FTT Off-Topic: Independence Day and Dependence Life

Yada yada, not sports.

The day job was not open today, of course, but I work from home with off-hour folks... so I did a couple of hours.

The holiday here in mid-Jersey was celebrated with fireworks, brutal heat and then violent storms. The first factor is not appreciated by the new puppy, and the second two have pretty much been here for the better part of a month, so... the holiday really wasn't celebrated. At least, not in my house.

To be honest, and not terribly patriotic (not that I've ever been all that much; in the words of the late great Bill Hicks, this is just where my parents rutted, so the pride seems a touch overblown)... I don't quite get this holiday anymore. Independent of today's events.

We share the same planet, Americans and others. The work I do can be done anywhere. My community is local; I have less in common with people who live in Flyover Land than I do with people in Canada, New Zealand, etc. If the climate changes (ok, when, or actually, how much and how fast) and the water level rises, the screwings will be global. If the Internets go poof, it doesn't really matter where my body is when it happens; so goes my paycheck and my ability to provide for me and mine.

American exceptionalism is a highfaluting  word that means we're better than everybody else, and increasingly hard to defend. I'll vote for my guy in November with a clear conscience and easy heart, but he's got a kill list to go with his Nobel Prize, and the country he leads watches reality television shows, thinks that being a celebrity is more important than doing good work, and wants to be and breed perpetual teenagers, because that's where the money is.

Paying extra for anything, so that you can live in a community filled with people who have decent jobs, makes you quaint at best, and a sap at worst. Complaining about taxes and the people who draw salaries from those taxes is about as controversial as breathing, even when it means that the schools, hospitals and services can now only be populated by those who are OK with that level of abuse with their paycheck. (And we wonder why corruption follows.)

Anyway, I'm not buying the exceptionalism. We're racist and lazy and dumb in more or less the same measure as everyone else. The only difference is that we had a virgin continent to exploit, no enemies of note on our immediate borders, centuries of slave and de facto slave labor to ride, and enough churn in the economic classes to foster some breakthrough innovations and inventions. If we are exceptional, it's only by degree; in the immortal words of the Firesign Theater, some of the greatest Americans of the last century, we're all bozos on this bus.

Fireworks are fun. Chinese, too. Knowing your history is important -- all of it, rather than just the soundbites A day off of work is a day off of work. Grilling meat works for me. I'm even OK with the heat; my laundry dried quickly and well on my clotheslines today. (Hey, might as well use it. At least the AC bill is getting mitigated by something.)

But independence, true independence, is a happy little story we tell ourselves, and ask others to tell us. What we are now, and always have been, is dependent.

Here's the good news: dependence works.

 I depend on the people that work for me to serve my clients. I give them direction, guidance, support -- but they add to that, surpass the goals, and allow me to provide the best work of my career to my end users. Those users depend on our external clients to believe in what we're doing and drive our business.

On Friday night, two to three tables worth of guys I like will come to my home and play in my poker game. I depend on them to produce the right environment to bring everyone back, time after time, for one of the best things about living in this area for me. They depend on me to run a good game, to act impartially and with integrity, and to sweat the details so that they don't have to.

Our country depends on its regions to provide what they lack, and other countries for the same. Exceptionalism, patriotism, and self-aggrandizing stories of our unique wonderfulness is fluff at best, ballast at worst.

So today, I'm proud of my dependence. I'm proud of my teams, my friends, my family, and when they aren't doing something as obviously stupid as getting emotional over a piece of cloth or a song... the other people who live in this country.

Moving on.

Top 10 takeaways from the Lakers trading for Steve Nash

10) Adding an aging point guard with severe injury and defensive issues makes them a certain title contender

9) Given that this gives the team sever payroll issues, it probably means the end of the Metta World Problem era, which is what the Lakers would call two birds with one stone

8) It's nice that Nash can give his native Canada one last kick in the groin on his way out of the Association by not getting to the Raptors

7) Given that Nash has made Marcin Gortat and Channing Frye look like competent NBA players, you can forgive Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum for getting a little giddy right about now

6) Somewhere in Los Angeles, there is someone who is upset about the end of the Ramon Sessions era, which is to say, Ramon Sessions has family in Los Angeles

5) Chris Paul now actually has to guard someone in his games against the Lakers

4) Nash would do well to bring the Suns' physical training staff with him, seeing how they are the only people in the Association to fix his back issues and keep Grant Hill upright

3) Kobe Bryant has never worked with an elite point guard before, assuming Nash still qualifies, at least on the offensive end

2) It's more than a fair question to ask why Mike Brown, whose presumed value as a coach is entirely tied up in defense, is still employed

1) With Nash, the Lakers are much more likely to score 100 points and get their fans free tacos, which is the only thing they really care about

The Inside Season

We now enter, in my opinion, the most dispiriting period of time imaginable to be a sports fan. It's the time where you have to have Sources, and People, and (gack) pay some small amount of attention to what ESPN says.

