The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

Like a lot of people, I traveled to spend some time with friends and family over the Thanksgiving holiday. We consumed large amounts of food, adult beverages, and football. There were laughs shared, as well as interesting stories, inside jokes, gaffes, like most other family gatherings. As normal as this all may sound, there was one experience over the extended holiday weekend which would be viewed as quite atypical for most people, has sadly become typical for me, and I felt the need to share it. On Wednesday night, like a lot of people, I ventured a local bar and had a few drinks with friends and family. Not five minutes after sitting down, a drunken older lady pointed at me and said, "I know you, right?" to which I simply replied, "Yeah, karaoke." She had seen me sing previously and commented about it to a cousin of mine. She then told a couple guys close to her, as she pointed at me, "He looks like a young Tom Hanks." I'm not sure what I've d...

While I tend to like Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and don't care for the secrecy behind the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) trade deal, I found the Ohio senator's recent attack on President Obama to be nothing short of ridiculous. After Senate Democrats placed a temporary halt to the bill yesterday, Senator Brown accused President Obama of being sexist when he referred to Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren as "Elizabeth." President Obama's full quote in question was this: "The truth of the matter is that Elizabeth is, you know, a politician like everybody else. And you know, she's got a voice that she wants to get out there. And I understand that. And on most issues, she and I deeply agree. On this one, though, her arguments don't stand the test of fact and scrutiny." Here was Senator Brown's response: "I think the president was disrespectful to her by the way he did that. I think that the president has made this more personal ...

It seems like this is a common reaction when a person is questioned about someone/something that is important to them. Often times, I think it's due to the fact that deep down, they know there's probably some truth to the other's question/statement. For example, have you ever run into this kind of scenario? A friend of yours is dating someone and you observe their date messing around with someone else and you're honest with your friend about this? Many times, this is the reaction I'll hear - "You know what? You're just jealous! You just don't have what X and I have and you're jealous!" I'll even hear this from die-hard fans of a certain celebrity(-ies). I remember reading a few comments about comedian Dane Cook and how they didn't think he was funny. His fans' reaction? "You're just jealous. You don't have his kind of talent, wish you could, so yeah, you're just jealous!" In some cases, this may be true, ...