Freedom to annoy

One of the more memorable scenes from Team America: World Police was a montage of 'Merica...F___ Yeah! in which the song goes with stuff (in other countries) getting blown up.  Sure, it's a movie filled with a lot of terrible language but one of the messages of the movie, a mockery of thinking that we can blow up whatever it is we want to blow up whenever we want to, speaks to the feeling we have as America.  Our freedom means that others just need to shut up when they don't like what we do.  

I got to thinking about that tonight because we are in that time of the year when inevitably my daughter will come running into our room at night a few hours after we put her to bed.  Why?  Because some fool is out in the street shooting off fireworks, and it's all about FREEDOM (I can hear Mel Gibson screaming out as his nuts are chopped off as I write that).  We celebrate our freedom from the tea-tax bullies from Britain by blowing stuff up, sometimes our own hands.  

I used to be one of those people who had the 'Merica, F___ Yeah!' attitude about life.  We're free, we're Americans, and nobody is gonna tell us what we can and can't do, whether within our own borders or outside as well.  I used to be all about freedom: free markets, freedom for guns, freedom to live however we want to.  

But as I've gotten a bit older, and hopefully more mature, I've realized that in a country of 300 million people that my freedom has limitations.  I don't have the right to always do what I want to do.  The 299,999,999 other people who call this place home have an interest in my life, and I have an interest in theirs.  Thus maybe it's not such a great idea that we blow up fireworks outside of houses when people in those houses have to get up at 4:15am to go to work.  Sure, YOU may get your jollies by doing that, but it's not so pleasant being woken up by either the fireworks or by an already sleep-deprived daughter.  

So we recognize this.  The fireworks only last for a week.  We limit smoking inside buildings.  We stop selling high-capacity gun clips to people who are likely to go onto murderous rampages.  We don't allow people to scream 'FIRE!' in a crowded theater.  Somewhere along the way, we have a bit of common sense, limiting some of our freedom for the common good.  

Freedom ain't free, but it ain't unlimited, either.  

Minor League parks I've been to

As I was mowing in 95 degree heat I also got to thinking about some of the minor league parks I've been to over the years.  It's not as long and varied as the major league list, but there are still some good memories here, even if they are incomplete.  I don't remember any of the names of the ballparks but the teams I do.

Portland, Oregon (2002)
Eugene, Oregon (several times, 2000-2002)   This remains the only time in my life where I could not get a ticket for a game.  It was the 4th of July (fireworks!), it was completely sold out, and nobody had even a single ticket to sell.
Medford, Oregon (c.2000)  This team was, according to Wikipedia, the Southern Oregon Timberjacks.  Only thing I remember about this game was that it was the very worst baseball field I've ever seen.  It was worse than most high school ballparks.  No wonder they no longer have a team.
Arkansas Travelers, Little Rock (several times, 1990-1992)
Memphis Chicks (several times, 1993-1995).  They were AA at the time and in 1994 Michael Jordan and the Birmingham Barons came to town.  We sat out in the left field bleachers for $2 if I remember right.  Even from there I could see he would never make it...his bat was way too slow.  He did get a seeing-eye single that night, however.
Nashville Sounds (c.2009)
Oklahoma City 89ers (several times when I was a kid) and Redhawks (several times, current day).  The old 89ers used to play at a dump called All-Sports Stadium over by the fairgrounds.  When I was probably about 9 the Phillies, the parent team of the 89ers, came to town.  I remember Pete Rose playing a few innings.  I also remember another time when little leaguers were invited onto the field to field with the players.  I was shocked to notice that their uniforms had holes in them.  These were really pros?  

There have been others that I have forgotten about, but these are the ones that stand out at least vaguely in my mind.

Major League parks I've been to (updated)

Jonah Keri recently made a list of his favorite stadiums and I got to thinking about how I've been blessed to go to a lot of baseball games over the years on my journeys...mostly major league, but a few minor league games as well.  Part of the allure of baseball is the parks in which they play; every one is different.  Not all are created equal.  It's not just that the outfield dimensions are different, but that the feel is different.  Can you really say that about a basketball arena or a football stadium?

So here, with as little comment as possible, and in no particular order, are the major league baseball parks I've been to in order to see a game.  Many of them no longer exist.  Many of them have changed names many times thanks to corporate branding, so I don't always remember the names.  Many of them I visited when I was kid when my dad would have veterinary conferences in these cities.  Many others I visited in 1992 when on my two-month road trip to nowhere after college.  Mostly the years are approximate.

