Photo by Bill Dahl – ALL Rights Reserved – 2012.

A.A. ( After Anaheim ) – closed door players only meeting yesterday after the drunken sailors from Seattle stumbled out of a two game barroom brawl – Having their asses handed to them by the Disciples of Disneyland. Brendan Ryan was chosen as the players spokesperson declaring “the day off is timely – and we’re just going to push the reset button.” OMG !!! Spoken like a true barroom brawler who is still reeling from having his brains bashed in. See my previous post at http://jeffsmariners.com/ at the beginning of the 2013  season….April 9, 2013:

Commenting on Tuesday – well it’s 0-6 in the first. HYPE…nothin’ but HYPE. Seattle continues to play “projects” that are non-performers. The ownership keeps the payroll low…the HYPE revved up…and fans yearning for a win-ner…same old — same old…even the announcers are in on it…This franchise needs some objective, honest, soul searching for a new approach to MLB. No! It’s not “too early.” We’ve all seen this re-run before – season after season. This is – at best – AAA ball played in an MLB park…there’s a more competitive game down I-5. This team is just another rag tag bag of M&M’s — more Mariner Mediocrity. Mariner fans deserve a winner…not another 162 games of mediocrity…sprinkled with a desperate few moments of meaning.

Any other MLB team would be placed in an in-patient detox program after the Cleveland and Anaheim series continue to reveal that this team cannot legitimately stay clean and sober for any period of time. It’s high time that this team either “walk the talk” or wholesale changes will be immediately implemented. Start by replacing the GM and Manager. Use an Interim Manager for the remainder of the 2013 season. Ownership must own the sordid on- field outcomes they have perpetrated on the fan family. Frankly, the ownership requires a wholesale reset of their thinking (aka “stinking thinking” )…it’s time to get “brutally honest” here baseball fans. This team sucks!!! Harang, Saunders, Mauer 6-16 — come on!

Email these people:

Chairman & Chief Executive Officer Howard Lincoln

President & Chief Operating Officer Chuck Armstrong

Chairman Emeritus John Ellis

Executive Assistant Chairman, President & Ownership Teresa Dugger

Even more maddening is the absence of honesty from the baseball writers (Geoff Baker for The Seattle Times – you need to get real fella! The below is an excerpt from your May 23, 2013 (another one) kiss-ass piece:

What this also means, for now, is that the Mariners are not planning any additional moves based on position players already on the team. So, Dustin Ackley, Robert Andino, Brendan Ryan and others who have been rumored about are safe for now. (emphasis is mine).

The broadcasters who cover this 21st century reenactment of Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” are clearly mesmerized by the wacky weed that now wafts through Washington State.  The “sugar coating” that the baseball writers and broadcasters cover this band of The Marauders of Mediocrity routinely causes readers to recoil in the throws of “bad blood sugar.” The empty seats at SAFECO speak…these bobble-heads need in- patient treatment. Frankly, it’s a joke. Yet, it’s not at all humorous.

It’s time for an intervention! The “family of fans” need to take the first steps (12 step program) in declaring “Enough is Enough.” One can only take so many “King commercials” before one awakens to the fact that “it is us” – the fans – who continue to be abused by the manipulative machinations of The Merchants of Mediocrity. Make your sign. Come to the ballpark. Pace in front of the entrances ( or exits).

Seattle deserves BETTER BASEBALL!!! Brendan Ryan is right – “We just have to press the reset button” – just NOT the one he is referring to. The “Jack Attack” is over. “We” – the fans – the City – the Region – and MLB are the real victims here. “Eric the Enabler” is history! It’s time to detox this traumatic troupe of “terrible” and reinvent the outcomes this organization continues to cram down our throats. A little mustard and relish just doesn’t cut it anymore…when the sausage and the bun are rotten to the core. See my prophetic post above at http://jeffsmariners.com/ from early this season.

Somebody…PLEASE make this a Memorial Day weekend and end the cruel reign of The Marauders of Mediocrity!

OMG!!! The Texas Rangers just landed at Sea-Tac!!!

