Big Man Blogging

As a Reporter of 18 years now, I must confess my HATRED OF PIT BULLS.

Yeah I know some of you got all warm and cuddly about this Breed during the Michael Vick Saga, while I don’t condone raising them to fight them and ultimately kill them. I STILL HATE THEM.

When I get out of the Car in a neighborhood, PIT BULLS are the first thing I look for…ask people who work in the streets, they will tell you the same, when we invision a dangerous dog, the face that comes to mind is one of a PIT BULL.

I have had the misfortune to do stories about PIT BULLS, killing people, attacking people, killing and attacking other animals domestic and wild.

I know cops who shoot PIT BULLS on site!

While working on a story about Frisco’s new interactive website that shows citizens where dangerous dogs are (dogs that have strayed off property and bitten someone) 6 dogs were pictured. 4 of those dogs were PIT BULLS.

Pit Bull owners swear by the breed, they say things like “it’s how you raise them,” “mine plays with my kids,” “they’re so sweet.”

Whatever!

I know not all PIT BULLS fight, I know any dog can bite but any honest assesment of the Breed has to conclude that PIT BULLS are FIGHTING DOGS.

That is what they do and should your dog cross path’s with a PIT BULL or a PIT BULL gets upset with you, any PIT BULL owner will tell you there is a great chance you or your animal will be bitten. Period.

Give me a good mutt anyday! and as far as I’m concerned you can put every PIT BULL on the dangerous dogs list.

It’s a big man’s world, it’s a big man blogging!

Before anyone accuses me of woman-bashing, taking a side, showing my “true colors,” or advocating for or against any Presidential Candidate I offer this disclaimer.

I Like Senator HRC! I interviewed her on multiple occaisions when I was a younger Reporter in Erie, Pa.

HRC Paid me a great compliment and went out of her way to do it personally to my News Director and Producer at the time. She didn’t have too which truly made it a special memory for me.

This week, though HRC was caught in a flat out Lie!

HRC on multiple occaisions, while campaigning and boasting of her foreign policy experience has simply made up a WAR STORY!

She claims on a trip to War torn Bosnia, there was sniper fire all around and a big welcome that was supposed to occur at the airport was cancelled because the conditions on the ground were so dangerous, that when she, Chelsea and the contingent travelling with them exited the plane, they ran, heads ducked to the motorcade essentially dodging gunfire.

Well there is news video of the very trip of which HRC speaks. There are no heads ducked, no one running, no gunfire, NO DANGER OF ANY KIND PRESENT!

Infact, the greeting HRC received was rather ceremonial, with salutes and hand shaking lines, HRC even got a hug from a little girl she and Chelsea gushed over.

Again HRC told this story multiple times stressing her tested abilities and fearlessness in foreign policy.

When the video showed up completely contradicting her version of events, she said she “misspoke,” that she’s been on so many trips her memory was a little bad, blah, blah, blah!!!!

4000 US soldiers have died in Iraq, tens of thousands have been wounded. I have done stories on these men and women, read their emails, cried with their families.

Their WAR STORIES are real. HRC should be ashamed and should apologize to those Troops for making up her own WAR STORY.

She has repeatedly characterized the Bush administration as “having lied us into a war.”

Now she Chooses to concoct her own suspense filled WAR STORY while on a diplomatic trip! What is wrong Senator, is the reality of War not dangerous enough for you? Shame.

It’s a big man’s world, it’s a big man blogging.

The 2nd Amendment…everyone seems to equate it’s value with the right to bear arms and everyone seems to equate that with the right to own a firearm for self protection.

The core value of the second amendment is the right to protect yourself, your loved-ones and your property PERIOD. How you choose to do it could mean ownership of a firearm or some other legal weapon. It could mean not owning a weapon at all but simply defending yourself, perhaps with a surveillance system, a large dog, or more lighting on the exterior of your home.

I have been covering “Golf Net-gate” in Plano for about a year now.

For those who don’t know, several residents who live on Golf Courses in Plano have erected Nets to keep Golf Balls from striking their loved-ones and damaging property.

The Nets are on their property, paid for by the homeowners.

Many of the homeowners have been hit by balls, they have children who can’t play in their backyards for fear of being struck and injured by errantly hit golf balls.

Some Net owners have paid thousands in repairs to windows, cars and other items related to their home from golf balls spraying their property on a consistent basis.

I know what you’re thinking, why move to a golf course community and not expect to get hit with a few balls? Fair question, the answer is simple, they could afford too.

