F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Worry List

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From one of my favorites, Shaun Usher and his site, Lists of Note

In 1933,  author F. Scott Fitzgerald ended a letter to his 11-year-old daughter, Scottie, with a list of things to worry about, not worry about, and simply think about. It read as follows.

Things to worry about:

Worry about courage
Worry about cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Worry about horsemanship

Things not to worry about:

Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about dolls
Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don’t worry about triumph
Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
Don’t worry about mosquitoes
Don’t worry about flies
Don’t worry about insects in general
Don’t worry about parents
Don’t worry about boys
Don’t worry about disappointments
Don’t worry about pleasures
Don’t worry about satisfactions

What am I really aiming at?
How good am I really in comparison to my contemporaries in regard to:

(a) Scholarship
(b) Do I really understand about people and am I able to get along with them?
(c) Am I trying to make my body a useful instrument or am I neglecting it?

With dearest love,

Daddy

Fine, I’ll Say It: Those Two New York Cops Took the Easy Route

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If prison tower guards pool their $$ for each other's mandatory post-shooting psych leave, why not street cops?

Two dead, nine wounded? Hell no do I think those cops had to open fire. It was two against one. Plus they were behind Jeffrey Johnson; they could’ve tackled him and kicked his ass. The iPhone footage from that would’ve allowed them to surf street cred for the rest of their careers. Even the worst case scenario along those lines is better than what really went down.

So Johnson might’ve gotten a round off and shot one of ’em while they wrestled for his weapon: it happens. But the public never swore to take a bullet for a cop — cops swear oaths to protect the public.

Relax – nobody’s blaming Officers Craig Matthews and Robert Sinishtaj for doing their jobs, and I’m not saying Johnson wasn’t a public safety threat. But like it ‘er not, these two safety-conscious, veteran street officers will always have an asterisk next to the Empire State Building takedown. Read more

Sandusky the Football

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Jerry Sandusky is by far the most notorious pedophile of modern times. Though we’re only now learning that he may have used the U.S. Postal Service to seduce his victims with gifts and travel, the capacity and scope of such emerging details isn’t surprising. Likewise, reactions to an ongoing investigation into whether Sandusky shared child porn via the Internet range from revulsion to indifference. Some call it flogging a dead horse, especially now that Sandusky has been convicted and incarcerated. Others, myself included, believe this will be the most important development of all: the opportunity to expose his (newly alleged) accomplices and their reach. 

If the NCAA, the athletic association that punished Pennsylvania State University for what it called “an unprecedented failure of institutional integrity,” can affirm that the school held the esteem of its football program higher than “the values of human decency,” the government has no excuse not to follow every conceivable evidentiary offshoot and kill what it finds.  Read more

Awed Portrayal – RIP Gore Vidal, 1925 – 2012

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Gore Vidal - Associated Press

“Andy Warhol is the only genius I’ve ever known with an I.Q. of 60” – Gore Vidal

Few writers wrote more conversationally (or were meaner) than Gore Vidal. Of the obituaries I’ve read so far, this one is the most compelling. Reading it, you realize that with the disappearance of delayed gratification, men like this will not be made; prolificacy and achievement at this level isn’t possible.

Vidal was of an era when big-name writers fought each other literally with their fists, often repeatedly and on camera. Oh, what I would give to sprinkle the media with his kind today.

The Worst Feeling in the World

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What could gnaw at you more than knowing you hit a pedestrian and raced away? What if the person was dead – and all over the news? Knowing a little something of what the guy who hit me endured, I can’t help but wonder about the fugitives from a recent string of hit ‘n run fatalities in L.A.

In 2003 I was hit by a rather tightly wound individual (read: dickhead) driving a brand new Jaguar S-Type who left me for dead in the middle of the intersection at Lincoln Blvd & Rose Ct. in Venice, CA. Bystanders tended to me while good Samaritans yelled to each other about the direction in which the Jaguar had fled. I awoke in the middle of the commotion, looking up at the June sky and feeling freezing cold. My head was being held very still above a pool of blood. I was beginning to hyperventilate, which made some lady above me cry.

A man ran up and yelled, “Here! Here! I have his address! I followed him to some condos up that way!” I heard a stampede of boots and feet running for cars, then several peel outs. By then several cops had arrived, seeking a culprit to question or cuff and being unleashed like that is what Badges live for.

