Every year the season starts with speculation on how much money the Yankees will spend to assemble a team that consists of nothing but Hall of Fame players of the future, and how much they will succeed.  The last decade has been rather rough for the Yankees after their last World Series victory in 2000.  They’ve been eliminated from the playoffs every year, and some years with great disappointment such as when they lead the Red Sox 3-0 in the series before losing the next four games and becoming the first team to accomplish the unwanted feat.  Last year, even with a payroll that eclipsed every other team in by more than an NFL salary cap, the Yankees failed to reach the post season.

Then there’s the storied history of Alex Rodriguez failing in the clutch.  A-Rod is the most talented player in baseball to have never won a World Series, and even more talented than most who have.  He signed the largest two MLB contracts ever and is by far the richest player in baseball on salary alone.  His season started off with a steroid scandal and a book that attacked his character.  Every season, A-Rod has been cast in the negative light about his private life or his failure to play up to his pay grade after the regular season.  This year all the skeletons came out of the closet, and then A-Rod went dark with hip surgery and the whirlwind of potential controversy on his steroid admission had nowhere to direct its media-fueled frenzy.

The rest of the season has been about A-Rod beating his demons, and then A-Rod leading the Yankees into the post season.

A-Rod, even with his injury recovery at the start of the season, racked up 100 RBIs and his first at bat of the season was a home run.  The rest of the season followed suit as the Yankees went from struggling to dominating with the addition of the best player in baseball back to the Yankee roster.

But even with his success in the season, many wondered if this would be yet another year of disappointment for the Yankees.  Those questions were put to rest with the ALCS, when A-Rod dismantled the Minnesota Twins and lead the Yankees to a sweep.  Then, game 2 of the ALDS against the Angels came around, bottom of the 11th inning, the Angels were leading the Yankees 3-2.  A-Rod had two strikes, and it seemed as if the Yankees best hitter, who had gone 0-4 so far in the game, would once again fail under pressure.  Then one loud thunder crack in the light rain sent the ball over the wall, tying the game and keeping the Yankees in it.

And the Yankees eventually won.  Without A-Rod’s heroics, the game that burned through both team’s bullpens would have ended in the Angels favor.  Now the Yankees are poised to take another big step toward their goal of winning another World Series, and with A-Rod finally performing as expected, they seem well on their way to accomplishing the goal.

“The Reader,” written by Berhard Schlink and translated by Carol Brown Jane, is not only beautifully written, but philosophically enticing. After a referral to check it out, I lucked out in finding an older copy at a local thrift store (for way cheaper than it’s worth).

From the first page, I couldn’t put it down until I finished it a few hours later.

The story focuses on a young man named Michael, who, at age 15, begins a relationship with a woman named Hanna. Hanna is about twice his age, but they continue to have this strange sexual relationship, which includes him reading to her preceding sex or after sex. Michael is in love with Hanna despite her abuse, and she disappears a few months after the relationship begins. It’s only at a trial for Holocaust war crimes that they see each other again.

I know, it’s sounds really girly…or erotic. The book was really neither of those. It actually focused on German guilt.

The story, taking place in 1958, follows Michael as he falls in love with someone who was a part of the Holocaust in a way that he had never imagined. “The Reader” shows the mind of the generation whose parents and family were responsible for the atrocities of Nazi Germany. It also concentrates on the concept of illiteracy in relation to the understanding of what happened during that time.

There’s some pretty heavy stuff in the book. It’s beautifully displayed through diction, and can, at times, sound like poetry. I was so moved by the book that I wanted to see it on the big screen. Considering my favorite actress, Kate Winslet, plays one of the starring roles, I was sure I wouldn’t be let down.

Part of me knew that the Hollywood version would most likely focus on the sexual part (big surprise!), which it totally did. Yes, their relationship was focused on sex in the film, but the book had a different way of describing it. It wasn’t vivid or raunchy as some of it appeared in the film.

The beautiful relationship portrayed in the book became a much more promiscuous ordeal in the film version. There is quite a bit of nudity in the film, too, so keep that in mind before you watch it with someone who may be uncomfortable with that.

In all, the film gave a narrow glimpse of the book’s main focus, and really purpose, in my opinion. If I hadn’t read the book, I may have enjoyed it more. Knowing that there’s much more to the story than what the film portrayed, it’s disheartening that some of the more philosophical aspects weren’t brought up as intelligently, if at all, as they were in Schlink’s book.

