<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Anyway, guys last night was scary as hell, I could've been killed. After I got out of the shower and got dressed, I went to sit down in the living room near the window on my favorite chair to watch some TV before bed. Not only five to ten minutes later a lightning strike hits a tree directly behind the window and I just blew off of the chair, no ******* joke! I wasn't knocked out or anything or in a lot of pain, just my head hurt a bit. It instantly felt like I had brain freeze and just lasted the entire night until I laid down to go to sleep. I was in a shock. This morning I look outside and the tree just ouside the window is torn apart from the strike. I consider myself very lucky.</div>
That's incredible. Did the blast itself actually knock you down or was it the shock?
Either way, glad you're alright.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Seriously, out of experience in the matter of racism in several places, don't complain about that here in US. Go to Europe, specifically to Spain and Italy for a few years, then come back and tell me the difference. You will never complain about how people are treated here after you've been there. There is absolutely no comparison what-so-ever in the slightest compared to the abuse people receive over there. Even the "fair" countries there are by far and away worse then the US. No offense bro, I respect your opinion on this matter, but you have to understand it from personal experience.</div>
How does the fact that there's racism in Europe detract from the fact that it still exists here in the States? Our nation was founded upon racism, and it's still prevalent in our economy and our legal system. It doesn't matter if it's worse in Germany or some far off place. That's a whole nother topic for another day and completely unrelated. The fact of the matter is that black Americans, especially in the deep south, are descriminated against in just about every way possible and are stuck in a cycle of poverty, ignorance, and crime that dates back to slavery.
From slavery to the civil rights era, blacks have been oppressed. Even though there's not as many KKK rallies as there used to be, or as many overt acts of racial violence, the system is still in place that has kept blacks down, and it takes a lot more for them to break the cycle than people think.
I was in jail the other night (thanks to our fucking backwards legal system) and was sitting with a couple of black guys, all about my age. This one guy was facing 25+ years for robbing a bank, because his family had just been evicted, he had several brothers and sisters, no father, and no consistent income. He wasn't a dumb guy, but he was just the product of his environment, just like all of the gang members in the hood who have to join gangs because they lack both family support and a quality education, like all the white kids in the suburbs have. He was sitting there telling me, "when I get out of here man, my momma's not gonna be alive no more." That got to me, because you know the judge will throw the book at him, just because he's black. If you took a white kid in the same situation, he might get counseling, probation, etc. --- all that bullshit.
I was actually sitting behind a white kid in court who had been arrested selling cocaine to school children. He got his charge reduced to a misdemeanor possession charge after a plea agreement. He was a rich, spoiled kid who didn't need the money to get by like the aforementioned black guy, yet because he was white, had good lawyers, and was dressed in a suit and tie, they let him walk out of the courtroom with a slap on the wrist, while all his black counterparts were taken away to state.
I could go on, but although our society is significantly more accepting of black people, they're still in a cycle that our government has begat upon them and is often impossible to break, especially in the deep south.
And your few black friends who hunt are a complete anamoly. The outdoorsmen sports (hunting, skeet shooting, fishing, atv'ing, etc.) are without a doubt the most white dominated sports in America.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">I already had a great conversation with my professor about Vick and I wasn't going to bother posting anything aimed at you. (I already summed up everything in my previous post and in the football forum). It is cool to know there are others here that share my views, but I'm tired of talking about Vick.</div>
Yeah, it's a bit of an exhausted subject, but I just posted on it because there was some CNN report on it in the background as I was typing, and the legal expert they had in there was a total ****. It just made me think of how backwards it was that to them, the pitbulls were more valuable than Vick himself.
On an unrelated note, does anyone have an update on Kenyon Martin's injury? I'm looking back to the last stretch when he was consistently healthy (Jan. - Feb., 2006), and he had some great nights -
Jan. 2 - 24 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists vs. Boston
Jan. 4 - 16 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 5 blocks vs. Indiana
Jan. 16 - 22 points, 14 rebounds, 2 blocks at Chicago
Jan. 18 - 16 points, 17 rebounds vs. Cleveland
Jan. 23 - 25 points, 12 rebounds, 2 blocks vs. Toronto
Jan. 25 - 21 points, 7 rebounds, 3 blocks at Portland
Jan. 31 - 21 points, 11 rebounds, 2 blocks at Sacramento
Feb. 10 - 34 points, 9 rebounds, 2 assists vs. Dallas
Feb. 12 - 22 points, 10 rebounds at Seattle
Feb. 24 - 18 points, 9 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals at Minnesota
March 1 - 28 points, 12 rebounds vs. Detroit
...then he got hurt again. Granted those are only 11 highlighted peformances from the 20 games he played in that stretch, it's still insanely productive, and that was really his last healthy stretch of games.
On another unrelated note, I think Andrew Bogut is underrated as a basketball player. The expectations were too high for him coming out of college, and he has definitely underachieved from that point of view, but with all preconceptions aside, he's one of the top post players in the game today (even though his cockiness and big mouth make him a bit hard to like at times).
Last Year's Stats: 34.2 mpg, 12.3 ppg (55.3% FG), 8.9 rpg, and 3.0 apg.
That's a very efficient line, and considering he was only in his second year in the league, I don't think it'd be crazy to expect him to improve upon that mark significantly next season.
Sure, he doesn't have the upside of a guy like Greg Oden, but he could still be a borderline All-Star in a few years. After all, he's only 22 years old.
I don't think it would be that crazy to expect him to put up numbers along the lines of 15 ppg, 10 rpg, and 4 apg this season, especially with Redd and Simmons healthy.
BTW - NTC, I actually dig that fashion. It's very colorful.