Be passive OR aggressive. Not both. And I’m not talking about the passive-aggressive tendency to be nice to somebody’s face and nasty behind his back. Rather, I mean the kind of passive-aggressive behavior whereby the perp uses juuuust the right turn of phrase to make his point and get his desired response. Here’s a sample PA conversation, between two imaginary roommates:

Jane: Hey, what’s wrong?

Liz: Oh, nothing. We’re just out of eggs; I swear I bought some last week. I was going to make French toast after class tonight, and I went to the fridge and the eggs are all gone. It’s ok. I’ll make something else.

Jane: Oh no! I’m really sorry. I ate the last 2 yesterday and totally forgot to pick up more. I’ll go out and get another dozen right now.

Liz: No, that’s ok. I’ll just have some cereal. It doesn’t matter anyway.

Jane: No really — I feel bad because I didn’t replace the eggs. My brain is Jello. Let me run out and get them real quick. It’ll just take a minute.

Liz: Well, ok. If you want to.

Obviously, Liz’s martyrdom got her what she wanted: the eggs, and emotional control. It’s a head game that borders on abuse, and I try never to play it. But let’s face it: sometimes it gets you what you want. We’ve all likely pulled the trick from time to time. But chronic passive-aggressives are much more dangerous. I divide them into two categories:

1. The Guilter. This one hangs on the cross, but somehow still survives. Picture a mother (usually stereotyped in a certain ethnic light), telling her adult son, “No, don’t bother coming over today to mow my lawn. I will try to do it myself. I’ll just take lots of aspirin before I go outside, and hope that my legs hold up.” Of course, this achieves the desired effect. Son cancels his golf game and mows the lawn. Mom gets what she wants: the reassurance that her son will give up anything for her. It’s a total power play.

Sometimes, when my students are giving me a hard time, I’ll jokingly tell them, “Ok, if you need me, I’ll be outside, lying under my truck wheels.” We all get a laugh and it’s over. But there are those who take that shtick and play it to the nth degree. They are the Grand Manipulators, and you need to either a) confront them about it, or b) run away.

2. The Joker. And yes, I do mean the character from Batman. All laughs and funny ha-ha on the surface, but hiding a vicious secret. These people take pleasure in ambiguous humor, designed to make you doubt yourself. Have you ever endured somebody teasing you — or making general observations about something you’ve said or done — in what appears to be a playful manner, but you get a creepy feeling that the little jabs thrown out in jest are actually serious, veiled insults? If you have, you’ve been Jokered.

The Joker attempts to cover his own screaming insecurity and feelings of mediocrity by chipping away at the self-esteem of others. I urge you to call him on it.

And that’s all I have to say today. My mood matches this dreary weather. Ick.

Fink out.

A cop in Los Angeles was recently convicted of staging fake raids of people’s houses. He’d go in, brandish his badge and gun, and “raid” the house for contraband. What he ended up doing was basically robbing people.

What did he get for doing this 40 times?

102 years. That’s one hundred two years. In jail. They’re calling it a form of armed robbery. Ok, I get the charge. I can see spending time in jail for it, too. It was a rotten, horrible stunt to pull on innocent people, scaring them to death and all. But here’s the thing…

Nobody died. Nobody was even physically injured. That doesn’t make what he did right - I’ll give you that and a cookie. So what’s my point?

Ray Lewis is my point.

Ray, who made millions, got in trouble with the law, made a few more millions, killed somebody, and then made some more millions. Oh, did I mention he killed somebody? And did I also mention his jail term?

Oh wait…he didn’t get a jail term. Where’s the justice here? A cop gets 100 years for playing SWAT commando, and Ray gets nothing for killing a guy? (You may refer to a previous rant on this subject, if you’re so inclined.)

I know, I know. It’s all about corroborating evidence. That still doesn’t make it right. Sometimes our justice system backfires, and criminals go free. Yeah, I know all that. But it depends on your definition of “sometimes.” I think “sometimes” translates to “too friggin’ often” — especially where professional athletes are concerned.

So says I.

Fink out.

PS - Here’s the original article about the ex-cop who will never see his family again.

Have I mentioned that this country’s going straight to the devil?

They are going to kill me. Swear.

Boston University and Barnes & Noble (partners in extortion), I must admit, have happened on an idea that is positively, consummately, hilariously brilliant.

Ladies and gentlemen…the “Coursepack.”

What is a Coursepack, you ask? Well let’s see if I can get this right. A Coursepack is a bunch of Xerox-copied pages from various textbooks, compiled into a stack, and offered as reading material for my doctoral classes. Nifty, eh? Not so fast, pard.

Behold Exhibit A:

Right. They have some 18-year-old library droid pull books off the shelves in Boston and stand at a copier for 5 hours, and charge me $106.75 for the privilege (and this is the cheapest one yet - once I paid something like $190). But what do I get for my money?

Exhibit B:

The Coursepack. They did go to the trouble to punch holes in the sides so you can provide your own 3-ring binder. How thoughtful.