Those were the best days of your life, right? You were making all the best decisions. You probably regret nothing. Now, imagine that you’re Jasmine Bedwell, a 17-year-old living in Tampa, Fla.

According to the St. Petersburg Times, Bedwell’s life has gone something like this: She’s run away from home more than 21 times. When she was in the fifth grade, her mother had a boyfriend call the police on Bedwell claiming that she had gotten physically violent over doing chores. Jeff Rainey, president and CEO of Hillsborough Kids Inc. said that she was abused all of her life by her caretakers.

Bedwell, who is now 17, gave birth to a baby boy named Emanuel Murray. The child’s father is Emanuel Wesley Murray and he is currently in prison. She became involved with a 21-year-old named Richard McTear Jr. who, to make a long story very short, threw baby Emanuel out of his car on I-275 on May 5.

Bedwell pressed charges against McTear and he now faces the possibility of the death penalty. According to the St. Petersburg Times, he’s facing murder, kidnapping and aggravated child abuse charges.

If you’re like me, Bedwell’s life is nothing like your life when you were 17. Many of us can’t even imagine living in her shoes at this stage in our lives. I can’t imagine the pain and guilt she’s feeling.

As she deals with the tragic death of her child, news just broke that she’s thinking about setting out on a suing streak. Included would be her apartment complex, Hillsborough County Sherrif’s Office, the Department of Children & Families and Hillsborough Kids. All of which she would be claiming a “wrongful death” charge. Her reasoning is that since she’s a child herself, these agencies should have had her, basically, on a shorter leash.

In her mind, it’s not her fault that she didn’t stay away from McTear, even after she had a restraining order filed against him for abuse. The proper paperwork never went through so the restraining order was void.

This case has brought a whole new controversy. Apparently we don’t care about McTear anymore, now everyone is upset that Bedwell is being so irresponsible and not willing to take the blame, which is probably NOTHING like how any of us acted when we were 17 and did something wrong.

This story took the front page of the Tampa Bay Times, a publication of the St. Petersburg Times on Thursday. Published inside were the nasty comments of Hillsborough residents who are outraged. These were taken from Tampabay.com on Wednesday:

“Wow! What a piece of irresponsible garbage this woman is. Her sense of entitlement is staggering.”

“Poor me my baby’s dead but hey I just won the lawsuit lotto! I feel much better.”

Right, speaking of maturity!

I’m not sure what’s more incredible, the fact that these people will probably not be directly affected by this situation at all, regardless of the outcome, or their inability to understand that the loss of a loved one is an awfully difficult situation to deal with at any age.

I’m all about speaking your mind but, without sensitivity, it can return void.

Think back to when you were 17. If this was your life, what would you cling to?

Of course, this isn’t news to you. The headline’s been running nonstop since word first surfaced around 12:30 p.m. PST, yesterday, June 25, that Michael Jackson has left the building for the last time. But can you believe it? Has it sunk in yet?

I wasn’t even a twinkle in my father’s eye in the early ’80s when Jackson’s popularity skyrocketed into the ionosphere. (I know you were expecting stratosphere, but I find the term for the highest layer of our atmosphere to be the most fitting for this case.) But I became an immediate fan in 2000 at the age of 12 when my mom bought me my very first Jackson CD, “Thriller” (of course).

I think I was able to go a week before the repeat button on my boom box (wow, that makes me feel old) finally gave in and busted.

To say Jackson was unique is an understatement, and for anyone who knows anything about him would immediately agree (for the good, the bad or the ugly). For this reason, I don’t think there will ever be another musician, or person for that matter, to accumulate any level of fame that will even come close to reaching his status. Sure, there are and have been many greats to grace the entertainment world over the course of the past century, but how many can just about guarantee that every person on the face of this blue planet knows his or her name?

Answer: (a shocking) few to none.

The only person I can think of that rivals him is Elvis. (Notice how unnecessary it is for me to use a last name and you know exactly who I’m talking about.)

To this very day, Jackson still holds the world record for the highest grossing album ever. In total since its release date in 1982, “Thriller” has taken in more than $100 million. That’s more than double what the next albums in line – AC/DC’s “Back in Black” at $45 million, Meatloaf’s “Bat Out of Hell” at $43 million, and an Eagles greatest hits album at $42 million – have taken in over the years.