Note: after thinking about it for about an hour, I had to annotate the list just a bit...

Kauffman (nee Royals) Stadium, Kansas City (many times, c.1976-2012); it was a better stadium when it was just baseball and fountains.  Now it's too busy with all the videoboards and the stuff beyond the outfield walls.  
Petco Park, San Diego (2013); went to this just a few weeks ago.   From the outer upper concourse you can see the bridge where they filmed the scene in Anchorman where Jack Black throws off Ron Burgundy's dog.
Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles (1980); memorable for me because I saw the great J.R. Richard pitch against the Dodgers a few weeks before he had his massive stroke.  I still remember his greatness, even though I was only 9 at the time.
Anaheim Stadium (c.1983)
Oakland Alameda Colosseum (c.1986)
Safeco Field, Seattle (c.2001)
Arlington Stadium, Rangers (several times)
The newer stadium the Rangers play in (several times)
old Busch Stadium, St. Louis (1997); I saw Mark McGuire hit one of his 70 steroid-induced homers that night.  Even better, the Royals won the game.  :)
Atlanta Fulton-County Stadium (c.1977)
Shea Stadium, New York (2001); two weeks before 9/11, my friend Rob and I were watching the game against the Giants (I think this was the year Bonds hit 73, maybe not), and flying over the stadium at regular intervals were planes coming in or going out from LaGuardia airport.  I remember distinctly thinking how close these jets were and how easy it would be to crash a plane into the stadium.  It still gives me chills.  
Yankee Stadium, New York (c.1982)
Veterans Stadium, Philadelphia (1992)
Riverfront Stadium, Cincinnati (1992); I remember parking two spots away from where Marge Schott, the owner of the Reds, had her parking spot.  Her car seemed way too exposed.  
Tigers Stadium (1992); I remember a young Ken Griffey junior turning around to the people sitting in the center field bleachers and flipping them off.  
The old cavernous stadium the Indians played in, Cleveland (1992)
Comiskey Park, Chicago (c.1985)
Olympic Stadium, Montreal (1992); most massive and ugly concrete slab ever constructed.  
Camden Park, Baltimore (several times); probably the best stadium I've been to.  

It's not the greatest list in the world. A few stadiums that supposedly make the top of the must-see lists (Wrigley, Fenway) are not on it.  A few of them were dumps (old Tiger stadium comes particularly to mind).  But it's still not a bad list...19 different parks in all, and still half a life to go.

Another awful day

My heart aches on behalf of the victims in Oklahoma.  Once again, 14 years after an F5 killed 46 people, another horrible tornado has torn through Moore, Oklahoma.

I have lived elsewhere for most of my adult life and I was not born there, but I was raised in Oklahoma from the time I was a baby until I left for college.  Growing up I was used to tuning into the TV when the sirens went off.  I remember many times going into my sisters' closet to wait out the storm, hoping and praying that the tornado would not hit our house.  A tornado never got too close to our house, but I have friends who had tornadoes hit within a half mile.  I can remember my friend Cale (who, last I knew, lived in Moore) tell me about crawling in a bathtub with a mattress on top of him as he rode out one storm.  If you grew up in Oklahoma, you have a story. Twister might have been over-the-top but there's enough truth in it to make most Okies recognize what was going on.

I don't understand why these things happen.  I'm not just talking about a naturalistic explanation: Oklahoma has long been 'tornado alley' and there's just something about the way the topography meets the atmosphere that makes it where some places get nailed more often...I understand this.  I'm more concerned about this spiritually...the two extremes, that God causes everything to happen (and though is directly responsible for this suffering) or that God has left the future open, and chooses to not prevent such things (or even that he cannot prevent such things), are not really great options.  People of faith for thousands of years have asked these questions and have made some of the attempts at theodicy some of the most powerful expressions of faith.  But we really don't know.  Yet we have a Christ who takes all these things upon himself, and for that we can always be thankful.

One final thought:  I'm lucky nobody reads this and cringe to make this political...but something that will come up in the next few days is how we, as a nation, pitch in to rebuild Moore.  So, you would think that Oklahoma representatives and senators understand that as much help as Oklahoma often needs in things like this, they really don't have a clue.  Just a quick bit of fact-checking shows that three of the five members of Congress from Oklahoma voted against helping the hurricane rebuilding in New Jersey.  Both senators, the deplorable Tom Coburn and the even worse Jim Inhofe, voted against it.  We sure don't want to waste money on those northeastern liberals, of course.  I'm wondering how quickly the same people will be screaming for federal funds to help rebuild Moore, Shawnee, and whatever unfortunate places get blown away this year during tornado season.  Once again the lesson is this:  we must always hang in this all together.  We're Americans.  We help each other out...unless, of course, you are from the wrong party.

