Brian Stow in a World of Stiegerwaldisms

Ranting to family and friends is one thing.

Ranting to the world is another. Recently amidst the buzz of political push and pull, budget head and conservative Paul Ryan, Tweedle Dee’d in a speech about poor people.

The Governor said the budget cuts are meant “to ensure that America’s safety net does not become a hammock that lulls able-bodied citizens (the poor) into lives of complacency and dependency.”

Really Mr. Ryan,  a hammock? Last I checked the lower income elderly might need an occasional doctors visit. Or children under five in the inner-city just might benefit from the language programs of First Five.

Hammock? Wrap it in a bit of Christmas tinsel while you’re at it. It is not as if life might be difficult living on a food stamp allotment of 4.46$ daily, per individual.

I mean come on; the food stamp bar needs to be set lower. The cut off of $23,800 a year per family is far too high. We all know under two thousand a month for a family of four is a plush kingdom of high-end fortitude.

Gas is nearly 5 bucks a gallon.

A Happy Meal at McDonald’s is nearing six. Where is this figural Hammock?

Like Ryan, another heartless individual recently Tweedle Dum’d himself to fame. Ron Stiegerwald, a contributor for the Observor-Reporter.com, blamed the victim who was nearly beaten to death at Dodgers Stadium by two riled hooligans.

The basis for his argument: the man wears t-shirts and he thinks the Giants are neat.

His name is Brian Stow, a forty two year father of two from Santa Cruz. As of now Stow is still battling for his life in a Los Angeles hospital. Suffering severe brain damage, Stow has had portions of his skull removed to relieve the pressure from his brain.

To think the paramedic’s life is in danger because he roots for the Giants is surreal. But what is more surreal is that Ron Stiegerwald exists.

Atheists now have another reason to doubt the existence of God. If there was one, Stiegerwald would have been born without hands or a tongue and with a tattoo across his forehead reading: I am a crypt/I am in a gang/ I love the Giants / I hate Dodger fans.

But life isn’t fair.

For Brian Stow life has spiraled into the fringes of death, with his two children lilting like a row-boat in a sea of pain, and his wife wondering what side of fate her family will fall into.

You see, life will never be the same for the Stow family. If Brian pulls through, he’ll have to deal with the tedious monsters of learning memorization and compartmentalization all over again, and within a mightily defective brain. His wife will lose her intimate partner, as Brian battles with not only the physical part, but the psychological mess of things like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

PTSD and other psycho-social disorders lend themselves to biological imbalances, affecting things like relational and sexual intimacy. Anger stems from the inability to relate to others around you, and PTSD sufferers can find themselves with feelings of intense depression. In turn this creates the need to isolate and hide.

For Stow’s children, another form of abandonment can take place. The abandonment of having a father who is “there,” but “not there,” makes children feel unlovable. These feelings of being unlovable not only push children away from their parents, but foster various insecurities inducing addictions to alcohol, drugs, sex, spending, gambling, and many other fascinations.

Getting too real? I hope so.

And now we have to deal with verbal-garbage from a man whose need for popularity has driven him to a serious literary low. Congratulations Ron, you are now the Lindsey Lohan of sports writing.

I am sure Mr. Stiegerwald is willing to tell both of Stow’s children the reason for their father’s suffering. “Kids, he wore a Giants t-shirt and never should have done that.”

When was Baseball a sport governed by the gang banging world? To most of these backward types, a hat, jersey, or jacket is just about the look. Move to the bay area for a day and you will see plenty of kids rocking a Reds hat to match the red sneakers beneath a sagging, oversized pair of jeans.

Is it not Giants country? You would think. But this is not true anymore. In fact, this was never true. Baseball’s conception was at a grassroots level that promoted the middle-class worker. Our great pass-time has always been the crutch in which our fragmented culture leans upon.

Take World War Two for example. Most of our male professionals left the sport to take part in the war, and despite the lack of top notch talent, Americans still craved one thing: baseball. Baseball has always had that ability to pass the time, as three hours go by, hooting and hollering, eating, drinking, and everything else family and friends treasure during economical lows.

Why? This country is concocted by older cultures who valued the family more than anything. This is the reason the gangster era in the thirties and forties took off as it did. We hit the great depression, and the Italians, Mexicans, and Russians, through strong family bonds, built mini kingdoms within the greater kingdom.

Mr. Stiegerwald is badly misinformed believing every fan who wears a t-shirt, jacket, hat, do-rag, wrist band, and head band, to be some immature individual seeking out attention like a fifth grader. In fact I would argue the reason more people wear memorabilia today is because more of it is assessable to the average fan.

Is this the next phase of interrogation? The individuals who dress in anything less than Dockers, tucked in shirts, and tyes?

Even my tough-as-nails red neck father admits he’d adorn a Mickey Mantle jersey. Faulting an innocent person like Brian Stow for a senseless and heartless crime because he wears sports apparel, is similar to blaming the Jews for the Holocaust because they wore bircas.

When will we hold men and women accountable for their horrendous acts, instead of justifying it with some vapid fat tongued Stiegerwaldism?

Soon I hope; soon for the sake of Brian Stow, and the edict necessary to reshape our culture’s morally off-kilt sense of things.

Trackbacks

1. The 5 Most Obnoxious Fan Bases in California - Fansmanship says:

   01/20/2013 at 12:15 pm

   […] it is okay to walk away. My wife’s boss for instance: a longtime Dodgers fan, who after the brutal attack on Brian Stow, turned to the Giants as his new team of […]