In my opinion, that’s some pretty serious stuff that equates to some pretty serious talent.

Of course we all know that Jackson wasn’t just famous for his robotic and moonwalking dance moves, unique voice talents or unmatched musical creativity; nope. Our interest in Jackson elevated with the first of probably the most nose jobs ever performed on a single person, not to mention the slow but sure change from black to white – and no I’m not talking about the song – of his skin color.

From there it was just a matter of rolling down a steep hill in a wheelbarrow that might as well have been full of those million plus records he sold, in solid gold.

Who could forget about Jackson vying to purchase the skeleton of one of the most disfigured men in history (certainly the most famous): The Elephant Man? And what about his fascination with exotic animals? His controversial marriage to Lisa Marie Presley? Or his sleepover with…Macaulay Culkin? Yeah. That last one pretty much sums it all up.

Everything changed for Jackson after a 13-year-old boy accused him of child molestation in 1993.

Despite the fact that the boy’s mother denied any wrongdoing on the part of Jackson, that several other people who had children spend time at his Neverland Ranch also denied the idea of Jackson as a pedophile, and that Jackson was never charged with the crime, the world’s opinion of him was forever changed.

Jackson’s health deteriorated substantially after that, even up to his death, not even 24 hours ago.

His story is one of many angles and theories, many trials and tribulations, many strange and common things. No matter what, however, Jackson will live on in the hearts and memories of all who have heard his name. He truly was, a king.

“There it is, Dad!” I almost screamed.

“That’s why they call this ‘America’s Roller Coast,’” he responded with a smile.

It’s true that my dad and I drove a solid 18 hours from our home in Clearwater, Florida, a more than 1,100-mile trip through seemingly endless cornfields, tired farm towns and broken roads to visit what is arguably the top-rated thrill park on the planet, but I had no idea how fitting the extreme version of our trip just getting there actually fit the thrill power of this attraction….

The park opened at 10 a.m., as it does for the majority of its operating season, which usually is May through November, depending on when winter decides to let up enough for the coasters to run safely. We were up and ready to go by 9 a.m.

The Best Budget Inn, one of many inexpensive hotels (about $40 a night during the summer) on Cleveland Road, the last main strip of lodging and restaurants before the park entrance, offered a simple continental breakfast that we gladly filled our stomachs with before heading out.

As soon as I stepped out of our room, I thanked myself for remembering to bring a jacket. It was a crisp 68 degrees that mid-July morning, but this was an “Ohio summer,” my dad made sure to point out. The high that day, as we made sure to check the weather on the little black box that was our television set in the room, was 75 degrees. This thought brought a huge cracking smile to my face. Back home, the high was surely in the mid-90s, one of those days if spent at a Florida theme park would have had the sweat pouring down the backs of your legs in buckets while standing in crowded lines waiting to see Dumbo. I couldn’t wait to call my friends to brag.

The quiet, empty roads of Sandusky at dusk had changed drastically overnight. Cars with license plates from every nearby state – Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Virginia, North Carolina – drove bumper-to-bumper on the narrow, two-lane stretch of asphalt between us and the park. It was then that I saw the giant sign, covered in Peanuts’ characters and bright colors, welcoming us to Cedar Point.

Only minutes later, the faint sound of hundreds of thrilled screams entered through our open windows and I noticed the coasters were starting run.

A reasonable $43.99 each bought us our admission, almost half of what most Florida theme parks charge for entry, and Cedar Point has double, in many cases triple the amount of roller coasters in comparison. In fact, Cedar Point lays hold to the world record for the theme park with the most roller coasters: a whopping 17 total, currently, according to the park’s Web site.

Not only does Cedar Point have the most roller coasters in the world, but it has the most thrilling collection of coasters. On a coaster thrill scale of 1 to 5, 1 being a “low thrill” and 5 being an “aggressive thrill,” 10 of the 17 coasters are rated 5, six are rated 4 (“high thrill”) and only one is rated 2 (“mild thrill”): the Jr. Gemini, a kiddie coaster.

After breaking through the turnstile at a running start, leaving my dad behind in the dust, the first sight to catch my eye wasn’t the group of giant-sized Peanuts’ characters walking around signing autographs, or the thick aroma of fresh funnel cakes being baked, or even the crashing sound of the nearest ride – Demon Drop – as it made its way down the track, eight screaming people harnessed inside its metal cage. Instead, it was the 420-foot, red and yellow steel coaster that stood a half mile away, an 18-passenger train just cresting the top, about to plummet a solid 400 feet into a 270 degree steely twist all the way down.

