Life is too short to be mired in other people's hypocrisies

 

There was once  a time when I engaged in excessive self-empathy and thought to myself, “There’s got be more to life than this,” but now I just see that thinking as being a waste of valuable time. What could I have changed? Given my “nature,” not a whole lot; maybe I would have had sense enough not to do this or do that, but that would only have meant that I stayed in one rut a little longer. One thing I regret is that the things that helped me get through life—the Internet as we know it today where I am allowed to do what I was "trained" to do in college on a blog, and the current video disc formats—only came around relatively later in life than I would have liked.

On the other hand, I have been around long enough to be able to recognize the difference between what was and what is, and frankly I don’t think things are “better” today, at least “culturally.”  Give me a good, old-fashioned political thriller from the Seventies over those self-obsessed “politically” and gender-correct films of today. I read that when Taylor Swift shows up at Lumen Field this summer, seating will go anywhere from $400 to $1200. Are you effing kidding me? She can’t dance, she can’t really sing that good, and her hookless “hits” wouldn’t have scratched the Hot 100 back in the day. Swift has never released a concert video, so her fans have to fork over their hard-earned money to see this greedy faker "live." But she does look “good” in her Nordic blonde white womanish way, and her fans apparently like being vicariously connected to her success in this vapid time of ours.

But it doesn’t matter; I don’t like listening to any “contemporary” music, and I think maybe one percent of my fairly large video disc collection dates from 2000. And I’m always finding new “discoveries” anyways. I once thought that the Velvet Underground was a band just too out in left field to like, but that was because of John Cale’s out-there musical tastes. When he left the band, they went with a “softer” sound, albeit still with Lou Reed’s R-rated lyrical sensibility. My “discovery”—after watching the documentary about the band released by the Criterion Collection—was that their last album, Loaded, is a great pop-rock record front-to-back, but it apparently “confused” the few who were who fans of the band’s earlier “sound,” and it was ignored by the generality because of prior assumptions about the band being on the fringes.

What else? Oh, Jesus, isn’t it a bore when people whine about their success? Keira Knightley recently complained that her path to international stardom (I guess) via the Pirates of the Caribbean films was actually “bad” for her, because turned her into a “sex symbol,” and that’s just not politically-correct in this day and age. Well, let me just say that I don’t think Keira is “sexy” at all. OK, she has a nice face, but the sight of skin-and-bones that we might recall from old WWII newsreels of concentration camp survivors tends to make me feel a little nauseous:

 

This reminds me of anyone I see in Seattle’s Capitol Hill who is wearing plaster on their face and skirts that reveal legs that are skin (almost) literally  hugging bone: there’s a 90 percent chance that it is some guy in drag. Not working for me at any age.

Meanwhile ThatUmbrellaGuy commented on this video a few days ago...

 

..where .Amber Heard diehard and fanatical feminist barrister Charlotte Proudman and “normal” feminist businessperson Amy Anzel had a go of it on GB News in the UK over actor Hugh Grant’s allegedly “unchivalrous” behavior toward a so-called red carpet interviewer at the recent Oscar ceremony, where we saw a completely vapid individual asking vapid questions of Grant, which he apparently wasn’t in the mood to help her not look like an idiot. 

The interview was being commented on afterwards, like is Grant "anti-woman" or just "rude." On this GBN segment, the female co-anchor was also a self-proclaimed “feminist” and typically annoying, arrogant and self-righteous, while the male anchor was clearly uncomfortable and stayed mostly silent to stay out of cancel culture territory while two feminist guests “debated” whether "chivalry" is “dead" and if it even matters.

While Anzel claimed that she appreciated it when a man did nice things like openning doors for or putting coats on a woman, Proudman was all over the place; did she think “chivalry” was a “good” thing or not? First she asserted it was “dead,” and then she suggests "chivalry" is "benevolent sexism."  She goes on to say that men should be giving women equal treatment. WTH does that mean? That we all should be rude to each other? People like Proudman are rude, disrespectful and hateful, so should men just be “feminists” just like her, meaning being assholes?

You want to know what “disrespectful” is? Asking stupid questions on television and expecting someone else to bail you out. Who are you most excited to see? This guy has been in the business for 40 years, why would he be particularly “excited” in seeing anyone, especially the new crop of Barbies and Kens who are swell-heads with no personality? What are you wearing tonight? Just my suit. Who is your tailor? I don’t remember.  Shout out to your tailor. How do feel being in such an “amazing” film like Glass Onion? Wasn’t it such “fun”?  I only had a brief cameo appearance (didn’t you notice, you moron?). Thank you, nice talking to you (why did you make me look like a moron on TV for?).

