality that led to their demise.
How often did they look over their shoulders? Did they wonder if someone would recognize them every day or as time passed, did they become more complacent? Personally, I would live in fear. In fact, I would look so guilty that the general population would seek my picture out online and I wouldn't last a week.
Puke
I hate being sick. I want to be left alone and all I want to do is sleep. You have the sniffles and you have the sneezes. You can still work your way through a task if you have a cold. Mothers do it all the time when caring for their children. So in my opinion, that isn't the definition of sick. Yeah.... you aren't feeling well and you are ill but if you really felt "pukey" by my definition, you would be puking.
I hate puke. I hate the smell of it, the look of it and I hate the feel of it as it rises in your throat. Puke takes the cake in the illness category and I avoid it at all cost. From an early age, I knew the signs that you or Kaitie were going to puke and I coaxed you into the bathroom to ensure I would not have to clean it up. We would honestly sit in the bathroom for hours if your stomach felt the least bit rumbly.... and it was honestly a self-preservation technique on my behalf. I wanted every bit of it to end up in the toilet, not on the walls or in the bed.
I don't "do" puke! Okay I will if I am the last person around but only if there isn't anyone else to clean it up. It is the reason at elementary school that I would volunteer to do anything except the health room. Give me blood, give me bones protruding from a leg or an arm, but please don't make me have to deal with puke.
I even do a sympathy puke if I am anywhere in the vicinity of the smell. Not the kind of mother you want in the health room during flu season. I always thought I had the intelligence to be in the medical field but I knew that my gag reflex would prevent that from coming to fruition.
Puke is what makes me sick!
I hate puke. I hate the smell of it, the look of it and I hate the feel of it as it rises in your throat. Puke takes the cake in the illness category and I avoid it at all cost. From an early age, I knew the signs that you or Kaitie were going to puke and I coaxed you into the bathroom to ensure I would not have to clean it up. We would honestly sit in the bathroom for hours if your stomach felt the least bit rumbly.... and it was honestly a self-preservation technique on my behalf. I wanted every bit of it to end up in the toilet, not on the walls or in the bed.
I don't "do" puke! Okay I will if I am the last person around but only if there isn't anyone else to clean it up. It is the reason at elementary school that I would volunteer to do anything except the health room. Give me blood, give me bones protruding from a leg or an arm, but please don't make me have to deal with puke.
I even do a sympathy puke if I am anywhere in the vicinity of the smell. Not the kind of mother you want in the health room during flu season. I always thought I had the intelligence to be in the medical field but I knew that my gag reflex would prevent that from coming to fruition.
Puke is what makes me sick!
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Sniffles and Sneezes
I'm sick. It's no fun. I'm sad. I'm tired. I'm no good. I'm brief. Yo Kimmy Kim kim, what do you hate most about being sick?
The thing I hate most about being sick is my sudden inability to string together words in the same witty fashion I've become known for. I feel like if I'm sick, I let people down. I go from being the sorta funny guy to that guy who keeps interrupting all my sentences with his sniffles and sneezes. Usually when I hear a good joke opportunity, I quickly assess the best way to deliver it in a couple seconds, but when I'm sick...I find myself just thinking "Duhhhhhhhhhhh" over and over again. Error - Please Try Again. My spice and flavor has been stripped down by the elements, leaving behind an incredibly dull and uneventful vanilla. I feel like I just put my body in auto-pilot and halfheartedly go about my day. Who spiked the punch with Kryptonite?
JR
The thing I hate most about being sick is my sudden inability to string together words in the same witty fashion I've become known for. I feel like if I'm sick, I let people down. I go from being the sorta funny guy to that guy who keeps interrupting all my sentences with his sniffles and sneezes. Usually when I hear a good joke opportunity, I quickly assess the best way to deliver it in a couple seconds, but when I'm sick...I find myself just thinking "Duhhhhhhhhhhh" over and over again. Error - Please Try Again. My spice and flavor has been stripped down by the elements, leaving behind an incredibly dull and uneventful vanilla. I feel like I just put my body in auto-pilot and halfheartedly go about my day. Who spiked the punch with Kryptonite?
