Every generation thinks they have it figured out...

USA Today...Newspaper criticized for firing columnist...

Jim DeFede of the Miami Herald is the latest of newspaper journalists quickly punished for behavior that the newspaper considered questionable...

Palmeiro suspended 10 days for steroid policy violation...

And Rafael Palmeiro, the fourth man in baseball history, along with Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Eddie Murray, to get 3000 hits and 500 homers in a career, and 9th on the list of all-time home-run hitters in Major League baseball, at 569...

...and one of the most outspoken opponents of steroid use...

...is suspended 10 days after being tested for steroids...

It never fails to amaze me just how arrogant every generation is that it has finally figured out just the right balance of decency and harm they should provide for people in the name of doing good...

But rest assured...

Though this generation will be found wanting by my generation for its overreach...

My generation will get this balance right...

And though the children of those of my generation will find our efforts wanting...

Their children will finally figure it out...

And though their children will find their efforts wanting...

Their children will figure it out...

And so the cycle of arrogance and punishment and cover-up and denial continues...

Until interrupted...

By a genuine concern for doing good by people...and not trying to get people...and trying to cover our own asses...and being satisfied just looking like we are dealing with problems...rather than really dealing with problems...more concerned are too many of us...including the Miami Herald, Congress, and Major League Baseball in each of these situations...with the perception that we are doing good...rather than the reality...

With courage rather than cowardice...

Which both of these punishments are really about...

Love,
Ben

Singin' dem education blues...

Long night at work...

I was upset going into work, tonight...

I've grown really tired of having people take pot-shots at me and my education and my circumstances...and all kinds of bullshit...

I want so badly to live and work in environments where education and intelligence are taken seriously...

I talked over the situation with my lead, Fred, this morning, on the way taking him home...

Fred gave me good perspective...

Most of the guys at work are actually really appreciative of me and my education...

There are a couple that have really spoiled things for me, in some ways that have led me to feel kind of depressed about it for the last couple of days...

I think I'm just finally accepting that this is something that I will deal with for the rest of my life...

And it's depressing as all hell...

I'm hoping that if I deal with this stuff, right now...that I'll have it behind me and it won't really hit me as hard later on...

But it's been kind of hell the last 12 hours or so, dealing with it all...

And dreading having to work with one of my crew who is also a good friend who has been really nasty about this at some really vulnerable moments that I've shared with him...and my decision to just stop sharing myself so much with him, because he can never quite find it in his heart to be a friend...so obsessed is he, I think, trying to rationalize why the world is always supposed to work out...and how my haphazard journey through it just confirms for him what a loser I am...and how orderly the world really is, if I wouldn't keep upsetting the apple cart so much...

He's 21...he knows nothing about the world...so I cut him a lot of slack...he's still kind of a prick, much of the time...but I still cut him slack...I mean what else am I going to do, realistically...

But it's hurt in the meantime...

This is probably good practice for dealing with other young people...who can be equally as hurtful and worse, I'm sure...

But it's just kind of hard to deal with at the moment...and for the last 12 hours or so...

I do think that my lead, Fred, is right...that there has been some jealousy going on in some of these situations, recently...definitely crossed my mind more than once...but it still hurts...

And the thing that's really sucked has knowing that this is something that I deal with with almost everyone, at some level...though Fred has been an exception...he's just an exceptionally decent guy...not common at all, I'm afraid...

It's hard to get my head wrapped around...

I'm just not like that, really...

I really appreciate peoples' abilities...even if they far exceed my own...

When Brandi and I went to work for Bill Bradley's campaign up in Iowa...he had a poster that talked about his academic and athletic exploits (Bill was both a Rhodes Scholar...and he set NCAA Tournament records for points scored -- against my alma mater, Wichita State University, no less, in 1965...and he's won two NBA championship with the New York Knicks in 1970 and 1973...

Bill Bradley NBA History...

In Iowa...

Bill had posters that said something to the effect..."The guy you hated in high school":):):)...

But the thing is...

I didn't ever hate people like Bill Bradley in high school or anwhere, really...

I was always really impressed when people were good at something...especially atheletics...even though I wasn't that great at much of any sport in high school...

So it's been kind of a blow...post-graduate-school...

To find people be so goddamned petty...and jealous...and play all kinds of bullshit games around matters of education and intelligence...

And it's really worked itself on me, at this point...

So much so that I am beginning to wonder...

Is there ever a point where having so much education or being so intelligent -- even as I can see its impact and potential -- that it begins to be taken seriously in the places I work...where people don't waste all of their time and my time trying to defend against why it doesn't matter because it makes them feel bad...so they try to make me feel bad for having it instead...

Because I can't live my life feeling so caught between my own judgment and the often more narrow, petty, small-minded judgment of others all the time...

At some point...

I wouldn't mind spending at least some time with people who actually appreciate my contributions...

And don't spend all their time trying to rationalize for me and for themselves why being smart or decent or good or whatever just doesn't matter all that much...

It's more than wearisome for me, now...

It's really starting to drag me down...

People think that because I'm so smart...and seem so strong...

That it just doen't affect me like it does...

When the truth is that it really hurts me...

All of it...

So much of all of the bullshit that I've dealt with in the last two and half years out of school...

And some of it cuts me deep...

And it makes me wonder why I worked so hard in school all those years...

When so many people can only see it as yet one more opportunity to feel bad about themselves...

Rather than feel good for me...

And in the meantime...

Every day that my life looks like a failure to these same folks...

It just reinforces for them why being educated and being a decent person just really isn't worth their time, anyway...because look where it got me...

It's all kind of disgusting, really...

Makes you wonder why decent people do good at all, really...given how shitty they get treated, even at their best...

And today (and last night) I just don't know why, at this moment...I do it because it was what I was taught to do...and because some inexplicable faith leads me to keep being decent, despite all of the incentives otherwise...which are far too abundant to keep track of...and distort everything, really...for all of us...

I don't know...

I wish I had some hopeful aphorism to cap this all off and reassure everyone that things will always work out...

But this time in my life has challenged my faith in that principle more than any other period in my life...

And I just don't know...

I hope things work out...

But I just don't know...

I've got to sleep...

I'm exhausted...

Goodnight, everyone...

Love,
Ben