The Mavs, other Dallas Sports, other thoughts with prelude thoughts towards the disaster scenarios

First of all the damn wine is out. The family had a good dinner and the better half and I opened a bottle of wine. Now it is gone. It is nice to share good food and a good bottle of wine, even if it is table wine. We have found a winery/brand of table wines both for red and white that we both like very well. Told the better half if we ever tour California wine country we need to make sure we drop by this vineyard. For now though the bottle is empty and it is time to go to bed for work Monday.

Got a text from a friend this evening I haven’t spoken to in a bit. Second time this week caught up with sports opinions from someone I haven’t heard from in a while. Always great to catch up. And with any major metropolis in the US there are tons of sports to talk about for the local teams.

The Mavs ticked me off this evening and in general lately. And this got me to thinking. There really isn’t a problem with the Mavs that consistency can solve. The real problem is they need time to gel and there are way too many free agent problems coming into play this summer for this consistency to happen. I hate it when the national press is right, but I am seeing some articles coming out from various sources that are correct. Cuban has hamstrung the Mavericks. They don’t have a team, too many changes from year to year and sooner or later this catches up to a team. What is unfortunate is the Mavericks have a great team right now. What they need is time. If the current team could play together for a year or two they definitely could win a championship. There is a host of great players and great role players that is needed to win a championship. You just can’t expect them to come together all of a sudden and it work out. I was hoping that would be the case, but the more I examine it the more I have to agree with the national press about being together is very important for this team. Can Cuban resign everybody and Dirk still play to the level he has played this year? If so, next year would be great, I think they will do well in the playoffs, but to win a championship would take too much luck; not because of the lack of talent, but because of the lack of cohesiveness.

I really like this team. As a Mavericks fan, my goodness this is great. Just think about the names on this team, and then think about the potential. There is no other team in the West that has this much ability. What is killing them is it was put together too late in the season. Give them the year and the motivation and wow. So let’s see. This could be one of those teams that history says “the team that could have been”. Just so damn frustrating to see this happen especially if they cannot come back together next year. Cuban has to sooner or later commit to developing a team or we will never see another championship. I definitely would like to see this team, as it stands, play well these playoffs, but also come back next year. This includes who we have in Dirk, Parsons, etc, but resign Ellis, Rondo, Chandler, and Amare’ and the rest of the bench. We still need: Jefferson, Charlie, Harris Aminu, etc. to round out our starters. There is so much possibility on this team it is frightening. Can we do it now, or can we pull it back next year and really do it? As a fan I am dying for the potential.

So Darvish is out. I like what Holland says that don’t count us out. There is still the rest of the team and they want to play. I am still focused on the Mavericks, but baseball is around the corner. Hopefully some of my friends and I can get out to the ballpark and enjoy a game or two. Too bad most of the people I know now are quite different from the mindset of crazies I grew up with, it makes it hard to have non-sports conversations. Too early to talk about the Cowboys. I still am having emotional issues being a fan of that team. And even though I am not a hockey fan, got to give some kudos to the Stars for fighting hard here at the end of the year. Let’s hope they can fight through and make the playoffs. I am such a homer I did stay up and watch the Stars win their Stanley cup what is now more than a few years ago and it was one hell of a late night that last game.

So after eating dinner, watching the Mavs lose, and talking to my friend I took the dogs out for their late night walk and started thinking. And I always hate when you have that train of thought that is far from a computer, typewriter, or even piece of paper and you have some good ideas and nowhere to write them down. It seems that is the case this evening. I was thinking about my promised post about the Middle East disaster scenario and had some good ideas, but by the time I got back the thought process was long gone.
I do know that a theme I constantly harp on in my thoughts and one I mention regularly is that we need better education. And this goes for around the planet also. Trying to tie that together for now that the Middle East is ripe with the problem of ignorance and poverty is difficult. This tied together with the manipulation of religious leaders over these same people suffering from this poverty and ignorance is why we have so many of the problems we have today. Islam is not the problem. The problem is God has been lost from Islam.

I know many atheists and agnostics feel they are more in Chic than being a Christian or believing in God. I am a believer and have stated this before that education will eventually prove God. Or at least awaken people to the realization we were created, that nothing about life is a fluke. And yes I know that people who profess to be agnostic or atheist will laugh, but I ask you to study how life came about and tell me this is all a fluke. And I also ask you to put aside this argument for now and realize that we who believe are struggling with another group who say they believe in one God going so far astray. It is not easy to watch a religion who states they believe in the same God you do, completely and utterly disavow our God in their actions.

And this goes for all levels of Islam, the terrorists to the so called moderates. I will work to write about this in more detail hopefully someday soon, but I cannot let a day go by any more without stating how much we are affected by their ignorance and by the people manipulating them.

The overall people of the Middle East have been lied to over the centuries by people who want to control them for their own benefit. This has been discussed by many Western writers, but until we come together in the Christian and Judean world we will have to live with this insanity. Islam is a religion that purports to believe in the same God as we do, but none of their actions over many centuries shows this to be true. If God is love and God has a purpose for us, then we should be able to come together. If you want to manipulate others to gain something for yourself then you have lost touch with God. And the development of wealth from oil over the last century has only exacerbated this problem.

This is why what is going on in the Middle East is the most realistic scenario for a doomsday on planet Earth.

Well it is getting late and there is much more to discuss about this situation. I will say this, if you do not believe that education is one of the most important issues facing this planet then you are a fool or complacent to the destruction of humanity on this planet. I really believe and cannot stress enough that until we make education at many levels the top priority for man, then mankind as we know it, will be an archeological study for some other people in the future. And for all the so called religious people who think short sighted (creationists) this does not go against God. God created life, if we fail, God will move on. We need God to move on, not vice versa.

These aren’t the most popular ways at looking at religion, but well truth is: none of us truly know God. We can say we read the Bible, but St Augustine said it best (this is paraphrased) as part of creation we cannot project our knowledge of creation onto creation. And my rendition: we are here, not because of what we believe, but because of why we were created. Frankly we just don’t know everything and for us to say something in the absolute, we are speaking foolishly. And yes to you believers and non-believers this does mean education is important. The more you question, the more you realize how little we know.

And this why I feel what is going on in the Middle East is so scary. The answer is easy, we need to find ways to overcome people using God to manipulate the ignorant and those in poverty. Actually finding the ways to accomplish this is maddeningly difficult.

And for all you complacent agnostics in the West, this problem is building here too.