Built in 2003, Top Thrill Dragster is the second tallest and fastest roller coaster on Earth, only adding to Cedar Point’s record-setting reputation. The only coaster to top it is very similar in design with the same 180 degree ascent/descent; it’s just eight miles per hour faster and 36 feet taller, located at New Jersey’s Great Adventure theme park.

Not surprisingly, this was the first ride I wanted to experience.

Though the park had opened only 20 or so minutes before, my dad and I waited in line for two hours to ride the Top Thrill Dragster. This is where that 75 degree high came in handy, easing the wait time in line.

Finally, we were strapped into our “top fuel dragster” and staring ahead at the track before us, nervously awaiting the red light to change to green so we could be launched 120 miles per hour in approximately four seconds, or so one of the info signs in line had read.

My heart thudded in my ears and my hands began to sweat. I looked at my dad and cracked a nervous smile.

As soon as the light changed to green, we were shot up the track at a speed I’ve never before experienced in a vehicle so open. I could feel the skin on my cheeks pull back with the tugging force of the wind. My hair tie was ripped right out of my hair….

From green light to red, the ride was, at most, 15 seconds in length, but it was some of the most thrill 15 seconds of my life, well worth the two-hour wait time, especially for a first-timer like myself.

“Holy crap!” was all that came out of my mouth as I unglued myself from the seat and gave my dad a wild, wide-eyed look of pure excitement. I was actually still shaking.

“I told you this was a real thrill park,” he said.

Top Thrill Dragster was only the beginning.

We were able to get in four more coasters before lunch: Raptor, an inverted, dangling coaster; Blue Streak, a wooden scream machine and the park’s oldest coaster; Wicked Twister, the fastest double-twisting, impulse coaster in the world, and Corkscrew, the world’s first triple-looping coaster.

With about 21 rides left on our agenda (did I mention that Cedar Point has a total of 74 rides?), we had selected only the most thrilling of course, we decided to grab a fast bite and went to the Burger Patio for some char-grilled burgers and fries, priced decently at around $8 for a combo that comes with a medium-sized drink.

If we had more time, we could have eaten at any of the park’s nine sit-down restaurants, from a 50s style burger joint like Johnny Rocket’s to the Bay Harbor gourmet seafood restaurant.

Of my entire trip, I would have to say that ride number nine totally made it, and the best part was, I never expected it.

As we approached the queue line, I immediately saw the giant sign that read in a bold yellow and dark purple futuristic style lettering, “Millenium Force.” The name in print looked interesting enough, but the small board next to it with a clock-like symbol and a bright yellow arrow pointing out the “minimum” two-hour wait time, didn’t look so appealing.

“Ugh,” I sighed. “Is this ride even worth that?”

“I think you’ll be surprised, hon,” my dad said with a grin.

From the line, all I could see was a small section of track, which didn’t look very thrilling. No loops, drops or twists. It was just a little curve. I decided that my dad had been right so far about this place, so I shrugged my shoulders and we took our places at the end of the line.

“At least we have some good tunes to listen to while we wait,” my dad reminded me.

It was true. At Cedar Point, every queue line is equipped with several outdoor speakers that blast hits from all the decades, and in the line for Millennium Force, there was even a DJ who took requests. This made the time pass by a lot faster and I noticed many of the guests dancing and singing in line during the wait.

After the approximate two –hour wait, and a long though mildly entertaining adventure back and forth, up and down between the several hundreds of yards of queue line, we were strapped in tight to our ninth coaster of the day. It wasn’t until we began the 310-foot climb to the top that I had any idea what I was in for.

As soon as we crested the hill, or mountain rather, my heart felt like it sank into my stomach. The drop is almost 180 degrees and sends you flying at a max speed of 92 miles per hour on 6,595 feet of track through the middle of the park, which is mostly dense forest. This explained why I could barely see the coaster from the line.

The Millennium Force coaster at Cedar Point is, to this very day, my favorite roller coaster. It’s a combination of the length, the speed and that incredible initial drop that stick it to that place.

By this point, Dad and I still had 12 rides to go with not much daylight left. Truly, Cedar Point is a park that you’ll have to spend, at minimum, two days in to get the full experience. There are simply too many rides, too many shows, too many eateries and just plain too much to do at this mega park to spend a single day.

