Yo, Adrian!

Indentured servant?

Adrian Peterson is one of the shiniest pennies to plop into the Minnesota Vikings' lap in a long time.  He seemed immaculately untarnished.  He had never been pulled from circulation, reinstalled, pulled, reinstalled--you get the idea.

When his legs pound and he clings to the ball, he makes defenses look silly.  Not Barry Sanders, but one of the finest to ever wear purple.

Then he opened his mouth.

As if the NFL strike wasn't already the hands down winner for the Worst-Timed Power Play in the last three hundred years, AP compares working for NFL honors to slavery and thereby wins Most Over-the-Top Hyperbole of All Time.

'Squeeze me?  Does that young man not have a processor or some filter to strain what proceeds from his brain to his mouth?  Slavery?!

Let's try a little NFL vs. SLAVERY one-on-one:

• Salary:  Gajillion dollars above the national average vs. zero (just enough food to get you out of bed the next day.
• Work hours:  Two-a-days during the pre-season (maybe even three-a-days), a couple hours in the weightroom, and the grueling film review and playbook study vs. backbreaking pre-dawn to post-dusk field work so that someone else will be blessed by the fruit of your labor.
• Punishments:  During practice there might be sprints and for really nasty, mid-season infractions there's a tiny fine fileted off their gajillion dollar salary vs. whippings, rapings, and lynchings.
• Dangers inherent in the workplace:  Concussions, broken bones, destroyed knees vs. concussions, broken bones, destroyed knees, severed limbs, flayed backs, burned skin, gouged eyes, lost teeth, emasculation, rape.
• OVERALL:  Playing a child's game for a gajillion dollars because you chose to vs. toiling from the time you could walk until they laid you in the grave for just enough food to subsist upon because other human beings considered you their property.

Perhaps we should set aside the chaos in the Middle East, the fact that our state governments can't pay their debts (much less the country), the inflated gas prices, and that tiny crisis in East Asia and focus our attention on those poor, maligned NFL players and owners.  If this keeps up, I will be disappointed if the two sides ever come to terms.

Perspective

Can you find the rescue workers?

Whining alert! 

My back hurts.  Not my lower back but the upper, just below my neck.  It's nagged me and plagued me for a couple of years now.  Do you feel my pain?

I know of folks dealing with vehicle problems.  Cars getting old.  Water pumps, belts and batteries blowing at the most inopportune times.  And a friend today shared that their dishwasher leaked all over their kitchen.

I have friends who have lost or are facing job loss and who have to rattle the bushes once again.

My own troubles seemed pretty big as I fiddled in my little Dilbert cubicle.  Then I saw these images and grieved the shallowness of my heart.  It doesn't erase the reality of my problems but it certainly puts them in a different light.

WARNING:  The first image on the British news site is of an arm protruding from the rubble (arm only).  It is the only image of one who has lost their life.

QotD: Ford

"My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me."

~ Henry Ford

This leads to the most uncomfortable question, how many anymore really want a best friend? 

"Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy." ~ Solomon (Proverbs 27:6)

"I have called you friends."  ~ Jesus (John 15:15b)

QotD: The Passion & Hollywood

In looking at past Oscar snubs, Brian Cherry came up with this assessment of filmdom's disdain for "The Passion of the Christ:"

This powerful and moving film depicted what many believe was the most important moment in the history of the world. Had the Roman historian, Tacitus, seen the film, he probably would have said, “Yup, that’s exactly what we did to him.” Seeing as Hollywood rejects Christianity in much the same way that the human body would reject a heart transplant from a water buffalo, the Academy chose to pretend this film, the near billion dollars in revenue it generated, and the millions of people who loved it, simply didn’t exist.