Grant was accused of “speaking down” at the interviewer not because she was an idiot but because she was a woman. Someone in a comments section mentioned that a few years ago Jennifer Lawrence responded to similar  questioning in the same way—except that when she did it, it was “funny.” But oh no, if you are a man you can’t do anything that can be perceived as “disrespectful” to a woman, or you will be called a "sexist" or misogynist. In this time of “equality,” that means you have to lower yourself to level of vapidness you are confronted with so that you are both “equal.” Wait a minute—wasn’t that what Grant was doing?

You know what's happening here? Men on one hand might be doing something like holding a door open just to be "nice" or "polite," because if they don't, they are accused of being "rude." On the other hand, if they do open a door for a woman, they are guilty of "benevolent sexism." So what are they supposed to do? This is just one of many possible activities where thanks to radical feminist terminology, men are damned if they do, and damned if they don't. We can surmise that most women are not "offended" if a man does some polite gesture, but it is feminist control of the media that tells them that they are just being "sexist."

I really have to wonder what the “problem” is with people like Proudman. Does she have some secret “issues,” like Kat Tenbarge? Hey, fair is fair. In 2015 The Daily Mail called her out for hypocrisy when she called a male barrister “sexist” for calling her “stunning,” or whatever…

 

 

…call her what you will back then, but the Mail pointed out that she used terms like “hot stuff” and “oooo la-la” to describe men pictured on Facebook. So it's "OK" to "objectify" men? Do I care what she calls these men? What for? I just hate self-righteous hypocrites. Here is Proudman today on the GBN segment, and I don’t know what she’s been doing since 2015, but we can forgive her if she is self-conscious about her eating habits (or not, who cares):

 

 

I’m sure Proudman is more self-conscious about her looks than I am about mine; there is nothing I can do about mine, although I suspect that Proudman could have done something about hers if she wasn’t spending so much time being an arrogant, hypocritical twit defending abusers and liars like Heard.

Anyways, life is too short for this “feeling good about bad” BS. Feminists like Proudman seem to think that men are supposed to give up so much until there is nothing left for them to keep; these people will never be "satisfied." Not everyone is going to be a “superstar,” and most of those who think they are really are not. People like Proudman are “important” insofar as they are occasionally amusing to talk about, but you just move on, just like you do any ship passing in night who you will never know or care about knowing, and vice-versa. Most of us just have to go do whatever allows us to amiably pass whatever time we have left.

While political divisiveness is the rule in the U.S., in Australia it is just some of this and some of that

 

For a change of pace, I recently ordered an OOP DVD set of a Australian television show from an Ebay seller in that country. Inside the shipping box the seller had used some pages from the “largest rural news service” in Australia as padding. This weekly serves mainly the state of Victoria, where the city of Melbourne is located; this particular section of the newspaper seems to indicate its readers enjoy the skewering of “city folks”…

 

…where we see “Tough Talk Twit” Elon Musk getting the “dill of the week” award—“dill” being Australian slang for “idiot” or “fool”—and a child care park with no one around to “mind” the children save the poles holding up the sign stating such; are the poles getting paid to “mind” children? There is also a letters section where we learn that although rural people in Australia are generally labeled “conservative,” their concerns seem to be less political or cultural than simply how to get on with life, thus they are not particularly impressed with Musk’s right-wing “credentials” as is Rep. Jim Jordan, who I’m sure most Australians would view as an embarrassment and clown.

In Australia, as in Europe, one must not be caught-up in the left-right name game, since it is only a matter of degree: the center-left Labor Party is currently in power, opposed principally by the Liberal Party, which is center-right.  Both parties have their right-moderate-left branches, and they all agree on certain common issues that are sacrosanct, but stray either left or right on policy on how to get there or whose vote they trying to get--and not necessarily that of the rich or business interests like here in the U.S.. Since neither party typically gains absolute majorities themselves, as in the European parliamentary systems they have to form coalitions to form a government, with smaller parties that are either farther to the right on one side, or to the left of the other.