JR
Monday, June 13, 2011
What?
I'd say for the most part, your argument is riddled with logical errors. Just because LeBron wants to create some major hype and PR for his movement to a new team doesn't in any way mean that his talent has stopped working hard, or that he suddenly feels insecure with his skill level when compared with others. LeBron made a brilliant marketing move and turned what would have ordinarily just been another trade into a national affair. Not only did he create one of the biggest buzz moments in sports, but he also did so while raising a considerable amount of charity money for the Boys and Girls Club of America. LeBron knows he is probably the best in the NBA at his position. He worked as hard as he possibly could in Cleveland and finally realized that not even someone with as much talent as him could take that POS team to a title. Look what happened when he left...they had one of the worst losing streaks of any team in NBA history. If you're going to jump into the pool, why not make a big splash.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
It's LeBron NOT the Heat
Do you hate the Heat? Or do you just want to see LeBron lose? Personally, I hate heat but I can honestly say I don't hate The Heat though I am one of those people that wants to see Dirk with a ring and title at the end of this series. Why not LeBron you ask? It all can be answered with a word.....ego.
I get that LeBron is a great basketball player. Heck, even Scottie Pippen said LeBron is one of the greatest and threw him into the same category as Jordan. I get that every city wanted LeBron to leave Cleveland and come play for them. I was even somewhat amused with the PR Productions from several cities to coax him away from the Cavs. And I do NOT have an issue with the fact that LeBron left Cleveland. In fact, I was indifferent to whether he chose to leave or stay, but I entered the fray on the day I heard ESPN announce that they had an entire program dedicated to LeBron's decision. Ego became more important than the fan. Ego became everything. And when ego is everything, I root for the other side!
LeBron said he left Cleveland because of the ring. I disagree because if it really was just about the ring and his ego never came into play, he would have won that title for Cleveland. He would have created a contract that says pay me a dollar, find me a Bosch, and a Wade then when I bring the Championship title to Cleveland, pay me an astronomical bonus. It's actually amazing that he didn't have enough faith in his talent to do that! He couldn't put his money, his mouth or his ego in the same sentence.
If you're a good person, you don't need to tell people because they can see it. If you're a good athlete, you don't need to tell people because they can see it. If you are insecure in the belief that you are good, you have to sell others because you don't believe it yourself or in the case of LeBron, you are so caught up in yourself that you need constant reassurance that you really are the center of the universe. You need to hear that the basketball world will come to your Mecca to worship. You need to see the masses beneath you not at your side. You are king; you are great; you are LeBron.
Jake is not a fan of this saying or any saying for that matter but in this case...it fits! "Talent beats hard work until talent stops working hard." Could it be that LeBron's talent might just not want to work hard?
I get that LeBron is a great basketball player. Heck, even Scottie Pippen said LeBron is one of the greatest and threw him into the same category as Jordan. I get that every city wanted LeBron to leave Cleveland and come play for them. I was even somewhat amused with the PR Productions from several cities to coax him away from the Cavs. And I do NOT have an issue with the fact that LeBron left Cleveland. In fact, I was indifferent to whether he chose to leave or stay, but I entered the fray on the day I heard ESPN announce that they had an entire program dedicated to LeBron's decision. Ego became more important than the fan. Ego became everything. And when ego is everything, I root for the other side!
LeBron said he left Cleveland because of the ring. I disagree because if it really was just about the ring and his ego never came into play, he would have won that title for Cleveland. He would have created a contract that says pay me a dollar, find me a Bosch, and a Wade then when I bring the Championship title to Cleveland, pay me an astronomical bonus. It's actually amazing that he didn't have enough faith in his talent to do that! He couldn't put his money, his mouth or his ego in the same sentence.
If you're a good person, you don't need to tell people because they can see it. If you're a good athlete, you don't need to tell people because they can see it. If you are insecure in the belief that you are good, you have to sell others because you don't believe it yourself or in the case of LeBron, you are so caught up in yourself that you need constant reassurance that you really are the center of the universe. You need to hear that the basketball world will come to your Mecca to worship. You need to see the masses beneath you not at your side. You are king; you are great; you are LeBron.
