Rolling blog.....Ray Rice,part 2,Jack Benny and Crash

It's 11:09 pm

   Looking outside at the darkness outside,a car just drove by the house. The cheetah is downstairs again,he is buzzing from the catnip I gave him earlier and is happy that I got new batteries for his laser pointer.



   Been feeling a bit aimless this week,Jennifer Blanc-Biehn's writing challenge has turned out to be much harder then I thought. I don't want to put up just fluff to fill the challenge,I want it to mean something more then that,you know?
  Everything that I was grateful for is pretty much gone now...trying to reach out and grasp on to what is left is much harder then it looks. But I will keep after it,I think its actually a pretty good piece of therapy if you want my honest opinion.



   I wrote a few entries ago about how my friend Sue and I went to a new deep discounter called Oillie's. They had a few good deals and I found a real gem,a 39 episode collection of the old Jack Benny Show that aired from 1950 to 1965.

  I discovered many old time performers while listening to the old radio programs that were king back in the 30s and 40s. Bob Hope,Jack Benny,George Burns,Eve Arden,Jack Webb,William Conrad,etc got their real starts in radio before going into films and later on,television.
   I had heard of Jack Benny and how funny he was but it wasn't until I listened to his radio show that I could hear just how funny he really was. His cast of characters included his personal assistant Rochester,his long suffering girl friend,Mary and a various cast of different folks including Mel Blanc.

   So when I saw this collection for only 3.00,I knew it was perfect Dollar Tree Theater material. I have noticed I don't have a lot of comedies to watch so I have been looking hard for shows and films that make me laugh....
   So a couple of days of days ago,I put on the Jack Benny DVD and wow,he WAS very funny. The show was presented by Lucky Strikes cigarettes (Jack was a once in a while cigar smoker) and somewhere in the program,there was always a segment about Lucky Strikes. The DVD included the old ads as well.

   Jack was pretty fearless...his schtick included never aging past 39,his never spending a dime and how bad he played a violin. The truth of the matter was he was a very generous man and a excellent violin player. His girlfriend on the show,Mary Livingstone,was actually his wife in real life. He never missed the chance to be the butt of the joke,to put over his guest stars,who included the biggest names at the time....John Wayne,Kirk Douglas,Marilyn Monroe,etc...and since the show was live,many,many times Jack and his guest would simply struggle to keep a straight face but often failed to stop from laughing.

  The quality of the episodes varies,some are clean and crisp while some are a bit muddied up a bit but over all,well worth picking up. Sort of sad that these classic performers are so rarely mentioned anymore,just glad that DVD distributors like Mill Creek continue to put collections like this so that new folks can stumble across them.

  I also wrote a few entries ago about the mess that is the Ray Rice incident. Rice plays professional football for the Baltimore Ravens. He was caught dragging his then fiance out of a elevator. He was suspended two games by the NFL and was put in a very cozy diversion program that only money can by. His first practice got a rousing standing ovation from 22,000 fans. His fiance ended up marrying him,thus saving him from having her testifying against him.
   But then the complete tape was released and the shit has hit the fan,Roger Goodell,the commissioner of the NFL has been revealed to be a coward and an enabler. Ray Rice is shown to have an explosive temper and his wife is one of the most blind and clueless people I have seen in a LONG time.  She blamed the MEDIA for causing the fallout that led to Rice being cut and banned.
  Wow.....you barely missed being seriously injured when you got knocked out,got dragged out of the elevator and yet its the media fault? But maybe she does have a point....if the NFL had taken domestic violence more seriously and the owners been more proactive in writing contracts with clauses that would allow a club to cut a player who has been convicted of said crime maybe this could have been avoided and not become a media circus. You got players being suspended for four games for smoking a joint,first offense....and Rice only two games for almost taking his girl's head off. Goodell dropped the ball here plain and simple....watching the bubble heads at ESPN (owned by family friendly Disney) do the same is also bad. I wrote how ESPN Radio had a bumper for a show that asked the question "How will Ray Rice's suspension affect the Ravens offense?" Now all the bubbleheads there are condemning Rice and domestic violence and "demanding" he get punished.
What a bunch of immoral hypocrites,you should have been as outraged if not more so when Michael Vick got busted fighting dogs. No one stood up and said Rice should be suspended for the season,ESPN was looking FORWARD to his coming back for pity's sake!!!
   I will this,the Ravens surprised everyone by releasing him....its not that Rice is a fringe player or at the end of his career,he was a key and important player yet the Ravens saw something that Rice's wife fails to grasp...her life was more important then Rice's playing football for them.
  Domestic violence,or domestic terrorism as I call it,is insidious. Once a person,strikes another while in a relationship,its extremely rare it will end at the one slap,push,or punch.  Maybe the psychical violence MIGHT end but the mental abuse will not.
   Unless the abuser gets anger management classes or the person who is being abused leaves the relationship,more often then not the altercations will escalate.
  I asked my own mother why she never left her abusive second husband...he used to beat her so badly until I got older and was able to hold him off. The cops came so often that knew us kids by first name whenever they saw us around town.
  I asked my mother....its the same answer far too many women respond with...."I have no place to go" Women's shelters are already in short supply and shelters that can handle whole families that displaced due to abuse are even harder to find and get into...education,lack of a skill set,financial hardships often force the woman back into the same home where they were abused in and the cycle begins all over.
   Sadly,a lot women are forced to return and before they get a chance to explore a viable exit strategy,some are murdered by their abuser.

