Jim Power's Blog: Jim Power

The NBA banned Donald Sterling for life because of his personal opinions. He did nothing illegal, as far as I know, but he is obviously a racist. Racism is not against the law. There is also a question of how these audio recordings were made. If they were made without his consent, this was an illegal act. Anyone who is possession of these comments would therefore be in possession of stolen goods.

The NBA has set a dangerous precedent. It is now encouraging people to record private conversations, possibly illegally, and engage in a witch hunt. What about rappers who write disgusting lyrics degrading women. Should they be banned from owning or partly owning an NBA team.

To even the playing field, I believe all owners, all players, and everyone who crucified Sterling should be forced to wear microphones 24 hours a days so we can hear everything they say. If they have nothing to hide, they would have no problem with this. Some, of course, would argue that they have privacy rights. Yet those same people have not even mentioned the privacy rights of Sterling.

Racism is ugly, vile, and disgusting. But no one wants to live in a world where everything you say, even in private, can be recorded and distributed. What an incredible assault on privacy and freedom.

The players are hypocrites. In New York City for years, the city officials under Michael Bloomberg engaged in the unconstitutional stop and frisk policy, where predominantly black males were stopped and frisked by the thousands. This was a systematic policy and there were even reports of police having to fulfill quotas. No NBA player tossed his jersey to the floor at Madison Square Garden, no one even spoke out. New York was Mississippi North and the players fell in line, timid as mice. But when an old, hateful man spoke in private, simply expressing his personal opinions, they finally found the courage to act. They did not have the bravery of Martin Luther King, Jr. or Malcolm X; no, they waited until their quarry was little more than a fish in a barrel.

Donald Sterling is no saint and I do not like the guy, but I do not like any rich men in the business world. I just want those who ganged up on him to accept the same standard for themselves: all their private conversations can now be recorded and delivered to TMZ if they say anything controversial or small minded. And let the person who has not said something stupid in private cast the first stone. Of course some will say this is a pattern with Sterling. Big deal. You are allowed to be racist or hateful or insensitive. Find the most successful men in the business world, whether it be factory owners in China or Bangladesh, or cutthroats on Wall Street, and see how many of them are nice people. Put microphones on them 24-7 and see what you get. It will not be pretty.

Pathetic.

I always considered Crimea to be part of Russia. This view is shared almost universally by Crimeans themselves. They are not part of Ukraine, and they never have been. Crimea was ripped away from Mother Russian and given to the stepmother, Ukraine, in 1954, in a time when Ukraine and Russia were both part of the Soviet Union. At that time it did not seem to matter. Now it does and Crimea has been returned to her rightful parent.

The reality is that Russia itself has always fought an internal battle between east and west, never quite feeling like part of the west yet wanting to belong. She developed great ballet, great literature, great figure skating and hockey, but Russia will always be a unique nation, a riddle wrapped inside an enigma, a whirlpool of fire.

For some people the Cold War has never ended and there are individuals throughout many governments who continually try to raise strife and civil war all over the globe. The latest victim is Ukraine. There is plenty of hanky panky going on from both sides and people like John McCain, a man with a dismal rating from the NRA, is trying to arm the illegitimate government which took power after a violent and illegal coup that deposed the democratically elected Ukrainian government.

The NRA, the bulwark of gun rights in the U.S., is leery of John McCain, but this same man wants to ship arms galore to the rebels who overthrew a democratically elected government? I think he should be a whole lot more concerned about making sure American citizens have their gun rights protected and that America does not ship U.S. guns to neo-Nazi groups which have infiltrated the insurgents in Ukraine.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 crashed into the ocean. People's brains also apparently crashed. The search for this plane, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars, and news coverage which has long passed into the obscene, is the most ludicrous waste of time and money that I have ever seen.

The CNN coverage of this incident is ridiculous. It's so foolish that at first I thought it was a scam, a joke of the highest order.

Between 40,000-45,000 people are killed on U.S. highways every year in motor vehicle accidents. Millions are injured, many permanently. Are their lives not worth mentioning? Why are they totally ignored and the people on this plane mulled over to the point of the grotesque?