The question now is whether they have the right to PROTECT THEMSELVES, their loved-ones and property from errant golf balls? Hackers who may just be bad golfers, or may even be drunk golfers, driving and slicing shots into their yards destroying property and continuing their poor games and golf swings without even so much as leaving a note to acknowledge responsibility and share in the expense of the property they’ve destroyed.

Do these homeowners have the right to erect these Nets to protect themselves?

Plano’s City Council is wrestling with that question and while city leaders and critics have called the Nets, Illegal and ugly, They seem poised to Ban them or restrict their height which would render them ineffective for safety which is the main reason homeowners bought them in the first place.

One homeowner, Dr. Saadi Darvish sued the City of Plano and was granted a Court exemption to keep his Net.

Certainly if the 2nd amendment gurantees every American’s right to bear arms, the basic right of self-protection, then are the Net owners doing any less?

If they can legally own an AK-47 for home protection, then please someone explain to me why they can’t have a Net?

It’s a big man’s world, it’s a big man blogging.

Recently I did a story with Frisco Resident, Steve Geddie.

He’s a native of Alaska and gun enthusiast who successfully defended himself from an armed intruder.

Geddie told me that he was on the toilet “doin my business,” when he heard the suspect trying to enter his home.

Some quick thinking on his part, Geddie confesses he didn’t flush!!! That would have alerted the criminal of where he was, instead he got up and crept through his bathroom into his bedroom to pull out a rambo like, pistol grip 12 guage shotgun.

Not flushing gave Geddie an element of suprise and allowed him the time to confront the suspect.

I got to thinking, the saying “don’t get caught with your pant’s down,” has actually been around for generations.

I believe it may have started similary to Geddie’s situation.

My Late Grandfather, Bubber Lee McILwain used to put on his steeltoed boots and carry his 25 caliber gun with him to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

I know this because on occaisions where I stayed the night with My Grandparents, ‘Gran’ as we called him, nearly shot me and all my cousins, staggering into the bathroom half asleep.

Why did my Grandfather, put on boots and grab a gun before using the bathroom in his own home? He didn’t want to get caught with his pants down.

See, ‘Gran’ is from South Carolina, back when he was a youngster, indoor plumbing was not an option, he used an Out-House.

In South Carolina in his youth (early 1900’s), My Grandfather learned Going to the Out-House in the middle of the night could cost you your life.

Black American’s often were “caught with their pants down” in those Out-Houses, assaulted, even killed.

Most of them were unarmed and didn’t even have on shoes so they could run from the people seeking to do them harm.

I don’t know how frequently these attacks happened. It was often enough that it left a lasting impression on My Grandfather, that well into his 70’s, in his own home, in his own bathroom, thousands of miles away from South Carolina in Ohio and decades after Jim Crow, Bubber Lee McIlwain’s instincts told him to put on shoes, carry a gun to his own bathroom and under no circumstances was he to “get caught with his pants down!”

I had hoped to ease my way into discussions of race and America as it is always touchy subject and seems to bring out the very worst in people.

I still plan to share bits of my most personal experiences over the years that will give you a real glimpse into my life and the things that have shaped my values, just not right now.

This time demands that I chime in on what voters are discussing and Cable TV can’t get enough of, the snippets of sermons by Barak Obama’s Pastor.

As a Reporter I know they are soundbites and what has aired are of course the most inflammatory, they make good TV.

My advice to you, get over it.  Obama didn’t say them, had he, that would be a valid reason to not vote for him.

Judge candidates by their words, their values, their actions.  If you’re reading and thinking who is Randy to tell me to “get over it!”  I offer some examples:

George H.W. Bush-A yankee, born of privilage, war hero, yale graduate.  A former Congressman, CIA Director, Vice President and President.

When GHWB first ran for Congress in Texas, his campaign platform was ANTI-CIVIL RIGHTS!  Mr. Bush based on his life experiences thought that Black Law abiding Americans like my Parents and Grandparents didn’t deserve the rights guranteed under our Constitution because they had the misfortune of being born Black Americans.

He campaigned on that premise, he spoke about it as he toured towns, he tried to generate support for that belief, he ultimately lost that ONE election but went on to become President in a hotly contested race in which perhaps the most Racially divisive political ad in history catapulted his election: THE WILLIE HORTON AD.

