I believe....

I believe:

• The “news” is now about opinion-making, not reporting the facts.
• There is such a thing as truth, it exists and our quest as humans is to find it.
• It is truly possible for all of us to get along.
• We are morally obligated to care for this earth and bring to justice those who do harm to the planet and, by extension, humanity.
• We are also obligated to help people who are being hurt by others.
• Regardless of your political party affiliation, you should be pulling for the Obama administration to make all the right decisions—because these are tough times, our country is in trouble and our problems rise far above partisan politics.
• It’s naïve and even stupid to expect Corporate America to care about anything, such as morality, other than making money.
• It used to be that manliness was portrayed in a positive light--strong, fatherly, loyal, inspiring and courageous (think John Wayne, Andy Taylor in "The Andy Griffith Show" or the dad in "Bonanza")--whereas today men are portrayed as football-obsessed, beer-drinking, couch-potato, fat morons (think every commercial geared toward men).
• Restraint and self-control are among the highest virtues, but virtues rarely seen these days.
• Evolution and creationism are not mutually exclusive--far from it.
• Gambling is evil.
• While I voted for the other guy, Barrack Obama's election was one of the most important days in U.S. history.
• True wisdom comes from learning from one's mistakes and the mistakes of others.
• Your instincts are right most of the time.
• What's happened to baseball with the "steroids era" and the mugging of hallowed records by bad, dishonest men is one of the great tragedies of our lifetime, and if I think about it enough I become emotional.
• The days of people going downtown to shop are over.
• When people say it was a better time when bread was nickel, they're forgetting that back then no one had a nickel.
• If it waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck.
• It's not the job or money that matter--it's the organization and its purpose.
• The most effective branding happens over time and can't be forced.
• Parents should never try to be their child’s friend.
• The American Dream is under assault, but is still attainable.
• John Edwards is pure evil.
• Evil is the worst sort of ugliness disguised as extraordinary beauty.
• If our government can’t even take care of our veterans, why should we expect it to “fix” health care for all of us?
• TVs should never be found in restaurants that claim to offer fine dining.
• It’s ridiculous that pure baseball is played in the National League but not in the American League.
• There are millions of people walking around right now who have no clue what’s going on around them at this moment in time.
• Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire knew exactly what they were taking and when they were taking it.
• Golf is not the game for me.
• No TV network has suffered a greater downfall in quality than ESPN.
• Cable TV is a huge rip-off.
• Runners are reviled by many (but not all) non-runners.
• There are some loose cannons behind the wheel of an automobile who truly want to mow me down.
• You have to run defensively.
• Bob Seger is/was better than Bruce Springstein.
• The greatest Americans are our veterans.
• The 1985 Chicago Bears was the best pro football team I've ever seen.
• The best lineup I've ever seen with my own eyes was the Cleveland Indians in the mid-1990s--Baerga, Murray, Sorrento, Ramirez, Belle, Alomar, Lofton, Thome, et al.
• MacDonald’s and other fast-food restaurants should stop trying to be nutritious and just embrace the fact that they peddle deep-fried garbage.
• The more educated you are, the less likely you are to eat fatty, high-calorie foods.
• You should never buy something on sale unless you like it so much you’d have paid full price for it.
• The last truly great president of the United States was Theodore Roosevelt.
• It’s unwise to play cards with any man whose first name is also the name of a city, e.g., Cleveland (OK, so I got this from a movie).
• For most of us, from the hours of 8 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday-Friday, someone else owns you, but from the hours of 5:01 p.m. to 7:59 a.m., Monday-Friday, you own yourself.
• If you have a job and complain about it every day, you need to think about the guy or gal who woke up this morning with no place to go, a stack of bills piling high and a few mouths to feed.
• There are only three rights--life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
• At no time in our history have there been so many alienated people, largely as a result of technology.
• "Chinese Democracy" by Guns 'N Roses came about 15 years too late.
• Unrestrained science is the greatest threat to humanity.
• There is a God, he’s the boss, and I’m not going to try to read his mind or question his authority.
• If global warming is really happening, why am I freezing my ass off right now?
• There’s a place in every school for home economics, industrial arts, and physical education—and every child should be exposed to each at some point during their education. I have a master’s degree and a professional-level job and yet my most memorable class in school was 8th-grade shop, where I created a working lamp out of a few pieces of wood, a soda pop can, some electrical wiring and a light bulb.
• While Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Bob Weir and Mickey Hart are all near and dear to any Dead Head’s heart, the Grateful Dead died when Jerry Garcia keeled over in ‘96. Unless Jerry can be brought back to life, please, no reunion tour.
• Keith Richards is truly a medical marvel.
• Only in the late 1960s did music start to get good.
• It's appalling that a baseball player who pulls down $20 million makes more per at bat ($41,000) than many Americans make in a year—including your kid’s teacher. The same goes for all pro sports.
• We live in a constitutional Republic, not a democracy.
• College football bowl games are about money, not competition or what’s good for college football.
• If you create something, you're responsible for it/him/her.
• If a president cheats on their spouse while in office, he (or she) is not fit to be president. How can a president be loyal to the country when he or she can’t be loyal to their spouse?
• Democrats and Republicans in Washington want the same thing (big government) but differ on how to get there.
• When a smoker coughs and it sounds like they're about to lose a lung, that's nature's way of saying it's time to quit.
• People who are obese should pay extra for their health insurance.
• Special interests control Washington and we the people are just an annoyance to politicians until we really get pissed off and crash their phone lines and e-mail.
• What's happening to General Motors and Chrysler right now is what's going to happen to the U.S. in about 30 or 40 years--bad model, over-extended with entitlement debt and awful leadership--unless we do something now.
• In the last four years alone George W. Bush joined the ranks of one of the 10 worst presidents in U.S. history. But he’s not as bad as Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan, Richard Nixon, Warren G. Harding...or Bill Clinton.
• Rocky I and II is collectively the greatest sports movie ever made.
• The best measure of greatness is longevity.
• No athlete in our lifetime has been more dominating than Michael Jordan.
• Tiger Woods is the second-best golfer to ever live so long as Jack Nicklaus still owns the all-time majors record.
• What consenting adults do in the privacy of a home is none of my damned business, or yours, either.
• No one will ever break 2 hours in the marathon.
• The oil companies have taken advantage of governmental incompetence (no new refineries in several decades) and are gouging us.
• Starbucks had a great thing going until they decided to buy into the MacDonald’s expansion plan (one on every corner!).
• Big box stores are disgusting.
• Wal-Mart has had a net negative effect on America.
• Local officials who give carte blanche to developers are enemies of our way of life.
• I should be accepted into the 2010 Western States 100.
• There should be more trails.