Our cultures, at least the media, has a fascination, an obsession that borders on pathological, when it comes to airplanes. This is a vestige of an earlier time when planes were new and awe-inspiring. Unfortunately, this passion has not waned. Actually, it may have, but as media outlets struggle with reduced budgets and decreased revenue streams, covering a story like this is dirt cheap. You only need a few talking heads who want their fifteen minutes, stock footage, and newscasters who double as salesmen, selling us this story as if it's the most important one in the history of the world.

Get over it. There are important events occurring all over the world and they are being brushed aside for this story that practically no one is even following. It's a Potemkin village, a form of unmitigated cynicism.

There really should be legislation passed protecting viewers' rates and they could be applied here. This legislation would force the media to stop dwelling on stories like this to the point of nausea and to treat viewers with at least a modicum of respect.

There is no doubt in my mind that at least half a billion dollars will be squandered in searching for this plane. The only reason it's done is because it's somewhat titillating to some - not me, I can assure you - and because it has become a competition to see who can find it first.

Really, I couldn't care less who finds it, and I know that these hundreds of millions of dollars could have been used by hungry children, people dying from diseases, schools, anti-violence programs. Please, stop wasting time and money. Enough is enough.

Every single person in the United States is an atheist, including the most vehement fundamentalist Christian.

Why do I say that? Well, because even the most vehement fundamentalist Christian does not believe in the Greek god, Zeus. There is no rational proof for the existence of Zeus and no one takes his existence on a matter of faith.

If someone said he had faith that Zeus existed, can you imagine the president, the Congress, and millions of American people complimenting him? "He is a man of faith!"

No, they wouldn't do that. They would think he is a lunatic. Yet those same people will applaud someone who says he is a "man of faith" regarding a different god. They will pat him on the shoulder and call him a fine man. In reality, there is no more proof for the Christian god than for Zeus. To say someone is a man of faith is really an insult, because it reveals that this person will believe something without proof, oftentimes devoting his life to something that has no rational or logical basis.

All Americans are atheists for all gods except their own, whether that be Zeus, Hindu gods, pagan gods....They believe only in the god or gods of their particular religion, discounting all other possibilities.

But I am here to tell you that Zeus does exist. Prayers should be said to him in all schools, his name should be in the pledge and stamped on money, he should be recounted in the anthem, Congress should acknowledge him when they are sworn in. People should be applauded when they profess their faith in Zeus. They are men of faith.

Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?

Earlier people had faith in existence of the sun god; cultures all over the world created hundreds, perhaps thousands of gods. It is a weakness in the human mind. It manifests a need to feel there is something greater than we can see. The problem is, when you profess loyalty to something you cannot see, you are professing loyalty for something that does not exist except as a matter of faith, and Zeus is absolutely as valid as a Christian god.

This is an open letter to Black Sabbath.

My favorite bands of my youth are still my favorite bands today, some 40 years removed. For me, it's still, in this order: The Doors, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple. Obviously I will never see The Doors play, as Jim died over 40 years ago, and Ray has now joined him. But I did see Black Sabbath last night.

As a teenager growing up in Shad Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada, there was little to do, especially in the winter. Every evening during those cold months, we would gather at The Turn and huddle around Billy's ghetto blaster, playing Black Sabbath night after night. I had introduced the other guys to Black Sabbath and they also fell in love with the band.

I'll never forget the first time I heard their inaugural album. It made an indelible impression on me, one I will always cherish. Last night they played large parts of that album, along with world classics such as War Pigs and Paranoid. It was a magical night and the guys proved that getting old does not necessarily diminish one's contribution to society. Watching the men perform, I saw my youth flash before my eyes, along with countless memories associated with those beloved songs. It made me feel young again, but, of course, I am not young, but I am not used up either, just as those musicians aren't. They still have the amazing skills and now they have a lifetime of experiences to inform their characters.

Life, in large measure, is mundane and the mere exercise of routine. But there are moments, sweet moments that make you feel alive, and connected, and free. Last night was one such moment for me. Black Sabbath, I love you guys. You are part of me, and you always will be.

Vegans are known for criticizing people who eat meat. To many vegans, the consumption of animal flesh is at best barbaric and at worst criminal, for as people have rights, so do animals, at least in their minds. In the modern animal rights movement, there is a concerted effort to classify animals and humans as essentially the same thing, which is interesting because humans are actually animals.

But what about plants? The foods vegans eat are very much like animals and, I'm sure, carry genes which could be traced back to a common ancestor, just as humans and chimps share a common relative.