Should his son (now President) have been asked to Denounce his father?  Should we have wondered how his Father’s beliefs and campaigns shaped our current President’s values?   Should we have considered GWB unelectable because his father clearly campaigned on Racial Bigotry multiple times?  Or should we get over it?

Apparently some voters got over it…

When GWB was losing in the Republican Presidential primary to Senator John McCain in 1999, the campaign turned very ugly in South Carolina.

GWB’S campaign used a strategy called “a whisper campaign” to attack McCain.  McCain’s wife was called a Drug Addict, their adopted daughter (who is of another race) was said to have been the product of an AFFAIR McCain had with a “Black Prostitute.”

I don’t know how he did it but McCain got over it…

In Mississippi, voters got over Senator Trent Lott’s compliment of Confirmed Racist and former Dixiecrat Presidential nominee Sen. Strom Thurmond.

Lott Praised Thurmond’s Presidential campaign a few years ago at a gathering of Republicans honoring Thurmond.

Thurmond’s platform was RACIAL SEGREGATION and flat out hatred, positions Thurmond never wavered from or apologized for it, if he did I never heard it.

Lott said Mississippi voted for Thurmond, that he personally voted for Thurmond and had Thurmond been elected President, “America might not have some of the problems it has today.”

Lott was the GOP leader in the Senate then, He’s the GOP leader in the Senate now!

Lott said his opposition to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s fight to have the United States Constitution applied to the lives of all Americans was just something, “that I didn’t really understand at the time.”

Equality isn’t difficult to figure out, you’re either for it or against it.  Lott, like many Americans was simply against it.

Again some voters apparently got over it…

Which brings me to Reverend Jeramiah Wright’s comments and the impact they’re having on the Barak Obama’s campaign.

I’m not endorsing Obama, or anyone else for that matter.  I honestly have said to family and friends on many occaisions that I truly never believe America will elect a Black Man as POTUS in my LIFETIME.  Call me a pessimist but there is nothing in America’s History to suggest otherwise.

I do know that Black American’s have had to emotionally ‘get over’ the comments and values of actual Lawmakers and their impact in countless elections.

Black American’s have had to ‘get over’ the enviornments of violence and discrimination those Lawmakers have fostered in communities across our Country.

We got over it…(though it still hurts) because I believe my Parents and Grandparents deserved a better America their ENTIRE LIVES.

Now excerpts, soundbites from old sermons by a Retired Pastor who is NOT SEEKING elected office, threaten the Presidential aspirations of a man who is.

Statements that are not part of the Obama campaign, not consistent with anything I’ve heard Obama say publically as a Presidential candidate at anytime and connected to Obama only by his friendship and membership in Wright’s Church.

I say take a lesson from the experiences of Black Americans and GET OVER IT!

Surely if Black Americans have survived the words, campaigns and policies born of America’s Racial Hatred and men who continue to campaign and shape laws based on these values,  White Voters (yes I said it) can get over the excerpts of one retired Pastor and evaluate Obama’s candidacy on Obama’s own words.

It’s a Big Man’s World, it’s a Big Man Blogging!  And you can GET OVER that too!

All I asked for was a blog! A chance to get to share my opinions on life with viewers who only know me as a TV Reporter.

Several of my NBC 5 colleagues have had blogs for months so I figured why not? A blog is supposed to be ANYTHING GOES, so I’m down with it!

I was told to come up with a name and art concept for my blog, as it turns out, I unwittingly announced my ‘Candidacy’ as a Blogger.

The names I suggested were put to a VOTE of a select group of NBC 5 News managers/producers, a Caucus of sorts.

My first choice was “RANDY’S CHOCOLATE CANDY.” Sexy yet subtle, just sweet little morsels for thought.

Others were:

THICK NECK THOUGHTS

BALD HEAD BLOGGING

XXL BLOG

BIG MAN BLOGGING

I had a few more but you get it. Once the votes were tallied, “RANDY’S CHOCOLATE CANDY” won among male voters but lost with women in the blog-name caucus, hence “BIG MAN BLOGGING.” (and here I thought ladies liked chocolate)

It’s the first time I’ve ever lost to myself, should I sulk or celebrate? I still have a Blog, it’s not “RANDY’S CHOCOLATE CANDY” but it’s still sweet!

Now I can take my Candidacy to the people, so when you read this, COMMENT and VOTE or come up with your own name for my blog.

And fellas, remember next Valentines Day, she may not want CHOCOLATE!

IT’S A BIG MAN’S WORLD, IT’S A BIG MAN BLOGGING