True theme park enthusiasts with a little extra pocket change to spare (rooms start at $250 and go up to $1,000 per night), would do well staying at the Sandcastle Suites Hotel or the Hotel Breakers, both located on the glittering shores of Lake Eerie and right on ‘America’s Roller Coast.’ Both resorts allows their guests entry to the park one hour before the general public is allowed admittance, the perfect time to jump-start a day at a place where there is so much to do.

Cedar Point also features Camper Village for those RV and trailer-toting guests.

Although Dad and I skipped all the “kiddie rides” that day on our extreme trip, it’s important to note that Cedar Point has a total of 29 rides, split between four different areas of the park (Camp Snoopy, Kiddy Kingdom, Planet Snoopy and Gemini Midway) specifically geared for children. So if you’re not exactly looking to experience the potential stomach-heaving power of Cedar Point’s 17 ultra-coasters and 16 other intense thrill rides, and you simply want to take the kids out for a less intense day of colorful carousel rides, balloon animals and cotton candy, then Cedar Point has you covered there, too.

It was 9:50 p.m. and Dad I were running through the sprawling green and red laser lights of the Snoopy Laser Light Show, a light and fireworks show that Cedar Point puts on every summer night, in order to cram in one last ride. The 17 mega-coasters that we got in that day just weren’t enough. We had to go and spend the extra $20 a pop on yet another extreme ride that only Cedar Point has to offer, called Skyscraper. Guests are allowed to pay and wait in line for this ride up until the park closes at 10 p.m. Rides are given until everyone who has paid and waited has been served.

This extreme thrill ride is like a giant propeller, with two massive, steely arms rotating clockwise or counterclockwise, which spun Dad and I 360 degrees, 16 stories in the air at speeds up to 55 miles per hour for a good two minutes. The rush of blood flooded back and forth from my head to my feet as we were slung back and forth, over and over again, but I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. The only disappointment on this ride was that I lost a dollar or so in quarters on one of the flips. Oh well. It was well worth the rush and a most excellent way to end our extreme day.

Truly, if you’re looking for a place that offers some of the best thrills this planet can muster, well, you’ve come to the right place if it’s Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. Don’t let the miles of cornfields, old dusty back roads or tired towns throw you off. Amidst all of that is a place screaming – literally – to satisfy your every vacation and entertainment need, so much so that Dad and I have been back every summer since.

“The Crow,” directed by visionary Alex Proyas, is set in the slums of an unnamed inner city where the sirens of police cars feel incessant and the flashing of red and blue lights is commonplace. Various gangs bully the city’s inhabitants for greed and mere amusement. Homeless people litter the streets and police patrol in fear. Children desperately search for food while their parents spend what little money they have on drugs such as cocaine and morphine.

This film is strewn with blatant depictions of big time social issues, including poverty, gang violence, homelessness, child abuse/neglect and drug addiction.

Basically, this fictional city creates a good illustration of the domino-like effect that a fierce concoction of social ills can have on a group of people. The widespread poverty represented, which is a serious issue that main characters Eric and Shelly had just begun to overcome before their deaths, was caused by an absence of jobs.

This poverty comes from a lack of financial stability. With this comes the inability to afford rent or mortgage, which explains the high amount of homeless people living on the streets, including main character Sarah (Rochelle Davis), a young girl who is forced to call the streets home when her caretakers Shelly and Eric are killed.

Poverty, again, and probably the biggest social issue confronted in this film, can also lead to drug abuse, gang participation and violence. The brutal murder of Eric and Shelly was but one of hundreds committed by the infamous “Motor City Gang,” a team of individuals who have turned to violence in order to fulfill greedy desires and accomplish dastardly criminal goals, all while taking advantage of the decrepit condition of the city.

Something else quite commonly depicted in the film is drug addiction, which can result in child abuse or neglect. An example of which is exhibited by Darla (Anna Levine) toward daughter Sarah. While Darla is constantly obsessed with finding her next drug fix, Sarah is thrown to the way side and must provide for her own basic survival needs herself, such as food and shelter. Darla is simply too busy with the job of getting her drugs, which is demonstrated in one scene as the selling her body for two morphine injections, to worry about her daughter’s life.

