Little League World Series. Yuck

Don't misinterpret the title. I love watching little leaguers, especially the really good teams that make it to their World Series. I may well get in trouble for the following, because it is decidedly politically incorrect, but sometimes a rant just needs to come out.

As an American, I'm pretty sure I have the right to root for and against whoever I choose. This can range from politics to sporting events and for a myriad of reasons. I've long found blind partisanship absolutely moronic. Only an idiot would vote for a party instead of the individuals running for various offices.

In sports, I never was a Tiger Woods fan, and think Major League Baseball's treatment of Pete Rose is an on-going outrage. As is the likes of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens likely being denied their rightful place in the Hall of Fame over drug accusations that were never proven. Ozzie Smith is in the Hall but Allen Trammell is not? How the hell can that be? Number of titles notwithstanding, Lebron James is a FAR superior player than Michael Jordan ever was. Kobe Bryant was a ball hog. Ndamakong Suh was a goon. I'm sick and tired of Serena -- and Shaq's dopey commercials -- and that satellite TV outfit with their something-gone-wrong clones of sports stars -- and some twit selling insurance policies out of shoeboxes at what appears to be a sanitarium -- and ducks and lizards as spokespeople -- and pretty much anything that has to do with politically oriented talk shows. Left, right, what's the difference? They've all lost any shred of objectivity. The truth doesn't matter anymore. Only the ratings, while they continue to preach to their own choirs of narrow-minded zealots. Such blather changes the mind of absolutely NOBODY on either side. 40% are radicals left. 40% are radicals right. These people are useless. Lemmings. It is left to the 20% of independent unbiased people remaining to sort through the horse-bleep and determine the outcome of elections.

Which brings me to this year's Little League World Series. This is where it gets a little dicey. I don't like Japan. It has nothing to do with Pearl Harbor. That was over 70 years ago, long before I was born, and history tells us Japan ultimately paid a very steep price for that bushwhacking. Yet not long after their unconditional surrender, there were those in Japan that adopted a new philosophy. We can't beat the USA from without, but we will eventually defeat them from within. Consider what has come to pass over the decades.

When I was a kid, anything made in Japan was considered to be inferior. And it likely was. But times have changed. In recent decades the Japanese have run most of the American electronics companies out of business. Cameras, sound systems, TVs, etc? Good luck trying to buy an American brand. If you can even find it, chances are it's in name only. The "guts" of such devices are manufactured in Japan.

They take American ideas, miniaturize them, build them cheaper, and export them back to the USA.

Automobiles? Are you kidding? Japan slaps a huge tariff on American imports, but floods the west coast of the USA with their own models -- tariff free. They build plants in the USA but refuse to allow them to unionize -- hence much lower wages and benefits. Recently, both General Motors and Chrysler, once giants of the automobile industry, had to declare bankruptcy, and Ford was teetering. They were under siege from the land of the rising sun. On top of that, the Japanese have succeeded in convincing many Americans that their cars are superior to domestic products. Nevermind the Japanese air-bag company whose devices actually threw shrapnel when deployed, or the exploding tires a while back. Mostly due to slick marketing, they were defeating the Yanks from within indeed.

And then the final slap in the face. A Japanese team just defeated an American squad from Pennsylvania in the finals of the Little League World Series. Though the American boys put up 10 runs early, the little nippers from the far east came storming back to win 18-11. This, in Williamsport, home of the LLWS, which is in Pennsylvania itself. The home crowd was crushed. How can we be ahead 10-2 and wind up getting beat by these heathens from afar?

But such is the way it is these days. WWII is long over, but the Japs have been winning the battles ever since.

Excuse me, but I don't like it one bit.