While pandemic policy briefly allowed for some more "lively" political "debate," in general the most important “core” principle driving politics tends to be the state of the jobs market; if we believe Richard Denniss of The Guardian, there is very little difference between the Labor and Liberal parties because they both have the same “goal,” and their principle difference in this regard is who among the working class they think deserves more "help": 

So what does “left” and “right” mean now? Both sides of politics are sometimes skeptical of markets, sometimes fans of subsidies, and sometimes want to help workers and communities adjust to transition. It seems to me that the left wants to intervene to ensure that all workers and communities are supported in transition, while the right only wants to help mining and farming communities.

Which of course explains why rural communities tend to be more “conservative.”  But why would people who consider themselves right-leaning vote for a “Liberal” party or even a “Liberal Democrat” party? In fact the National Party, the principle ally of the Liberal Party, is not really “nationalist” at all but is the “rural” party, and supports government intervention to protect the agricultural sector. 

Obviously the term “liberal” in countries outside the U.S. have different ideas of what the term “liberal” refers to.  In many European countries, “liberal” refers to “classical liberalism,” which in turn means libertarianism—meaning small government and people being allowed to do whatever they want, presumably as long as they don’t interfere with someone else’s right to their life or property. 

That all sounds well and good—except that libertarianism in practice does the opposite of what it proposes: completely uninhibited laissez-faire policies requires protection by authoritarian and reactionary government to maintain an economic and social order that protects the rich over everyone else. Thus the Liberal Party, like just about every other political party, gives only lip service to "ideology." In the U.S., most of the Republican Party has long since abandoned "traditional conservatism" for far-right conspiracy-mongering.

On Quora, one resident of Australia noted that on issues of “healthcare, education, social welfare, fair wages and infrastructure” the major parties have in the end little in “dispute.” Universal healthcare is simply a matter of how much. Regulation of gun ownership is not a major cultural issue dividing the country. “Parliamentary debate” tends to be disputes about minor incidents of unethical behavior than anything actually substantial, although that could be said about what House Republicans are doing today with their so-called “investigations.”  

All things considered, most of the issues outside that of foreign policy and defense are already decided, with the governance of the country largely in the hands of state government and federal bureaucrats, and out of the hands of “idiot” national politicians.

Of interest was the weekly's letters section. The political cartoon showed a man looking inside the supposed “bare cupboard” of the government budget...

 

...only to discover there is a lot of “bread” there, except it is for a lot of wasteful programs, while the road repair shelf is barren. One letter was from a professor from a concerned scientists group opposed to the building of more of dams for water storage. Of course a concerned citizen had a different view, asserting that if current dams were not full, then we simply need more of them.

Obviously if one looks at a climate map of Australia, it appears to be mostly barren and desert-like:

 

But despite the fact that its land mass is about that of the continental U.S., its total population is only somewhere between that of Florida and Texas. Yet on average, Australians use far more water-per-person, a mind-boggling 26,000 gallons. However, 70 percent of this water usage is for agriculture, and thus for rural folk the issue of dams is important. While a large percentage of the country’s water comes from the relative huge Great Artesian Basin...

 

...and some comes from desalination plants, and rivers and reservoirs depend on the meager 18 inches of rainfall per year on average. While most of the rainfall is on the more tropical northern coast, major flooding events—especially effecting communities along rivers—are becoming increasingly common on the east coast, and the complaint by some is that the current dam system doesn’t allow for the storage of this excess water, or the targeted prior release of water so that the excess can be safely absorbed.

But since rural farmers are so highly dependent on water, naturally they don’t want to hear about the “science,” they just want a reliable source of water. On one side is the “concerned scientist," who points out that that current dams that are already located at the best sites to catch overflow in reservoirs are below normal levels, and the proposed new dams (apparently rejected) were to be located in unfavorable locations and far more costly than their alleged benefit. 

The “answer” is simply to be far less wasteful of the water that is available, and better managing the Aquifer. The other side of the issue asserts that since the current reservoirs are below normal levels, the country simply need more of them, and the environmental impacts of building new dams is of course “overstated.”

Then there is a letter explaining what “blackwater” is and that it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with climate change, which is beside the point. Blackwater occurs when organic material accumulates after long periods of drought that is then swept-up during the occasional flooding events like this…

 

…and find their way into rivers and lakes, where bacteria grows and consume oxygen from the water, effecting fish and other wildlife. There is very little that can be done to “manage” blackwater because of the variable climate in Australia, although environmental activists place blame on the increasing frequency of such events on climate change.