Certainly, the hero and main character Eric epitomizes the voice of reason and demonstrates possible solutions to many of the issues brought up in the film. For example, while hunting for one of the Motor City Gang members, Eric finds Darla and tells her, “Morphine is bad for you. Your daughter is out on the streets waiting for you.” He says this while he clenches her arm and causes the drugs to pour out of her body from the injection wounds using one of the abilities he gained by becoming immortal. Of course the solution to the issues of drug abuse and child neglect in the statement made by Eric here, is to simply cease the drug use and concentrate on the wellbeing of your child.

As a solution to the murder issue, Eric gets revenge by killing all the members of the Motor City Gang. To me this is a statement saying murderous violence is wrong and should be stopped; plain and simple. In the real world where we don’t have the ability to crawl out of our graves and become immortal beings with strange powers so that we can avenge the wrongful death(s) of those we loved, I think a more realistic comparison to the solution presented here is capital punishment or life in prison for those who committed the crime(s).

Another character who demonstrates a possible solution to one of the social issues shown is Sarah. In order to carry on her obviously difficult and otherwise rough life, Sarah concentrates on what good there is around her, making friends with people outside the poverty circle such as police officer Albrecht. Sarah is also shown not to partake in any of the crime that characterizes her home, such as drug use and violence. Sarah is a well-rounded child who uses her intelligence and street smarts to her advantage in order to better her chances of survival. To me, this says a possible solution to such social ills as poverty is to keep your chin up and think about the possibility of a brighter future. Be as strong as you can and use common sense to your advantage.

Not surprisingly, some of the “solutions” in the film to many of the social problems raise question. With regard to Eric’s character pointing out that Darla simply give up her drug addiction and take care of her daughter, this task will certainly not be that easy. Morphine is one of the most addictive substances a person can abuse, and turning around a life that years have been spent away in neglect of a child will be more than difficult to amend.

Concerning my implied solution of social justice by capital punishment or the death penalty to such social problems as murder and unwarranted violence presents the issue of controversy. Many people feel as if capital punishment or the killing of criminals is wrong, no matter what their crime(s). So here, the way in which this problem should be dealt with is an ongoing social debate and raises question regarding this “solution.”

As for Sarah’s solution to the problem of being the victim of child neglect and poverty, again, the solution is not as simple as it appears; at least not in real life. A life like Sarah’s is no cake walk, and living it usually leads to others problems such as a tendency for violence and crime, as the members of the Motor City Gang in the film could be examples. It is unrealistic to expect children, or anyone for that matter, living in conditions such as these to simply hope for something good to happen to them and rely on that to get them through each day.

Some other social problems that are easily linked with some of the ones mentioned here are gun violence, suicide and prostitution. I point out gun violence because gangs like the Motor City Gang are infamously known for using weapons such as guns for their operations, as drive-by shootings within many cities nationwide are not uncommon.

An example of suicide was not included in the film, however suicide is many times linked with such issues as poverty, financial instability (as a result of poverty), and abuse, and is certainly a serious issue that afflicts our society now.

Finally prostitution, another issue not depicted in the film, but definitely a problem often initiated by poor home conditions and abuse.

Although “The Crow” is a fictionalized story, many, if not all of its depictions of various social ills are extremely realistic and true. In watching the film, it’s easy to simply view it as just some writer or director’s vision of a man granted immortality to seek revenge on a bunch of scummy, low life men who killed him and his girlfriend in a bloody mess a year before. If you take away the pure entertainment quality of the film you can really see that so much of what is shown is actually happening in our society today, and probably the real life occurrence of much of the inspiration came directly from observation of cities in our nation. Truly the feeling is scary that something that seems so unrealistic at first, is really not just much makeup and special effects but what’s really out there on our streets, in our homes and all around us.

Overall, excellent, excellent film.

It was an amazing thing to watch.

Then someone let the dogs out and Michael Vick’s life turned upside down and his reputation and legacy were decimated in the public eye, while PETA got out its rain sticks and danced on his persona’s grave.

As many know, Vick and friends were accused and proven guilty of running a dog fighting ring, made all the worse through the media’s tendency to create a public execution, and in high definition, color corrected, memory searing detail.  Vick went to jail for a bad decision.

Not to justify what he did, but with how often things like this happen all across the world and no one cared at all in the past, Vick got thrown under a bus simply because he was famous.  And everyone loves Fido.

Fast forward to 2009.