Bad, awful thoughts...

Over the last few days I've seen a commercial for an upcoming movie called The Purge.  It's not a movie I want to see at this point, since I see about 3 movies in theaters a year and never get caught up by DVD of other watchable movies.  I don't like horror movies, and this probably would turn into one.

But the story of this movie has piqued my interest.  In the quasi-dystopian future, life seems to be great.  Unemployment is almost non-existent, crime has just about been wiped out.  Society seems to be functioning well, but why?  For 12 hours each year, there is absolute freedom...there will be no consequences for crime, for murder, for anything that somebody might do, and society purges itself of its most heinous elements all in a brief period of time.  Kind of a cathartic, violent release.

I'm intrigued because, if I'm completely honest, sometimes the wicked side of me thinks, hey, this ain't a bad idea.  Wouldn't our world be all better if the child molesters, drug dealers, rapists, and murders basically had open season on each other?  Or go even further...what about the members of society who are, quite frankly, burdensome?  The aged, the sick, the morbidly obese.  Doesn't darwinism say that eventually the weakest of the species will die out, and isn't this what basically we have been preventing over the last hundred or so years of social safety nets?  We see it all the time, that there are some humans who are breeding who really shouldn't be allowed to breed.  We see it in hospitals in which the chronically sick are kept alive even as they soak up resources.  We wonder if society might better be served if we just shot the child molesters rather than letting them live out their lives behind bars.  Heck, just a little bit ago I saw at the grocery store a guy getting out of a car who must of weighed half a thousand.  How much does his existence negatively affect my life?

Part of me really does want to see this movie...but as usual I'd probably be disappointed because of the lack of answers that are given (IMDB seems to indicate that it's basically a very personal story with few outside elements).  I'd rather see the big picture...do people go through hospitals euthanizing patients?  Do prisons turn into slaughterhouses?  Do the most violent of our cities burn?  Is most of the year dedicated to getting prepared for the purge?  Is the fastest growing industry home defense?  Is this all just an NRA wet dream?

Of course, in some respects we already seek to purge society of its vilest elements.  We lock people away into prisons, mental institutions, and even nursing facilities, so we can forget about some whom we'd rather not think about.  We then broadcast their lives on cable TV and call it 'reality'.  We watch it and feel better about our good lives.

I'll be honest, there are only two things that keeps me from thinking that this wouldn't be a bad idea:
1)There's probably at least a few people out there who think that me (or my family or my other loved ones) ought to be purged.  Admittedly, I'd be an easy target.  I don't keep guns, and I'm nearly a pacifist.  Anybody who wanted to kill me would not find it that hard to do.  So maybe this ain't a good idea on a selfish level.

2)From a Christ-honoring perspective, in which we honor all, both weak and strong, this mindset is abhorrent.  It is faithful, Godly people who have helped lay the foundation of our society in which we don't kill the guilty straightaway and we take care of the weakest of our society.  Notice how most hospitals were started by Christians?  Perhaps our society has forsaken some of the religious structures but the mindset of honoring all people still (grudgingly) remains.  That's Christianity in action.

Indeed, I think that this is where grace comes in.  By grace we recognize that others have a right to life and liberty, not just the most powerful among us.  The Ayn Rands of our culture probably would love this movie concept unconditionally, because it is a way of life based solely on the selfishness we can maintain.  It might make sense for a year or two that a society does this...but to what end?  Ultimately it denies the absolute sanctity of life, and whatever short-term gains that others be purged will be quickly overcome by the long-term destruction of any culture that systematically purges the weakest among themselves.  Catharsis might feel good for a short time, but eventually it's like a drug...if once a year, why not once a month?  Once a week?  Why not just abolish all forms of civilization?  I'm sure some would love this, but only the strongest and most selfish will survive. Not sure I'd want to stay alive for that.

I suppose in the end our scared selfishness, combined with our innate Christian compassion, is the reason why the Purge likely will not happen in our culture, at least in my lifetime.  Someday this movie might seem to be accurately predictive, but hopefully it is as spot-on about the future as the Jetsons.