Exhibit C: Reduced in size and copied sideways so you have to turn the book to read it. Some pages are right-side-up, some aren’t. Brilliant.

Is this not the most incredibly profitable idea ever? Pardon me while I go get my credit card.

Sheesh.

PS - I want one of these.

I call it Syringe Wars.

The steroid scandal that slammed full-force into professional sports has once again surfaced in the news.

This time it’s Tammy Thomas, ex-professional cyclist, convicted yesterday of lying to a grand jury about her steroid use.

She denied ever using steroids. Friends, if this is the face of a woman who never shot up male hormones, I am Christ on a pony.

I suppose that people can be born to look this way, but I’d like to see her before she began her cycling career - which, by the way, was stripped from her for life.

And she blamed the jury and the prosecutor for “destroy[ing] people’s lives.”

Nah, I’d say she made that choice all on her own.

See, what gets me is not that people shoot up steroids. Folks can (and do) put whatever they want into their bodies, for myriad reasons. What cheeses me the most is when people screw up, then blame others.

A second cheese-off is the fact that such harsh punishment is doled out to these athletes, with more to come in the future (are you paying attention, Barry and Roger?), while criminals who hurt people other than themselves get slaps on the wrist. Drug dealers go free because prisons are overcrowded. Idiots like Ray Lewis serve 12 months probation for murder. People who beat their wives and children get a finger-wagging from the judge and are told to attend some bogus class.

To me, those are the real perps.

Why aren’t we dragging people to court for smoking cigarettes? I mean, the jig is up on tobacco - it’ll kill you sure as you’re sitting there reading this. But steroids? Oh wait…we’re dealing with professional sports <<insert angel chorus and beam of light from heaven here>> , so by God that’s serious business. We have to stop doping in sports!

No. We have to stop being dopes, paying top-dollar for sporting events and making it so one individual athlete makes more in one year than the entire economies of some third-world countries.

Ok, rant over for now. I’m happy there’s Dunkin’ Donuts coffee in my house. Shame on The Thriller for turning me on to it, ‘cuz it’s like $8 a pound.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Fink out.

As much as I loathe what he did, I think when compared to the penalties levied against other pro athletes who have run afoul of the law, Michael Vick got the shaft.

He killed dogs, lied about it, and got 2 years in jail. By many accounts, this was completely justified. Heck, if they’d asked me, I would have said 2 years was a walk in the park for someone who had watched - and taken part in - the hanging, shooting and torturing of innocent animals.

[If PETA had their way, he'd have been lynched in public.]

Next case. For (always bitter) Browns fans like myself, this is a specifically ouchy memory. Remember Kevin Mack? Sure you do. He was another pro athlete for whom money, talent and fame were not enough. He had to add cocaine to the list, and it landed him a 6-month jail term. Six months? On a first offense with no prior record? Almost anyone in that position back then walked away with probation and community service. I remember the outcry from the Cleveland press and the football world in general, deriding the court system and the NFL for making “an example” out of Mack.

Next: Marion Jones. Another liar who broke the hearts of all those who supported her, defended her, and most importantly, looked up to her. She cheated in the Olympics, deceived an entire country, made fools of those who trusted her, and betrayed the kids who wanted to be like her.

She got 6 months. And the other liar on her level, Roger Clemens, should get even more, since he’s taking his lies to even loftier heights of insanity. But that’s another post for another day. Let’s get to the point (and I do have one, I promise).

Vick killed some dogs. Jones took steroids, and Mack bought cocaine. Those are all bad things, for which each athlete paid (or is presently paying) in jail time. But then wait….

What about Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens? Charged with murder and aggravated assault in 2000 (do you find it at all strange that they never found his blood-stained white suit?), he never served a day. Instead, he agreed to rat on his homies and walked free.

Leonard Little of the Rams rammed his Lincoln Navigator into the car Cindy Gutweiler was driving, after he ran a red light. He was skunk drunk, with a blood alcohol level of .19. Did Cindy press charges? Nope. She couldn’t, because she died. Little served 90 days and got 4 years probation.

And I won’t even go into the wife beatin’, crack smokin’, rapin’ and pillagin’ delinquents of the NBA…but there’s a hilarious essay about them here. It is amazing how many commit felonies, then walk out of the courtroom, free men.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the biggest thug of them all:

Still walking free, still making millions - although the piper just might catch up with him in September.

And I know all about aggravating vs. mitigating circumstances. People, there aren’t that many mitigating circumstances on the planet. A woman who shoots up steroids - physically harming no one but herself - and lies about it gets 6 months, and people like Lewis and Little go free? You tell me how that’s fair.

I read on somebody’s op-ed column that we can’t compare cases. The justice system deals with individuals with myriad inconsistencies, and with humans who are imperfect, so we cannot expect perfection from the legal machinery all of the time.

Oh yeah? Just wait until it’s *you* sitting at the defense table, pal.