Ahmadinejad, Shock Therapy, and a Patriotic Act.

It’s pronounced e-rahhn.

So the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had his opportunity to speak at Columbia University to the young people of this country. Controversy has followed his talk at university very loudly and isn’t going to get the volume turned down anytime soon when just today Ahmadinejad mentioned that he enjoyed the talk despite the insults from Columbia President Lee Bollinger.

I cannot help but wonder why so many people didn’t want Ahmadinejad to speak at Columbia. Let the man speak and trash him afterward. I don’t believe we’ve officially come to the conclusion that he sponsored terrorism, at least to my knowledge. I don’t like the guy and would love to see someone else at the head of Iran’s government, but he should get his opportunity to talk.

Now that he’s talked… he comes off as a master of conversation. Saying that Iran does not have homosexuals and later saying he meant that there weren’t as many as there are in America (yeah, right… what next, the Holocaust didn’t exist?).

In fact, he did say that. It sounds just as ridiculous as the last time he said it, but this time he made it sound better by putting a large red bow on it saying that we should continue researching time periods like that.

He also talked about Palestine a bit and some other things and even was applauded apparently, but we’re not going to hear about that from the media when we can just criticize him.

Shockingly Awful.

In the past two weeks there have two instances of the police being criticized for the use of tasers. Both cases, the one at the University of Florida and the other one in Ohio, both I believe were appropriate use of the taser. Both victims were not listening to the officer/officers and left them no choice. Although Heidi Gill (woman at the center of attention in the Ohio incident) was attempting to kick open the window inside the patrol car and such things and the student decided to yell when they had told him not to yell.

It’s not whether the taser was used at the right time or for the right reason in this case, it’s whether they over-used the taser and whether they should be used in the first place. Hopefully this issue gains momentum and we can do away with the taser, which should be considered cruel and unusual punishment, and try to find another non-lethal way of dealing with disorderly people.

Unconstitutional?

A judge in Oregon found two parts of the Patriot Act unconstitutional. It involves the whole surveillance and searching without a warrant thing, something the 4th amendment guarantees.

It’s going to be interesting to see what happens with that piece of news. Could it grow into something larger and cause the end of the Patriot Act? Or in this post 9/11 world lead to a new amendment of the constitution? Only time will tell.

Note: All news talked about in this blog was read on CNN.com

He Who Could Control The World.

Fox News Channel. Fox Broadcasting Company. Dow Jones. The Wall Street Journal. MySpace.

All of these things have one thing in common: they are owned by Rupert Murdoch. This troubles me because it’s so… un-democratic. Imagine this: you come home from a long day of school and work and you decide, if you have one, to check your MySpace. After that you check out the news in either the Wall Street Journal or on Fox News or their website. You then follow that up by watching a bit of American Idol before catching some of the Dodgers game (they used to be owned by him).

Oh, by the way if you happen to watch some of American Idol on DirecTV. Well, yeah, he kind of owns some of that too. Into entertainment like video games? Well, he’s planning to buy IGN as well. Oh and if you’re of Asian or Indian descent and like programming in your own language well then he owns StarTV as well. According to their own website, they have 300 million viewers.

There’s something just very wrong about one man being ingrained into almost every facet of media and entertainment. You know, just something about one man having such a far reaching and expanding audience. Don’t forget this is the same guy that heads Fox News Channel, the same channel often criticized for being too conservative in their news coverage.

Now is probably the time to use the power of diversity that Internet and television gives us. You don’t have to watch Fox News only. Try out CNN or MSNBC. Maybe go to BBC.com or try out news.yahoo.com once in a while. If you have a MySpace then play around with Facebook a little. Look into GameSpot.com and their affiliates TV.com, Mp3.com, and others instead of IGN. We have choices. In a time where one man can ingrain himself and most likely his thoughts through a multitude of different outlets it’s good to become a bit diverse in the services we use.

Those darn Patriots.

Those Patriots. Who do they think they are? How dare they come out after an emotional week for their coach and dismantle the most sexy SuperBowl pick this year! How dare they focus and use bulletin board material and come out ready to play. How dare they believe in their “cheating” coach.

No no, wait. How dare us. In the midst of the media absolutely smacking Belichick and the Patriots with the “cheater” tag and questioning their past success we kind of forgot who they were. They’re the New England Patriots. Winners of three SuperBowls. The team with arguably the best quarterback in the game and the best head coach in the game. The most consistent team on draft day for the past six years. The team who’s played amazing defense and has had late game rallies and Superbowl winning last second field goals.

Where did this “cheater” tag come from? If I recall correctly, stealing signals isn’t cheating. And it’s not the reason the Patriots and Belichick got in trouble. No, if people actually payed attention instead of jumping on the creme of the crop in the NFL(people tend to hate the best, the whole jealousy thing you know), they’d know that the Patriots got in trouble for breaking a rule. They used a camera on the sideline. Stealing signals is perfectly fine, more than half the teams in the NFL have done it and probably still do it. Now that the Patriots dismantled the Chargers and reminded us who they really are, I suggest we do what Belichick and the Patriots do best each week. Move on to the next game.

