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Some positives along with humbug

By MICHAEL BOYLAN

Originally I was going to fill this column with the Humbug Awards. It was going to be my venting on a matter of subjects but I have calmed down. I was having a bad day and now, looking back, I am no longer as annoyed by these things. At least, not all of them.

Someone once suggested that instead of saying something mean, try saying something positive instead. I’ve decided that for every negative I’ll mention in this column, I’ll mention something positive.

First off, I was a little annoyed with cheerleading at high school basketball games, but since I wrote the column that will not be seen I have attended two more evenings of high school basketball and have seen good examples of cheerleading.

Previously I was ticked that the cheerleaders weren’t really leading the crowd in cheers and that, in addition to yelling throughout the game in an enclosed area, they were also stomping on the bleachers incessantly.

While I still think the volume can be turned down a notch or two and that there could be periods without cheering and stomping, in a close game, the cheerleaders are adding to an electric atmosphere.

The cheerleaders work hard and deserve to be seen and heard at the games, but they could back off the court a bit and try to cheer at more appropriate times during the game, like one of the eight thousand pauses for fouls or wiping up sweat.

Honorable mention: I think that the McIntosh boys basketball uniforms are (how should I put this?) unique. Though I think “Da Tosh” sounds a little silly, the style is definitely something that grabs the eye.

My second point was to be about the gross commercialism and consumerism of Christmas that started on Thanksgiving.

I was really put off with stores having sales on Thanskgiving and even more disgusted with early a.m. sales the day afterward and stores volunteering to call you and wake you up.

I wanted to scream from the rooftops, “What is wrong with you people?” but then I cooled down and remembered that buying things fuels this country.

Not only does a gift of a product show a loved one that you care, but it shows America that you give a darn, too.

Of course, my wife and I are cutting way back on what we spend for Christmas this year and are giving gifts from the heart instead of “the Mart,” but people who want to enter a mob scene to grab a DVD that they will likely sell back in a few years have the right to do that.

It might be bad if people buy products from a company that will have to outsource their jobs to make that same product cheaper in the future, but, like all of the problems in this country, we’ll deal with them later.

It’s not procrastination per se, we just feel that maybe we’ll be smarter in the future and we’ll have a better idea on how to fix these problems.

Honorable mention: Not allowing the Salvation Army to ring bells outside of stores is a bad thing.

The ringers aren’t that annoying and you don’t have to give them money if you don’t want to. Besides, the ringers would ring downtown if downtowns still existed but they don’t because big boxes and strip malls have taken over. And that’s O.K. because that is apparently what the people want.

My last point was going to be about all of the crappy parents I read about on a daily basis, but I really can’t find anything positive to say about the situation other than that the crappier a parent you are, the better the chance that your children will rebel and be a good parent.

That isn’t the way it works though. Abuse breeds abuse and neglect breeds neglect. You can’t break kids and expect them to fix themselves into productive, valuable members of society.

Though I haven’t witnessed abuse, I have seen more than a fair share of parents take their children to grossly inappropriate films.

Eight-year-olds do not need to see “Team America: World Police,” or “Saw.” Children have a brief enough time that they can be untainted and if you ruin a child by bringing them to things that end their childhood early, or, say, by buying them “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,” you should be publicly reprimanded and hit with rotten produce while sitting in the stocks.

We’ve moved on as a society, though, and so the lessons are only given to the people who see this type of misconduct. We view this and vow that we won’t be as cavalier with our children and their childhood. So, thank you, bad parents, for showing us the error of your ways.

Well, I hope that this wasn’t too negative and I hope that everyone has a happy and safe holiday season.