Jake is not a fan of this saying or any saying for that matter but in this case...it fits! "Talent beats hard work until talent stops working hard." Could it be that LeBron's talent might just not want to work hard?
Friday, June 3, 2011
What's Buggin' You?
Bugs are not my problem. But there is something that does bug me and its far bigger than a bug! So Bugsy Malone move over, Mickey the Mouse is what makes the hair on my neck stand at attention and then some. And I'm not talking the lovable Mickey Mouse of Walt Disney World. Its Mickey THE Mouse, Algernon, or Ben that scares me!
I too, shared a much better experience with mice when I was younger than I do now. In college, for my undergraduate degree in Psychology, I had to train mice and rats to move through a maze, eat when a light blinked and many other "menial" tasks. I handled them three times a week for an hour. Believe it or not, I talked goofily to them. Quite honestly, I am not sure whether my fear is a developed fear like yours or if there is some part of my brain that believes I treated these mice and rats "inhumanely" and there is guilt that now manifests itself in the form of fear. Maybe all those mice told their family what I was doing to them daily and the stories have been handed down through generations of mice and they are coming to "get" me!
All kidding aside, I really believe that it was having to handle them under uncomfortable circumstances that somehow led me to my fear, though I will throw something out there. My father has a fear of mice and rats. He however, lived in the projects when he was growing up and some of the fodder that he and his friends would create was to try and hit the rats with stones. They were rather effective in their efforts and he would tell you that they killed quite a huge number of them. And my father, your grandfather has a fear of bugs as well. In fact, he hates bugs so much that he wanted to be buried in a mausoleum instead of the ground so the bugs wouldn't eat him. (Something I find incredibly funny because after all he would be dead so what difference does it make?) My sister Pam would run over anyone in her way to get away from a bug. Could you be afraid because it bugs your grandfather or aunt the same way it bugs you? I would say there is some credence to that except Kaitie is the bravest bug and mouse girl I know. The majority of the time she doesn't go all-girly when it comes to disposing them dead or alive so that negates my generational theory at least as far as we are concerned. Unless of course, Kaitie is more Ring than Bence! She does overwhelmingly resemble the Ring side of the family and you are more Bence than Ring. But there was that time at the lake the Bence side showed up in Kaitie and she did fall off the jet ski when that bug came near her. That incident alone could corroborate my theory.
This analysis of our problem has made me run through a maze like I used to make those rats run through mine. And like the rat mazes of my youth, there isn't a prize at the end that will solve either of our issues. So the real question is, "Are we really afraid? Or are our fears developed by the notions of someone else?" I move that we put that question out there like the age-old which came first the chicken or the egg. Either way it is answered, mice will bother me and clearly, bugs are what's bugging you!
I too, shared a much better experience with mice when I was younger than I do now. In college, for my undergraduate degree in Psychology, I had to train mice and rats to move through a maze, eat when a light blinked and many other "menial" tasks. I handled them three times a week for an hour. Believe it or not, I talked goofily to them. Quite honestly, I am not sure whether my fear is a developed fear like yours or if there is some part of my brain that believes I treated these mice and rats "inhumanely" and there is guilt that now manifests itself in the form of fear. Maybe all those mice told their family what I was doing to them daily and the stories have been handed down through generations of mice and they are coming to "get" me!
All kidding aside, I really believe that it was having to handle them under uncomfortable circumstances that somehow led me to my fear, though I will throw something out there. My father has a fear of mice and rats. He however, lived in the projects when he was growing up and some of the fodder that he and his friends would create was to try and hit the rats with stones. They were rather effective in their efforts and he would tell you that they killed quite a huge number of them. And my father, your grandfather has a fear of bugs as well. In fact, he hates bugs so much that he wanted to be buried in a mausoleum instead of the ground so the bugs wouldn't eat him. (Something I find incredibly funny because after all he would be dead so what difference does it make?) My sister Pam would run over anyone in her way to get away from a bug. Could you be afraid because it bugs your grandfather or aunt the same way it bugs you? I would say there is some credence to that except Kaitie is the bravest bug and mouse girl I know. The majority of the time she doesn't go all-girly when it comes to disposing them dead or alive so that negates my generational theory at least as far as we are concerned. Unless of course, Kaitie is more Ring than Bence! She does overwhelmingly resemble the Ring side of the family and you are more Bence than Ring. But there was that time at the lake the Bence side showed up in Kaitie and she did fall off the jet ski when that bug came near her. That incident alone could corroborate my theory.