“Hot dogs…get your hotdogs!!!”

Salmonella in Seattle!

I’m out!

Click SLIDESHOW after you click the link below:

https://plus.google.com/photos/110627777356098083553/albums/5879907854225864753

Canon 7d with 24-105mm F4 L lens.

Rob Bell – “What We Talk About When We Talk About God” pp.2-3

HarperOne New York, New York

Copyright (c) 2013

SEE ALSO:

The ChristiUNs

The Questians

The Questian Confession

Brian McLaren on The Questians

More Brian McLaren on The Questians

“The present is a remarkable period of stupidity, even within the spectrum of what passes for extremes in our history. The challenges to the project of civilization have never been greater than in this moment of ecological overshoot, and the public conversation about what is happening to us and what we might do about it – has never been so inadequate. Our aging two party system gives off an odor of necrosis. Roughly dividing what we conceive to be the “right” and the “left,” both sides evince fabulous sweeps of cluelessness and dishonesty.”

Hmmm….

Now what?

My apologies to the authors and publishers who have sent books for me to review during the last several months – I’ll get to those too. I have just been a bit busy.

I have just completed a study of 1,524 pages in three books:

I did a lot of research before I selected the texts for reading. I began with 1948 – The First Arab Israeli Conflict by Benny Morris (Yale University Press 2008 – A Winner of the National Jewish Book Awards). This book begins in the 1880′s with the arrival of the first Jewish immigrants in Zion – yet goes back to 1200 BCE and moves quickly forward through the U.N. Resolution in November 1947 — and the first 20th century Arab Israeli Conflict beginning in May 1948…a far reaching treatise that weaves exquisite detail and the essence of human and socio-political considerations into a marvelous narrative. I highly recommend this book.

The second text I devoured is authored by Michael B. Oren ( Ballantine Books, NY — Random House 2002) entitled Six Days of War – June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East. This treatise traces the relationships between Arabs, Israelis and “The Great Powers” from 1948 through the War (June 5 through June 10 1967)….a triumph for the preparation and strategy employed by the IDF. Again, a magnificent work.

Finally, I digested The Yom Kippur War – The Epic Encounter That Transformed The Middle East by Abraham Rabinovich (Shocken Books, New York 2004). This is primarily a “war book” – focusing on military strategy – yet includes the essential human and geo-political insights that served to shape the historical context, and the outcome.

Of all three, I believe I enjoyed The Yom Kippur War by Abraham Rabinovich the most…populated with the names of Golda Meir, Dayan, Sharon, Begin, Kissinger, et al. Yet, the demonstration of courage in the face of certain death by so many – was – for me – shocking (for lack of a more poignant term).

Bottom Line for me after completing this study (it will take me several decades to “digest” the meanings that will continue to resonate through me):

1. War requires humans to choose war. People(s) whom war is being waged against, must protect themselves.

2. Lives are lost. Innocents are slaughtered. Resentments and hatreds are fanned into new forms of flame.

3. Human belief systems (senses of prejudice, bigotry, justice, fairness, intolerance, fear and the like) are the source and perpetuating agents of conflicts of this nature.

4. People are quite willing to die in an attempt to preserve their belief systems. An unfortunate characteristic of homo sapiens that continues to persist in our age – despite the sordid centuries of evidence imploring us to  find a better way to resolve our conflicts.

5. Wars require resources…typically provided by those who are NOT directly involved in the conflict — yet possess purported “strategic geo-political interests” in providing the weapons…for a price…War is big business.

6. Fear…resentment…revenge…are all sewn into a garment of rationalization that cloaks the evil beneath the outward appearance.

May hearts swollen with the desire for peace triumph over minds infected with malicious motivation. For war, is not the better way for the Middle East… Yet, evil lurks – awaiting the opportunity to thrust itself on the unsuspecting, inattentive and naive.

I have no answers…I come away with many, many more questions – after completing this study. And a sadness…along with a profound sense of determined hope for the better way that seems to continue to elude our species.

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