Archive for April, 2009

When I first started this blogging gig, it was August 2003 and my topic of choice was NASCAR.  Couple of reasons.  One, I love auto racing.  Two, blogging gave me the freedom to say my piece without the hassles inherent in the bulletin boards I had previously called home.  So away I went, eventually branching out to include other sports and in time create a site for my non-sports musings.  Namely, this place.  Although GAC is my priority, I still keep my NASCAR blog.  One of these days I’m going to start reposting everything on there from the archives created on earlier locations.  Come to think of it, I need to do the same here.  But I digress.

The idea behind being a sports fan, at least to me, is finding a mini-vacation from the everyday.  In a world such as ours, refreshment and renewal is vital.  Hence, watching sports.  For a few hours I can set aside my cares while giving the wear and tear a chance to heal.  Of course it’s more enjoyable when your team, or in the case of racing driver, wins.  Yet even when this isn’t the case (and as a San Francisco Bay Area sports fan when isn’t this the case?  But again I digress), there is still the time away from it all.

At least that’s the idea.

Yesterday, there was a NASCAR race at the track located in Talladega, Alabama.  The track’s configuration makes it the single fastest one at which NASCAR runs, so much so the cars are required to use restrictor plates which cut down on the amount of horsepower the car engines can generate.  Even with this, speeds of 200 MPH are the rule rather than the exception.  Add to this how by using the restrictor plate all cars on the track have almost identical power, plus aerodynamics making it far easier for cars to bunch together when all are traveling at pretty much the same speed, and you get a pack of cars running three or four abreast in lengthy lines with at best a few feet and more often a few inches separation between one car and the next.  In other words, imagine being on a four lane highway, cars on all sides, with everyone tailgating each other.

At 200 MPH.

You can see where this might be an issue.

At most NASCAR races, when a car wrecks it’s a car.  One.  Singular.  Maybe one or two others will be involved.  Some torn up sheet metal, maybe some suspension damage, usually a fair bit of anger on the part of whoever was on the receiving end of the deal.  That’s racing.

A 3400 pound car turning into Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, not so much.

Yet this is precisely what happened yesterday at Talladega, when on the last lap Carl Edwards, who had been leading the race until passed by Brad Keselowski, misjudged in his effort to retake the lead and barely — barely — clipped the right front of Keselowski’s car.  Edwards shot up the track, the back end of his car in the air.  It came down directly on the hood of Ryan Newman’s car.  The force of the contact and the speed involved made Edwards’ car become completely airborne.  It hit the catchfence roof first, showering a part of the crowd with flying debris which injured eight.  Edwards’ car eventually came a stop.  To the relief of all, he climbed out.

To me, that’s not getting away from it all.

I watch racing to see cars driven by the best drivers in the world pass and compete with each other.  I don’t watch for the crashes.  I sure don’t watch to see people cheat death by the skin of their teeth.  While I am fully aware of the dangers inherent in racing, seeing them unnecessarily amplified… no.  Not what I want to see.  Ever.

I said I want a diversion.  Disaster doesn’t qualify.

Back before the November 2008 election, I opined on the subject of gay marriage, coming down firmly on the side of honestly not knowing where I stood on the issue.  Haven’t changed my mind since then, which is another way of saying I haven’t made up my mind.  To be honest, it’s not a subject about which I’ve given much thought.  Here’s why.

It’s not that important right now.

We have an administration and Congress fiercely determined to not only burden us with massive debt but destroy, not reform, health care in this country by nationalizing it and bankrupt us all by pushing a cap and trade energy policy that will result in massive increases in everyone’s energy bill — gasoline, electricity, you name it.  Our government values the civil rights of terrorists over the lives of its own citizenry.  It seeks to maximize its grip on all aspects of its citizens lives by domineering the economy and running roughshod over individual and states rights.  This all takes place with the at least tacit and usually active support of a media so enamored with President Obama it is unwilling to examine facts with anything other than a dismissive sneer when they, and the people who attempt to bring them to light, speak up.

The Taliban is pushing ever closer toward acquiring nuclear weapons and the means to launch them via conquering Pakistan from within.  Israel and Iran are ramping up toward armed confrontation which could involve nuclear weapons.  North Korea is working hard on giving itself the ability to launch — get ready for that word again — nuclear weapons via missile.  Our government responds by apologizing to most everyone for the previous administration being proactive in protecting American interests and lives.  Lovely.

And gay marriage, either pro or con, is a priority?

Maybe later.

Much, much later.

Right now there are more important items on the agenda.

Much, much more important.

A lot of emphasis is placed on first impressions.  We’re never given a second chance to make one, we’re repeatedly told.  Look sharp, speak well, be pleasant.  You want to make a good first impression.  You have to make a good first impression.

Or not.

It would be good if equal emphasis was placed on the truism that says don’t implicitly trust your first impression.  They’re never guaranteed to be accurate.  Jesus is a good example of this.  As He commented, “For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’  The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and ’sinners.’”  Given the company He kept and how His first miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding reception so as to keep the party going, it’s understandable why that would be the first impression.  However, note carefully how He ended the statement: “But wisdom is proved right by all her children.”  In other words, hang back.  All will be proven over time.

You can’t always take people at face value.  As Paul noted while chastising the church at Corinth, “I do not want to seem to be trying to frighten you with my letters.  For some say, ‘His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing.’”  He had a message for these people: “Such people should realize that what we are in our letters when we are absent, we will be in our actions when we are present.”  Never underestimate someone based on a first impression.  Or overestimate, for that matter.

Seldom is what you see when you first see what you get.  Remember: the first impression is a snapshot developed with the only emulsion available, that being our own knowledge and skill set.  We can be excused for being fooled by not knowing.  Because we don’t know.  Unless someone is so utterly shallow they can be thoroughly analyzed at first glance, genuine understanding of what someone is about comes about solely through multiple exposures over time.  It’s easy to beat ourselves up after the fact over missed clues to someone’s true nature.  But how can we reasonably be expected to correctly interpret such when we have nothing on which to base an interpretation?

Only over time can we learn the path someone walks, be it after the words of Micah (“He has showed you, O man, what is good.  And what does the LORD require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God”) or those penned by the Greek playwright Euripides, spoken by Medea as with full awareness of her circumstances she descends into insanity of such depth she murders her own children in an act of horrific revenge against her former lover: “Quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius (“whom the gods would destroy they first make mad”).”

We need to be wise.  Part of wisdom is knowing when to get off our own case for being fooled by a first impression.

And not putting so much stock in them period.