Around the NFL…

I’m sure the Saints are wondering why they didn’t attempt to get a premier defensive player in the draft. Maybe Robert Meachem can be converted to corner? If he can stay with the wide receivers on deep routes he’s already better than Fred Thomas.

Why is it that head coaches inherit teams that can’t excel at their speciality? For example, both Tony Dungy and Marvin Lewis are defensive coaches yet their defenses don’t particularly play that great. Scott Linehan is an offensive coach and the Rams can’t score. Why?

I have an odd feeling Donovan McNabb has little left in his tank and it saddens me. McNabb has stood up to adversity in Philly ever since the day he was drafted and now with the drafting of Kevin Kolb in addition to an 0 – 2 start worries me. McNabb does all he can with what he has and he carried Philly as much as he could tonight. He just wasn’t able to be the McNabb of old that did it with less.

The 49ers must be very happy they’ve started out 2 – 0, cause they’ve got Pittsburgh, Seattle, and Baltimore coming up. Ouch.

The Colts have crept by this week with all the attention on the Chargers and Patriots, but their defense was very solid led again by super player Bob Sanders. The Colts just found a way to get it done on the road in a close game.

Am I the only one that hopes Kitna’s 10 game guarantee comes true? The dude plays with so much heart it’s fun watching him play. Just 8 more victories in 14 games. They have a decent shot at it and they have Philly next.

I don’t know what to title these.

In Politics…

Over this past labor day weekend President Bush made a surprise trip to Iraq and met with their high ranking officials and took some high ranking officials of our government to talk about how it’s going in Iraq and to meet the troops and such things.

I can’t help but feel that this was one giant public relations stunt attempting to manipulate how I feel about the current administration. President Bush decided to take a secret flight, in the giant plane that is known as Air Force One, to Iraq to show us something. He showed us that progress is being made in Iraq. He’s showing us that he cared about the troops and he hinted that troops would be on their way home as well. He didn’t have to go all the way to Iraq to tell us this. Him going there however shows us, the American people, that hey look our President is taking a risk and going to Iraq and meeting troops and listening to his generals and hey… he’s even talking about bringing the troops back! Aww yeah!

I’m sorry, but I’m not really ready to be manipulated into liking President Bush yet. I mean he seems like a cool guy, I’d actually love to watch a Cowboys game with him! Sorry though Mr. President, maybe when the California Primary roll around in February. Though… I have got to give the man props for taking a risk… damn, I’m falling for it aren’t I?

Speaking of the Cowboys… time to move on to some NFL.

In the NFL…

Ok… so I was wrong about Simeon Rice. How am I supposed to know talks between him and Denver heated up all of a sudden? With the addition of Rice, hopefully Denver’s pass rush improves to decent.

Former New England Patriots WR Reche Caldwell is going to visit with the Jets… why does Mangini bring in so many former Patriots? HMM.

Where will Byron end up… so many possibilities… but I’d love to see him in Baltimore under Steve McNair.

In Technology…

If you’re planning on buying an iPod soon, don’t. Apple is expected to announce brand spanking new iPods on Sept. 5th. Rumors suggest a touch screen iPod to replace the current iPod video… which would basically make it an iPhone without the phone part… and a new iPod Nano. Exciting. But seriously, don’t buy a new iPod yet. Wait just a couple days. It’ll be worth it.

In Entertainment…

Shoot ‘Em Up with Clive Owen, Paul Giamatti, and super hot Monica Bellucci comes out this weekend and it looks like one of the better action movies of the summer… or at least what’s left of the summer. Now, I just wish I could figure out what JJ Abrams’ ‘Cloverfield’ is all about…

…the first one.

Welcome to my blog, In Creative Terms. I don’t exactly know what I’ll be talking about or well… writing about yet, but I suppose I’ll just write about subjects I care a lot for. One thing I’m definitely going to talk about a lot is the upcoming NFL season. Maybe share thoughts on as many games and goings ons I can in a week now that I have Sunday Ticket from DirecTV.

Once in a while I guess I’ll talk about movies, music, technology, and even video games if I have something I want to talk about.

For now though, I think I’ll talk about the NFL. Teams had to cut players recently and there quite a few players that were released that I didn’t expect. One is Donovin Darius. He was a star strong safety with the Jaguars and now he’s been cut by the Raiders. I’m not sure whether injuries or age caught up to him but it’s always a bit sad to see a once great player be reduced to almost nothing.

One surprising one was Aaron Glenn of the Cowboys. He played a lot of nickel corner for them last year and looked like he was going to start opposite of stud Terrence Newman, who happens to be one of the most underrated corners in the league I think, but he for some reason got cut. How couldn’t I mention Byron Leftwhich and how badly the Jaguars handled that situation? Instead of getting something for him in a trade in the offseason they waited till the last possible second to cut him and now will get nothing for it. Byron will find another team quickly though, he’s too good to go unsigned for too long.

Speaking of good players that have gone unsigned, I’d expect DE Simeon Rice to sign with the Rams within the week. He’s visited them quite a few times in the past two or so weeks and pre-season is over.

That’s all I have for now. I’ll attempt to post up some season predictions before the season opener on Thursday, but until then I’m sure whoever reads this has a NFL Fantasy Football draft they’ll have to research for.