• Every 9 seconds in the US a woman is assaulted or beaten.

• Around the world, at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime. Most often, the abuser is a member of her own family.

• Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women—more than car accidents, muggings, and rapes combined.

• Studies suggest that up to 10 million children witness some form of domestic violence annually.

• Nearly 1 in 5 teenage girls who have been in a relationship said a boyfriend threatened violence or self-harm if presented with a breakup.

• Everyday in the US, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends.

• Ninety-two percent of women surveyed listed reducing domestic violence and sexual assault as their top concern.

• Domestic violence victims lose nearly 8 million days of paid work per year in the US alone—the equivalent of 32,000 full-time jobs.

• Based on reports from 10 countries, between 55 percent and 95 percent of women who had been physically abused by their partners had never contacted non-governmental organizations, shelters, or the police for help.

• The costs of intimate partner violence in the US alone exceed $5.8 billion per year: $4.1 billion are for direct medical and health care services, while productivity losses account for nearly $1.8 billion.

• Men who as children witnessed their parents’ domestic violence were twice as likely to abuse their own wives than sons of nonviolent parents.

Source: Domestic Violence Statistics.org

  The last statistic really surprised me....you would think a young boy would do everything in his power to never let that happen in his own life. Glad my brother and I never became that last statistic!

  My mother said she had nowhere to go and with a limited education,not many options either as her husband was the primary breadwinner. She could leave but she wouldn't leave us behind. And so lies the trap for many women.  The causes for abuse are many.....kids,economics,job loss,infielity,drug abuse,etc....who knows what sparked Rice's outburst,some say it was drinking,but I bet that was just the match that lit his fuse.  

  The fact is,his fiance chose to stay...will this happen again? I like to think Ray Rice will seek out anger management class and come to grips with this before anything else happens.

  

This is now a "rolling entry".....

I got to Crash sit this past weekend when Marlene (his mom) got to go to New York for a girl's weekend.  I always leave a diary whenever I cat sit for anyone,so they can see what their cat is up to. 

When Marlene and I talked,she mentioned she would leave a pad of paper and a pen for me. My sit was pretty short this time,only two days as Dylan was to handle the other two days.

  My first day was on Saturday and as I came in,Crash was in full Crash mode,meowing a mile a minute. I said hello back and went into the kitchen where I saw the pad and pen...and something else.

  Last year when Lori passed,I had asked if anyone could lend me a camera in order to film the service and our friends Amy and Michael stepped in and filmed it. A couple of weeks later I got the disc in the mail...and I happen to see Marlene that same day. I told her what I got and she offered to hold it for me until I was ready.
   Well as you can see,I got the disc but no,I haven't watched it as of this writing. I don't think I will share that when and if it happens....

I am so far behind in my writing


Guess I will post this,next entry I will try and catch up with my writing challenge.


Shout outs

Keith Smith- The Dallas Cowboys might have been watching the Carolina Panthers! Welcome to the NFL!!

Snowy - Wishing you a quick recovery!

Ivy - Thanks for being so supportive always

Jimmy - Can't wait to see what you cook up at the Rockbar

Fil - Thank you for bringing SoFA back,the pictures of the folks having a great time were priceless!

Cezanne - Only you could make Honey Boo Boo so much fun....