Plants need air and water to survive, they live, they reproduce, they die. Why is it, in the mind of an animal rights activist, wrong to kill a seal, for instance, but not wrong to slaughter the plants that they eat? These plants are not eaten after they die; instead they are harvested at the peak of their health.

Much of the affiliation with animals, and the heartlessness toward plants, originates in the fact that animals look more like humans. But this is the most essential paradox of the animal rights movement. The entire crux of the animal rights movement is that man cannot be seen in an egocentric way: in the sense that other sentient beings also have not only value, but equal value, to humans, even though they are far removed from humans, such as a seal, deer, or chicken. Yet the animal rights movements unilaterally and arbitrarily draws a new line. Whereas once the line was drawn between humans and all other living things, the vegan moves that line to include humans and animals, but not the plants which they eat, or the flowers in their vases, or the houses in which they live that are made from murdered trees. It's a convenient determination, but not logically consistent.

When a tree is cut, it bleeds sap and tries to heal itself. Plants live in absolute social communities, displaying aggression and altruism just like humans. They communicate through chemical speech and feel pain. Their instinctual drive to survive is as strong as a human's, but plants, like insects which are killed by the trillions to feed vegans, are ignored and dismissed.

Why? That's simple. It's easy to criticize others, and can actually be quite addictive, but those same people do not themselves wish to be criticized in turn. They live moral lives which are fed through the emotionless slaughter of trillions and trillions of living organisms. Is it more moral to eat a piece of whole wheat bread covered in jam than a chicken sandwich? Not at all. Both options are based on the killing of living things. It has been proven that plants suffer. Even the smell of cut grass and snipped flowers is actually a chemical release which expresses pain and fear. Plants and animals, including humans, are all the same thing.

It's time for a new group to challenge, and picket, and protest the animal rights movement. These people will be called the People for the Ethical Treatment of Plants (PETOP). It may sound absurd today, but a few years ago the animals rights movement and veganism were considered absurd. It's just a matter of time.

For many years there has been a debate over whether or not the Holocaust actually occurred. This debate has gotten so vicious that some lawmakers have made it a criminal offense to deny the Holocaust, actually putting people in jail for long periods if they so much as question the veracity of the numbers associated with the historical event.

To me that is the most scandalous attack on free speech imaginable. To put someone in jail for expressing an opinion - whether it be Holocaust denial or the belief that homosexuals are going to hell- is nothing short of a totalitarian, fundamentally sick state.

Do I believe the Holocaust occurred? Yes, I do. I believe millions of innocent, law-abiding, decent people were rounded up simply because they were Jews and systematically exterminated by one of the most evil governments in human history. I once saw a picture of Jews in a concentration camp, their bodies reduced to breathing skeletons, and they looked out with hopeless, pleading eyes for help that would never come. In the face of one of those Jews, a boy my age, I saw myself. It could have been me, or it could have been you. Maybe the government would attack you for a different reason, possibly for your political affiliation, or some other perceived inferiority. In this case, the state was the democratically elected and democratically sanctioned killing machine of the Nazis.

No one should ever be jailed or even prohibited from denying the Holocaust, just as no one should be jailed or prohibited from denouncing a political party, but the Holocaust did occur. It was a perfect example of that perverse, dark corner in the underdeveloped human brain which believes that some people can have the power of life and death over those under their control.

Even if one little girl holding a Teddy bear, or one little boy clinging to his mother's coat, was killed by the Nazis simply because she or he was a Jew, then that was a Holocaust against all humanity. The fact that millions of people were herded like livestock onto cattle cars and shipped to death camps is so ugly, so vile, that it makes you ashamed to be a human being. - Jim Power

I remember watching a golf tournament and the commentator stated that the golfer who holed a putt was "brave." Brave? He holed a putt, for God's sake. Did he hole it with an alligator bearing down on him? Hardly. He putted a ball into a hole. If he missed, nothing particularly bad might happen. Instead of earning $400,000 he might have earned $327,000, but there was another tournament next week, and 30 more after that, and a lifetime of golf after that. This man wasn't brave and, like every other athlete, he was no hero.

Military personnel are heroes. How many men and boys sacrificed their lives on bloody beaches and in godforsaken hellholes fighting for your liberty? They would not return to their wives and children, never again see their parents, siblings and friends. They gave their lives for other people, the vast majority of whom they did not know and who did not know them.