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Where Excuses Go to Die is now on Facebook

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And the creation of its page coincides with the crumbling of the walls around that secret society of thugs known as the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. With its members turning on each other and the Men’s Central Jail in downtown L.A. finally being exposed for the Academy of Excessive Force it’s always been, I figured it was time to share what it’s been like to bring this story to market. Read more

Home is Where the Abuse is…

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In the video clip he posted to YouTube, Oscar Lopez can be heard asking neighbor Anthony Sanchez, “Why don’t you come over here and teach ME!?” Lopez, you see, had just captured footage of Sanchez lashing his stepson with a belt for failing to catch a baseball. 

Sanchez turned himself in on Friday, after the clip went viral. On Saturday, he resigned his post as director of California’s Imperial Irrigation District. He’s now being held on $100,000 bail for suspicion of felony child abuse, yet another elected official implicated for yet another failure of character.

Now I realize that many adults over a certain age had the crap kicked out of them as children, and I also know that serious child abuse is often a cycle. Sanchez, age 34, probably knows these things too. What he doesn’t seem to realize, however, is that there’s no excuse for wailing on a kid either way.

And what was Stepfather of the Year’s excuse?  In the footage he can be heard responding to Lopez, “The boy suffers from ADHD! Do you know how he acts?” Well okay then, Sanchez, by that standard you need a head-punch and 2 face-slaps. Read more

Shouldn’t Undercooked Homeless Man Cash In Too?

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Nicholas Carlesi captured what is thought to be the last last photo of Ronald Poppo before 75% of his face was chewed off.

Last week, nearly all the major media outlets and countless web destinations profited from leaked photos of Ronald Poppo’s eaten up face and the 9-1-1 calls reporting his attack. It’s bad enough that the rest of his miserable life is gonna be spent in pain and beef jerky jokes, there’s no excuse for Ronnie not gettin’ a slice…uh, a cut, a chunk – some money!

I mean, we don’t look homeless people in the eye or give ’em the time of day. We can’t stop to unfold a buck or two and we’ll cross the street if it means avoiding one. But let a bum get his face chewed off and we become wide-eyed pigeons, pecking at the ground — or in this case clicking though channels and websites — for salacious crumbs.

As quickly as the photos were leaked, only to go viral, is as quickly as I decided against lookin’ at ’em. I assure you it isn’t because I’m “mature” ‘n what not, and practically nothing grosses me out. What bothers me is the idea of celebrating sensationalism. Number one, I already knew the gruesome images would resemble a plate of chicken mole enchiladas, and number two, what’s the message? It sure as hell isn’t “homeless people deserve respect.” Read more

Brian Banks – Brian Banks – Brian Banks

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Get used to the name, ‘cause you’ll be hearing it often. And may it be for touchdowns and commencement addresses rather than gimmicks or Kardashians, because among other things Brain Banks just may be our answer to Michael Vick. Yet how many men with Banks’ spirit and character are deteriorating right now in American prisons?

At 17, Long Beach Polytechnic High School football star Brian Banks was convicted of kidnapping and raping a female classmate. He did just over 5 years in state prison. When his accuser confessed that she wasn’t raped by Banks, a judge exonerated him. Now 27, the athlete once pursued by USC is hopeful he’ll be given a shot in the NFL, allowing him to fund a documentary about his journey.

Prison is like living in a parking structure overseen by the Department of Motor Vehicles and filled with beggars from New Delhi, except these askers don’t want money. They want you to believe they’re innocent. And life behind bars means gettin’ used to these claims: what I call the white noise of innocence. It’s not hard, really, ’cause you tune it out almost immediately. You have to. Before you even hit a real prison yard you’ve heard so many stories of wrongful prosecution you know the idiots from the potentially sincere, the mistaken from the mealy-mouthed. When it comes to inmates’ comprehension of how the court system works and the law in general, you’ve found a bottomless pit of delusion, denial, and distortion.  Read more

Patricia Krentcil: Please Just Go to Hell.

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Patricia Krentcil is not only a laughably easy target for this blog, she’s as disoriented as a Kansas pig with farm fever. So we’re not gonna slam her too much, but we are gonna ask: are these really our values? Is Krentcil’s nutso body image and clearly low self-esteem just about being batshit crazy, or is it more and more typical of Americans constantly subject to predatory marketing? And just how ugly do we think we are if this is seen as an improvement? 

Police say Pat Krentcil was arrested and charged with child endangerment after she allegedly snuck her daughter into the tanning booth she uses to make herself look like a carnival freak circa 1928. Read more