Another letter addressed the global methane reduction pledge and criticized another letter writer who supported it only so long as it was “aspirational”—meaning having no “teeth.” Another letter writer named Deb asks “WHY carry on with these debates all parties lie through their teeth what a waste of time” in response to a story about the smaller political parties in the state demanding a televised debate that includes themselves. This would include the (relatively) far-right Liberal Democrat Party, which was given an ultimatum to change its name because one political party is not allowed by law to use names that other parties already lay claim to, to avoid voter “confusion.”

Being a “rural news” publication, it would make sense that this weekly pokes fun at urban dwellers—Australia’s urban population as a percentage of the population as a whole is one of the highest in world—and its concerns tend to focus on water and environmental regulation policies, or at least they did on this particular day. But as Denniss suggested, politics in Australia seems to be more of this than that, and the divisiveness that we see in the U.S. today is seen as just a waste of time and accomplishes nothing.

How about this as Eleanor Williams' "motivation" for false accusations: racism against Indian Muslims?

 

The Eleanor Williams case in the UK has been getting some minor traction in this country, although nowhere near the coverage of the country of origin, and like the Johnny Depp, Marilyn Manson and Moira Donegan libel cases, when the accused actually fight for their due process rights, the credibility of their accuser’s cases tend to stumble, since when actual evidence is demanded, it all tends to fall within the “believe all women” mantra because, particularly in cases of sexual assault accusations, the only evidence in a vast majority of cases is a woman’s claim that it did happen,  and how convincing she is in retelling her story, or how unsympathetic the accused is. 

Thus sexual assault and abuse claims are the “exception” to due process rights; “believe all women” is essentially a perversion of due process and the presumption of innocence: the accused is the one who must prove that they are innocent, since the “presumption” is that they are “guilty.”

Or at least that has been the case until recently. The people pushing the “believe all women” line who assumed that this narrative would be taken for granted have suffered a series of shocks of late, and people have started to ask “How many of these people are lying?”  Even when “evidence” is produced, people are quick to point out that there are other explanations that produce “reasonable doubt.” I dug up this old photo comparison that showed Amber Heard’s alleged facial bruising looks exactly like the filler bruising on another woman, strongly suggesting that Heard took photos not necessarily of alleged abuse from Depp (which not a single witness claims to have actually seen—in fact even her sister only testified to seeing Heard hit Depp in that “famous” staircase incident) but random “natural” occurrences that she would find useful later…

 

 

…as she did with those photos of Depp napping, which didn’t “prove” anything except that, well, he was napping:

 

And of course we have seen Heard’s 2016 TRO cheek “bruise” magically reappear while in Spain in 2022 (is she still there?).  But as Andy Signore pointed out on Popcorned Planet, the Williams case is in its details an even more appalling case of false accusations. Perhaps more appalling is the reaction to it by gender activists.

First a synopsis of the Williams case. In May 2020, Williams was “discovered” by police near her home on Walney Island, part of the constituency of Barrow, on the west coast of the UK near the Scottish border. She appeared to have injuries in which she claimed were inflicted after she was “kidnapped” after accepting a “ride” from some men, taken to a house where she was allegedly gang-raped by ten men. Later she posted on Facebook images of herself with terrible-looking bruises inflicted by an assailant with a hammer…

 

…and claimed that she was trafficked as a sex slave by an Asian gang in Amsterdam, having meant to be sold by a local merchant named Mohammed Ramzan at “auction” before the alleged “buyer” backed out. Besides accusing two local Indian Muslim men, she also accused a white man named Jordan Tengrove of rape; Tengrove’s house had the word “Rapist” spray-painted on it afterwards.  Police found a hammer with her DNA and blood. Williams also provided names of other alleged victims of sex trafficking. The locals erupted with outrage; the Indian Muslim populace, a tiny minority of a 97 percent white community, was immediately under attack and the accused and their family members received various threats to their lives and livelihoods. A white supremacist named Tommy Robinson also appeared to take advantage of the racial animosity toward the minority community. All the accused were arrested and jailed, and there were reports of attempted suicide over the charges.

Eventually the truth won out. A pathologist cast doubt on Williams' account of how she was injured, judging the injuries to be self-inflicted. Video from a local store showed her purchasing the same hammer the police found: 

 

She also used two cell phones to send and receive messages from women which she then used to create the appearance of them being trafficked by the accused. When contacted by police, the women confessed to being “surprised” by the claims that they were being sex-trafficked and didn’t even know the accused. Williams' sister claimed that she was with her in Amsterdam and she was never out of her sight, let alone being “sex-trafficked.” 