Donte Stallworth is another one of our fun loving NFL players that makes bad decisions.  Dante Stallworth decided, as reported here, he was to get a little tipsy, have some fun behind the wheel and ended up flat-lining another human being.  He was guilty of a DUI, vehicular manslaughter and was looking at a four to 15-year sentence.

Stallworth was sentenced to 30 days.

How does this seem like justice?  I understand that athletes routinely get off the hook for things, some trivial, while others just make you blink and think to yourself, What the hell was the judge thinking?  How does a person, athlete or Joe Blow get off with 30 days punishment for killing another human being while Michael Vick gets his life thrown into the shredder and stuck in prison?

Let’s try to put this into context.

People reported Keifer Sutherland, our superman Jack Bauer from “24,” was arrested for a DUI, too.  He went to jail for 48 days.  Sutherland didn’t even kill anyone.  It’s a terrible situation when Sutherland is punished more than Stallworth, when Sutherland did essentially the same thing by apologizing and admitting his stupid error. Florida is even supposed to be a state where DUIs are punished more severely.  In many ways, Stallworth got a slap on the wrist.

But here’s the worst part.  Stallworth will get out of this with less reputation damage than Vick or Sutherland. And here’s the reason why.

No furry little rodent or man’s best friend was injured in the commission of this crime.  PETA is more focused on earning Lassie’s voting rights than drunk driving.  Green Peace is still trying to find a way to create gender specific trees to hug.  MADD should be all over this, but as it’s proven in the past, it’s just composed of an ignorant bunch of people living in an isolated bubble from the rest of society.

What kind of shape is our society in when Rover gets more respect than Rodney Dangerfield?

Arguably, the most important aspect of the film is the silence, and/or lack of dialogue throughout most of the production (only 40 minutes total in a film that is almost three hours long in total). Kubrick used this to convey the importance of the viewer’s interpretation of what was taking place scene by scene. In this way, the film truly was designed to be a “thinker.” An example of this could be the first two and a half minutes of the film, filled (yes, completely) with total blackness and the sound of strange echoing moans, screams, wails or otherwise unknown noises. Literally, the screen goes completely black and a sort of suspenseful music plays for almost three whole minutes. The viewer could interpret this in many ways. One could be that this is the blackness before the boom or the idea of nothingness before life in relation to the big bang theory. Another interpretation (after finishing the film) could tie into the intelligent life aspect and that the blackness was the intelligent life about to birth new life. Countless other opinions are also possible, and perhaps that is what Kubrick was trying to convey; that in relation to the sheer unintelligible size of the universe – considering man’s small part in it all – infinite possibilities are, well, possible.

Essentially, the film covered life, all of it, from a hazy start (the blackness) to a very uncertain and strange end (the swirling vortex of colors and sound). It told the story of intelligent life breeding our way of life; however, the film focused mainly on the aspect that human life is nothing without its originator, which seemed to be some ultra-intelligent alien creature that came in the form of a giant monolith. And although the film followed the story of life according to the Big Bang theory (for the most part), tracing the birth of human existence from nothingness to ape-hood to astronaut status, the whole time the feeling of how small and meaningless the existence of human life was in comparison to the bigger picture; the universe and the ultra-intelligent, god-like alien creatures.

The film is incredibly profound to say the least; not only in its depiction and story of the origin of life, but from a production standpoint, taking into consideration the time period in which it was filmed.

Anyone who watches even a second or two of the trailer for “2001″ can see the painstaking time it took to achieve the detail imagined. This is specifically where the film influenced so much else in terms of media for the future following its release. The detail of space, the transition of the stars in correlation with the speed of the spacecrafts…it’s all there in almost perfect scientific accuracy. (Keep in mind that we hadn’t even visited the Moon yet when this film was in production.)

A movie suggests popular culture, while cinema suggests art and culture. Film – certainly in the case of Kubrick’s 2001 – encompasses all. Almost undeniably, Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” will continue to influence other forms of media for many years to come. It’s the simple fact that the film goes well beyond its time in portraying The Final Frontier, possible explanations for the origin of life and the meaning of life, where the human race will go in the future and why, how technology, one of the biggest aspects of human existence in the civilized worlds today, influences our lives and where it will take us, and simply further provoking of the primeval question of humanity, “Why?” Simply, an excellent film well deserving of its place on the AFI’s top 100 list.