This analysis of our problem has made me run through a maze like I used to make those rats run through mine. And like the rat mazes of my youth, there isn't a prize at the end that will solve either of our issues. So the real question is, "Are we really afraid? Or are our fears developed by the notions of someone else?" I move that we put that question out there like the age-old which came first the chicken or the egg. Either way it is answered, mice will bother me and clearly, bugs are what's bugging you!
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Bugsy Malone
The itsy bitsy spider crawled up the water spout...down came the rain and WASHED THE SPIDER OUT!
Bugs really, really creep me out. They seem more like aliens to me than any other class of creature on the planet. They're small, but efficient. They can fly, crawl, burrow. They have a million self defense mechanisms that could affect me in a negative way: stink bugs smelling up the place, wasps and bees stinging me, spiders biting me and poisoning me to death, cockroaches simply existing....bugs are awful. My fear is mostly of spiders...nothing scares me more. They skitter about on hairy legs and have these menacing external mandibles. They setup shop wherever they want without filing the necessary permits, and the only means of me closing down their illegal residence is to accidentally destroy their secret abode with my face. When I walk through a spider web, I probably stand a greater chance of dying from the rush of fear and anxiety than I do an actual spider bite.
I think this is something that has started recently. I have pictures of me in 2nd grade standing with a rather large tarantula on my shirt, having no real qualms with this eight-legged beast. Yet here I am, over a decade later, terrified of everything spiders represent. I always thought it was the other way around. Children are supposed to have irrational fears that eventually disappear as our brains develop. Yet...my 8 year old self was way more of a badass than I'll ever be.
JR
Bugs really, really creep me out. They seem more like aliens to me than any other class of creature on the planet. They're small, but efficient. They can fly, crawl, burrow. They have a million self defense mechanisms that could affect me in a negative way: stink bugs smelling up the place, wasps and bees stinging me, spiders biting me and poisoning me to death, cockroaches simply existing....bugs are awful. My fear is mostly of spiders...nothing scares me more. They skitter about on hairy legs and have these menacing external mandibles. They setup shop wherever they want without filing the necessary permits, and the only means of me closing down their illegal residence is to accidentally destroy their secret abode with my face. When I walk through a spider web, I probably stand a greater chance of dying from the rush of fear and anxiety than I do an actual spider bite.
I think this is something that has started recently. I have pictures of me in 2nd grade standing with a rather large tarantula on my shirt, having no real qualms with this eight-legged beast. Yet here I am, over a decade later, terrified of everything spiders represent. I always thought it was the other way around. Children are supposed to have irrational fears that eventually disappear as our brains develop. Yet...my 8 year old self was way more of a badass than I'll ever be.
JR
All Our Accounts Are Frozen
It's completely true. The safety net set up by our "superiors' has convinced us that it's okay to mess up because there are always means to weasel our way out of responsibility. Now, I wouldn't say the world has recently lost their accountability, it's always been a major factor. People don't want to face consequences when they mess up, it's in their nature. Things like The Salem Witch Trials and The Spanish Inquisition were all exploitable excuses for people to get what they want without paying the proper dues. It was too hard to say that God's wrath and people with superpowers were stopping us from getting what we want rather than accepting that bad things happen politically and socially because they are run by human beings...incompetent human beings. Today, however, it seems that we're constantly testing the government with a "trust fall" exercise over and over. Hey, I'm gonna lie to these investors about the estimated wealth of our company, CATCH ME! What will we do when no one is there to catch us?
JR
JR
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