I'm speaking, of course, about NBA free agent season. From the coverage and anticipation, this is the best time of the year for many people, not the least of which are the folks who will find this post through some search engine keyword and come by looking for some crumb that might have been achieved through heretofore unknown sources. (Um, you folks can go now. This isn't that kind of blog.)

That's because the media thinks that after so many years of roto speak, fantasy honkery, long-term gambling and behind the curtain marking out for the people pulling the strings, everyone of means is dreaming of being a GM. Which means we need to know about salary caps, and which agent will work with which team, and so on, and so on, and so on.

 So they finally get to talk about what they really want to talk about -- personal soap opera, backstage machinations and drama drama drama -- without any of those pesky, distasteful and downright tedious *games* getting in the way. Why get into the actual merits of Joe Johnson's fading game, or the history of 31-year-old shooting guards with heavy minutes keeping their value, or even his actual worth defensively or beyond his counting stats?

It's better, far better, to talk about how this will be perceived by Next Guy X or Other Guy Z, and how this is just Step 1 or the Nets' master plan (for the record, that's the first time those three words have appeared in that order, well, ever) for world domination, since A Well Known Three is all that it takes to win this 5-on-5 game with 8 likely rotation players and a coaching and training staff.

Oh, and there's one other really bad part about all of this: my Sixers are rarely, if ever, involved, and when they are, they inevitably shoot their wad on guys that will not make you shoot yours. Where's the bad idea package from my team (Andre Iguodala, who is required to be in every trade offer, the eventually expiring contract of Elton Brand and a passel of picks that will turn out to be far more valuable for Dwight Howard or Pau Gasol would work for me), dammit?

I demand equal time of getting jerked about and fellated by the national media for my team's willingness to throw caution to the winds and decimate my depth in ways that show that we secretly think the Mayans were right on the merits, but just off by a little bit on the math. As we saw in the Finals, building a team the right way, through the draft and astute management of bench assets, is for chumps who don't have Big Stars. Big Stars make everything right! Especially if they are getting dealt in the summer dead season.

 So for everyone that's all a-Twitter about what Team X will look like with Dwight Howard, or how Ray Allen's free agent flirting are actually relevant, or how Chris Paul's refusal to sign a long-term deal with the Clippers means that you know exactly how the next 10 to 12 months will go for that franchise, down to the smallest of degrees...

Breathe. Go outside. Watch baseball, God help you, or the Olympics, or paint drying. Go volunteer at your local soup kitchen, or join an ESPN Anonymous group.

 Because what's going on now, and the changes involved, won't matter of a court and in a real game for another 16 to 17 weeks or so. Plenty of time for you to catch up, oh, about a month or so before the season stars.

And when your game doesn't have an off-season, you become nearly as tiresome... as the network refusing to let you have an off-season. Gahhh...

Top 10 reasons why Roger Goodell rejected the Bountygate appeals

10) The four players who are about to sue his ass in federal court are being total dicks about him costing them untold amounts of money and ruining their reputations

9) Having reviewed the work of the last person to hear this appeal, is overcome with admiration and respect for the man's work, intellect, and rugged good looks

8) Wants to make sure Sean Payton's marriage is well and truly ended, and that Saints fans have something new, post-Katrina and BP oil spill, to bitch about

7) Jonathan Vilma is the IDP on his worst enemy's fantasy league team

6) Certain that by saying no one more time, this will be the end of it

5) Really enjoys telling the NFLPA to kiss parts of his anatomy that they would rather not kiss

4) If he reconsidered now, the horror that is Gregg Williams might rise again to make pro football violent and dangerous

3) Deeply, deeply cares about the long-term health of people whose medical pensions he does not honor

2) Wants to set the new standard for backed-door, arbitrary, imperious, lawsuit and bad PR-inducing discipline among pro sports leagues, and Bud Selig and David Stern set the bar high

1) Has the courage and integrity required to make a decision and stick to it, even if that decision winds up proving that he is the all-powerful God King and Puppet Master of the wealthiest sports league in US history

Top 10 reasons why Dusty Baker is puling about Tony LaRussa's All-Star picks

10) Attacking LaRussa's integrity is fun for the whole family

9) Standing up for his players costs nothing and is sure to inspire them for, well, minutes

 8) LaRussa totally didn't spoon after their last encounter, and said he'd call, but totally never did

7) Both men really wanted to give ESPN and Blogfrica a lay up during the July dead zone

6) The Cardinals-Reds brawl is, actually, the only brawl in the last 20 years in baseball where lasting hard feelings were kept

5) Doesn't quite understand that when you don't bring a guy to the All-Star Game, you are giving them an actual break during the middle of the season, as well as preventing them from having another costly tidbit in arbitration

4) Baker is just standing up for all of America, who will refuse to watch them game if guys that the fans and players did not vote in don't get to go

3) Knows that if he yells about this long enough, everyone will forget about Zach Greinke's far more deserving beef

2) Wanted to make the inevitable injury replacement call to be really, really awkward

1) Knows that it's fun for all of us when two really regrettable bitter old guys get all catty