Monday, July 2, 2007

Hit Me With Your Best Shot

“If you don’t have the guts to discuss it on the street then you shouldn’t write it online.”
– Javier, Bronx Philosopher

I once wrote that those were words to blog by. They are also words to comment by.

Blogs can be interesting, useful and entertaining. They can also be dumping grounds for angry, profanity-laced, racist tirades by those who choose to remain anonymous.

I’m not sure exactly what I wanted this blog to be initially, but I certainly never envisioned it as an open forum for those people to spew hate and bring nothing to the conversation.

I realize that I’m an easy target.

I believe in a free, open, just society that starts with quality healthcare, housing, education, transportation and nutrition for everyone. I believe in social and economic justice. I believe that everyone should have the right to marry. I believe that killing is wrong. I believe that no human being is illegal. I believe that Barry Bonds is treated unfairly. I believe Gary Sheffield is correct. I believe Jason Giambi is being singled out by people who have corrupted this game. I believe that teaching kids to play baseball should be a priority.

I believe in the New York that has always been my home. I believe in Syracuse and Buffalo and Watertown and Albany and Binghamton. I believe in the Bronx and Queens and Manhattan and Brooklyn and Staten Island. I believe in Highbridge and Washington Heights and Harlem and every other neighborhood that makes up this great city of immigrants.

I believe that together we can change this city and this state and this country and the whole world, too.

Some call me a communist dreamer and others a bleeding-heart liberal. I decided a long time ago that I don’t really care what anyone calls me.

I talk about my beliefs on the Grand Concourse and Broadway and at Yankee Stadium and on the 2 train and on this blog, which has open comments and a listed email. So if you have something to say: Hit me with your best shot, but leave Derek Jeter out of it because he has accomplished more than the rest of us combined.

4 comments:

albertsonmets said...

So if you have something to say: Hit me with your best shot, but leave Derek Jeter out of it because he has accomplished more than the rest of us combined.


My first question to you was going to be: How do you know this? Then I reflected and realized that I'm probably, ironically, your only reader. So I'll concede your point that Derek Jeter has likely accomplished more than the two of us put together, certainly in the areas of fame and accumulated personal wealth. Which is why I find it so odd that you deify him as you do. So let me ask:
When the day comes that you and your like-minded brethren seize control of this country, will you spare Captain Intangibles and your sainted first baseman Jason Gandhi from the confiscatory tax policies you'll level on all the dirty millionaires so that you may pay for your social programs?

Henry said...

Albertsonmets is one tough dude. At least we know one of the 20-something percent that still support George W. Bush.

Todd Drew said...

Albertsonmets,
No.

Todd Drew said...

Albertsonmets,
This blog was started to debate some of the issues my friends and co-workers liked to talk about. We have a good time with it around the neighborhood. If you don’t like it why don’t you just stay away?

We all thought this baseball blogging deal might be fun because baseball is fun. We just didn’t count on the likes of you.