Neighbors of the alleged gang-rape house stated that the property had been unoccupied for two years and they never saw anyone who was Asian near the place. When police questioned her about her inconsistent timelines, Williams merely replaced one lie with another. It was noted that Williams’ trafficking tale was similar to that of the film Taken, which stars Liam Neeson—who himself has a track record of making racially-insensitive and anti-immigrant commentary.

With her house of toothpicks crumbling down, Williams eventually confessed that her story was all lies, that she (like Donegan and her “Shitty Media Men” post—or for that matter Heard and WP op-ed or Evan Rachel Wood and her documentary) didn’t “know” that anyone would make such a fuss about her accusations, and apparently she was just looking for “attention,” and she would never be taken for account for her lies. 

Instead, Williams was found guilty in a UK court for perverting justice, and sentenced to 8.5 years in prison, which some people regarded as “light,” including Tengrove, who is also appalled that Williams still receives support despite the evil thing she did.

Williams, perhaps not surprisingly, doesn’t feel she is “guilty” of anything. Her mind just wasn’t “right.” She has plenty of support in that “reasoning.” In Glamour UK magazine, which is all about superficiality and personal vanity, Faima Bakar says her false accusations should not be an excuse to not “believe all women,” and she cites a so-called report that during a period where 161 rape cases were prosecuted, only one was in “error.” The reality of course is that rape allegations are nearly always assumed to be true up front, and if the accused cannot “prove” they are innocent, then they must be “guilty.”

Then there is Helen Pidd of The Guardian, who frequently comments on gender issues (and frankly, there are too many women whose only “qualification” as “journalists” is that they have tunnel-visioned activist “opinions” on gender). In her piece “Why did Eleanor Williams frame innocent men for rape and trafficking?” Pidd goes on a bender about “PTSD” and “childhood trauma” that was "speculated" without, admittedly, any actual proof by a female psychiatrist, and evidence of such not found by a second psychiatrist, who happened to be a man. Pidd tells us we should ignore his “opinion” because

A male psychiatrist, Dr Martin Lock, commissioned by the prosecution, was not able to diagnose Williams with any psychiatric disorder. Bacon (the female psychiatrist) suggested this may be because he was a man, and that Williams had refused to engage with some male healthcare professionals in prison.

Pidd goes on absurdly about “speculations” that Williams got in bad with some bad characters, that she was a “drug mule” without offering one shred of evidence this was the case. School acquaintances thought she acted “strangely” on occasion, and sometimes skipped classes. But there was no documented evidence that she lived in an abusive home as a child. She was known to be a drug user, and possibly ran into “debt.” But how the hell was this supposed to change by making false rape accusations which had nothing to do with her life issues? She expected someone to start up a GoFundMe site?

The judge in his sentencing statement noted that the lack of evidence about Williams’ motivations and her refusal to “explain” herself means that we will “never know” until she does talk. But one of the accused, Ramzan, dryly noted that given all the support Williams was still receiving, would anyone believe her if she did tell the truth? Would her supporters only believe what they wanted to believe? That is the same question Tengrove is asking, frustrated that after all he went through, Williams is still being treated as the “victim” by many parties.

What do I think? I remember a John Oliver show about Brexit, and how it was largely motivated by anti-immigrant racism. An interview of a white woman on a local television news show gave her opinion on the state of “society,” and Oliver noted that racism doesn’t sound any less ignorant in a British accent. Anti-immigrant bigotry is on the rise in the UK in response to economic and social welfare issues, which immigrants and non-white citizens are largely scapegoated for. 

In regard to Indian Muslims such as the ones targeted by Williams, Smriti Singh in the Independent writes that not just white Britons, but Hindus like the current prime minister and the past two Home Secretaries from the conservative Tory party have become the safe  “face” of anti-immigrant prejudice and policies, and they need to own up to it, especially in regard to Indian Muslims. Overall, anti-immigrant sentiment in the constituency that Williams lives in is “average” per the country as a whole, which an Unherd poll last month indicated anti-immigration vs. pro-immigration sentiment was 3 to 1.