Thousands have returned home with permanent injuries, both physical and mental, and they struggle every day trying to put the pieces back together. We applaud athletes and entertainers, all of whom are concerned basically with promoting themselves and making money, and we stare in awe at investment bankers who would slit the throats of the unsuspecting victims if it put another dollar in their accounts. We praise politicians who are power hungry and driven by special interests, men and women who will do anything to get elected.

But it's the military man and woman, people who leave their homes, oftentimes for years, people who say god bye to children not knowing if they will ever return, people who live day in and day out with the specter of violence hanging over them like a shroud, knowing that every minute of every day, somebody wants to kill them. They aren't motivated by fame, power or money, they are driven by an instinctual need to protect, to shield the vulnerable, to raise the flag of freedom. These are the heroes, the finest among us, and they give expression to the dignity of man.

On the show, Sister Wives, a man from Utah is married to four women. This is a consensual relationship between the five of them, they are all adults, and their relationship, though complex, seems to suit them well enough.

Is there anything wrong with such a relationship? No, it's fine. Consenting adults should be allowed to engage in any kind of relationship they want, so long as no one is being wronged or abused.

If a woman wants two husbands, or ten husbands, and she can find two or ten men of a like mind, more power to her. Such a relationship has many benefits. The group can pool their resources, the woman can continue to have a partner or partners if one or more of her husbands die, and there is much less consumption of natural resources, as they can all live in one house. Such multi-partner arrangements are common in some rural areas of third world countries and historic in religious communities.

Sexual relations in such a marriage always draw titillating attentions. I see no issue at all. If they decide to take turns, say one wife or husband per night, or engage in a menage relationship, well, what they do in their bedroom is no one's business but their own.

There can be good or bad polygamous relationships, just as there is good and bad relationships in traditional marriages. But the divorce rate is approaching 50%, and there is a tremendous amount of abuse, neglect, and boredom in many households. How can they criticize the idea of a woman or man with multiple partners?

Personally, I couldn't care less if a woman marries a football team or a man has ten sister wives, but I think it would be psychologically taxing, to say the least. Trying to keep one partner happy is tough enough. I can't imagine the emotional mine field three or four or five wives would present. It's not my cup of tea. But if they want to do it, go for it.

In a recent landmark case before the Supreme Court of Canada, the nation's highest court struck down laws which make prostitution illegal. The reason is that by making prostitution illegal, sex trade workers are forced underground and exposed to incredible dangers, with prostitutes being assaulted and killed at an alarming rate. This is obvious, and it's also known that serial killers often prey on prostitutes because they are pushed into dark alleyways.

Legalize prostitution, set up prostitutes in state-run houses with doctors and protection, and give them medical and pension plans.

Prostitution is the oldest profession in the world and no amount of laws are going to decrease the demand. All you can do is create a system for consenting adults to do their business in a clinical and safe way.

If a man goes to a bar and buys a woman a large number of drinks with the sole intention of having sexual relations with her, why is this permissible and prostitution not? The same thing has happened. The man spent money to achieve the same goal. The woman accepted the gifts in exchange for sex. There is little qualitative difference, except that the permitted means of acquiring sex involved the drugging of the woman with alcohol.

If a woman wants to be promiscuous simply for sexual enjoyment, what right does the government have to prohibit it? None. It's her body. During her promiscuous liaisons, she could certainly acquire sexually transmitted diseases. Should this entitle the government to prohibit women from sleeping around? No. So why then can the government prevent women from sleeping around and accepting gifts for doing so, both of which activities are, as illustrated, commonly done with full societal support?

Prostitution is a nasty business. No one would wish a life of prostitution on anyone, but women, and men, have to make the individual choice for themselves. Professional fighting often results in permanent brain damage, coal miners acquire black lung, taxi, bus and truck drivers, because of a sedentary lifestyle, often suffer heart disease and die prematurely. But does this mean the government can prohibit people from being MMA fighters, coal miners, and truck drivers? No. Those jobs are in demand, but no more in demand than prostitution, the world's oldest profession.

All people must make their own choices regarding how they live. If some decide to get punched in the head for a living, or if they sell their bodies for a living, it's up to them. It's none of the government's business.