So why, outside of Tengrove, were the men Williams accused of beating, raping and trafficking her Muslim and “Asian”? I mean, it can’t be that “coincidental.” They were accused because it was easy to believe given the social and cultural climate in the UK. So why don’t we just admit the only logical motivation for Williams’ accusations? It doesn’t  matter if she did it because she is a racist, or picking them as her victims because of their religion and “ethnicity” would likely bring more people to support her.  White Britons were clearly more likely to believe her if the ones she accused were “different” or “strangers.” People who “know” each other don’t automatically assume all are “guilty”—unlike “strangers” who may all be “guilty.”

Thus the “explanation” for Williams’ actions can be just as simple as that.

Aaron Rodgers only delaying the inevitable with his "self-love" games

 

As a long-time Packer fan, you have to take what life gives you, and for some time now that is having to tolerate a narcissist as the "face" of the franchise. I mean Aaron Rodgers told us much when he went on his trip to Peru a few years ago and consumed the hallucinogenic drink Ayahuasca. What did it do for him? It cleared his mind of outside interference and allowed him to achieve the most important thing in life—not being all he can be, like a Super Bowl champion, but being consumed with “self-love.” Isn’t that the definition of narcissism?

Supposedly taking this drug helped Rodgers have his second-best season statistically and his third MVP award after four of the previous five seasons having a passer rating in the 90s after six-straight in the 100s. All this proved was that Rodgers had to get his “mind” right to play well—and if it wasn’t, like in the final years of McCarthy era—Rodgers just did his own thing, didn’t listen to anything but his own tune, and it was everyone else’s fault if his play on the field looked it. And it looked it in 2022; he was going to play with an injured thumb no matter how much it hurt the team’s chances to win just to keep Jordan Love off the field (admittedly Brett Favre was probably doing the same thing to him).

Meanwhile, Rodgers went to Oregon in February on what he called a “darkness retreat” to clear his mind of the cobwebs accumulated over a failed season that basically was the last best chance of the Packers of making it to the Super Bowl with Rodgers before the team imploded under the weight of pipe dreams and Rodgers’ cap hit; what has come out of the "retreat" is not “clarity” but more narcissistic, juvenile behavior, it seems. Ain’t it amazing how a fan can be so sick of a guy that the rest of the world thinks is the best quarterback “fundamentally” in the game? 

But the question about Rodgers to those closer to the action has always been about what is going on in his head, not his physical skills. It reminds me of what the late Chicago White Sox radio announcer Harry Caray said about another famous headcase of his time, Richie Allen: “Million dollar talent, zero dollar brain.”

The “drama” this season is whether Rodgers will say “yes” to an essentially completed trade agreement with the Jets, or is he going to retire or decide to mess things up by sticking around after Packer president Mark Murphy essentially said the Packers were now Jordan Love’s team. But to use a favorite line of Don Meredith’s on Monday Night Football, “the party’s over” in Green Bay, and if not the Jets, there might be another team interested in acquiring Rodgers. Mike Florio claimed he has sources suggesting the Packers may in fact be uncertain about the Jets' compensation package, and others believe if no deal is done or Rodgers balks, the Packers can wait until draft day to find a suitable trade partner.

The writing was on the wall since the 2020 off-season drama, but more acutely after Rodgers’ career worst passer rating and QBR, and seemingly deliberately sabotaging the season by insisting on playing with an injured thumb which saw the Packers lose 7 of 8 games and ending with the fourth losing season in the Rodgers era (Favre had one losing season with the Packers). 12 years has gone by since the Packers were in their last Super Bowl, subsequently losing four times in the NFC championship game. Yet Rodgers continued to be praised to high heaven by most of the “experts,” and most of the blame for failure was laid at the feet of management, coaches and teammates. Thus the reality is only fitting: Rodgers' last pass as a Packer—like that of Brett Favre—was a horrendous season-killing interception:

 

Enough is enough. Time to move on.  We are not talking about Tom Brady or Peyton Manning here, players who might have less “technical” talent, but whose minds were always in the “right place”—driven to win at all costs and accept nothing less. According to Pro Football Reference, Rodgers is tied for 19^th on the all-time list for game-winning drives—behind such “Hall of Famers” as Vinnie Testaverde, Carson Palmer and Derek Carr (such were 33 of Carr’s 63 career wins).—with 31, barely half of the likes of Brady, Manning, Drew Brees and Ben Roethlisberger, who have 50+. Favre even had more (43). In fourth-quarter comebacks, it is more of the same, with Rodgers tied for 28^th, behind the likes of Jay Cutler, Tony Romo and Dave Krieg. 

That was the thing about Rodgers—his play might be “brilliant” in stretches, and yet be completely awful at critical times. And yet with Brady and Manning it was always when things looked their bleakest was when they were at their most dangerous.

So it is that Packer management is ready to move on for the team to move "forward," and so are most Packer fans, it seems. Fewer people are busting down doors demanding that the team hold on to Rodgers as they did when Favre “unretired.” I know that I was personally offended by management’s desire to move on from Favre, and I continued to follow his career even after he joined the Vikings. But I don’t feel that way about Rodgers, and it didn’t matter to me if he came back last season or not after all the juvenile games of the previous off-season; as it turned out, it didn’t matter as Rodgers had his worst season and the Packers failed to make the playoffs after three straight 13-win seasons.

I mean, if you are not able to get the team to the Super Bowl, then you are not really any different than the common run who make their teams no better than "competitive." There are a lot of quarterbacks who put up “great” numbers who don’t make it to the “promised” land, and if the “explanation” for going from his best season to worst had something to do with taking a psychedelic “self-help” drug, then we are entering territory that has no place on the football field. That isn’t to scare off the Jets from accepting a trade for him, since knowing Rodgers he might play better out of spite, if only for one season and then he is off to La-La Land again.

Unfortunately for both the Packers and the Jets it’s already started. On Monday the Packers and the Jets (yeah, I know, Favre “déjà vu”) supposedly had a deal in place that only required Rodgers’ to say “yes.” After claiming he was going to avoid the “drama” from last year and make a quick decision, here we are are back to drama mode again, with the Rodgers failing to announce a decision at noon eastern time on Monday, after which was the beginning of free agency and back to free agent free-for-all. 

Rodgers may not be a free agent, since he still has two years left on his Packer contract, but his delaying means that both the Jets and Packers are watching free agents slipping past them as they have no clarity on how much money they can spend. In the Jets’ case, they want to know if they are actually going to have a quarterback in the house. Some reports are now claiming that Rodgers won’t play for the Jets unless they agree to his “terms,” which apparently means importing three of his former teammates with the Packers (Allen Lazard, Randall Cobb, and Mercedes Lewis) and Odell Beckham Jr..

Is he serious? It seems the Jets at least hope he is as good as his “word,” since they have apparently come to an agreement with Lazard. But Michael Hurley on CBS Sports calls all of this “beyond the point of absurdity” and that “Still, all of this -- the conflicting reports, the confused teammates in Green Bay, the confused potential teammates in New Jersey, the wish list -- before he's even technically a part of the team? It's a lot. And in a league where a different quarterback from Green Bay used to manipulate teams and media to dedicate the bulk of their spring worrying about him, Rodgers is giving Brett Favre a run for his money in the realm of absurdly complex off-seasons.”

Is Rodgers trying to play this out as long as possible to stick it to the Packers, in particularly team president Murphy, who made it clear the team was prepared to move on from Rodgers now. But his game-playing also annoying the Jets, who were seeing other quarterback options fading away as free agency got underway, with Jimmy Garoppolo signed almost immediately with the Raiders, and the Jets losing their backup, Mike White, to the Dolphins.

Even more, does he enjoy making the national media look like fools playing his will-he-or-won’t he games? If Rodgers likes being a narcissistic villain, he is certainly doing a “good” job of it; after all, he’s into that “self-love” stuff. We are told that he will make an appearance on pal Pat McAfee's show on Wednesday, where we can expect him to make his "big reveal"--to accept the trade to the Jets or retire, more likely the former since the only thing he apparently loves as much as himself is money. 

It's all eye-roll stuff now for me; even if Rodgers wants to annoy the brass and return, that means the Packers will have to dump some high-priced players. Of course even if he is gone, the Packers still have to deal with the problem of Jordan Love, and hope that he is not Brett Hundley 2.0. However things pan out, it's going to be an interesting 2023 season.

Update: Rodgers appeared on the Pat McAfee show and asserted that he wants to play for the Jets, but the Packers want more in compensation despite the fact numerous sources claimed the "framework" of a deal with the Jets was already "done." This may be the case, but frankly Rodgers could have said this on Monday, and he clearly enjoys drawing out media speculation for his own amusement. It is still an open question if he has anything to "add" later even if there is a deal reached between the two teams.