The spring time brings feelings of tranquility, peace and rebirth.  They are the days of blossoming buds and the return of sunny skies.  Where better can we come across such harmony, that the brick roads of beautiful Annapolis, Maryland.

            The answer my friends, is a lot of places because not only does the spring bring all of these lovely things to this quaint city, it also brings the greatness that is Navy Lacrosse.  A world class program compromised of world class men, who fuel the aura that is the Navy "Hooligans."  While I could spend hours talking about the superiority of the team, this story is more focused on what some have coined to be the closest thing to a tasteful combination of Mexican and English soccer fanatics in the game of college lacrosse, maybe in all of college sports.

            Many of you don't even know what lacrosse is, but it's not hard to imagine what maybe a Navy football game and tailgater would be like if a group of rowdy midshipmen didn't have to wear their uniforms and march around all day.  Truck beds and Kenny Chesney, busted ass charcoal grills and Natural Light flowing like rain from the sky, these are whole afternoons of debauchery and festivity the likes of nothing you've seen before.  While I have no doubt that these "Hooligans" are a pound-for-pound match for any schools pre, half and post game tailgating, there energy flows to and from the parking lot and the stadium seats directly behind their beloved team, where chants of "Take it to the house!" and "I got a feeling, Navy's going to the Super Bowl!" soar towards the field.  I know it doesn't make sense, but you get the point. 

             Other campuses have shown no match to the refined domination, as they have brought their spirit from Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium as far as the "Horseshoe" in Columbus, OH.  I had the opportunity to witness them own College Park this past Friday, which resulted in a post on laxpower.com stating:

"One of the best battles of the night was the Maryland and Navy Hooligans. Maryland dressed there top 15 chess club members in Maryland hooligan T shirts who stood behind the Navy bench pregame and did what hooligans do best. There plan was working flawlessly until three minutes after the game started. That's when the Navy Hooligans showed up led by what appeared to be the entire wrestling and football team. The Maryland hooligans tried their best but were overwhelmed and over run by the Navy guys who were noticeably better hooligans."

To credit the class of the Navy tailgaters, a group of police officers that came to make sure the road way near their tailgater was cleared was forced to apprehend only one person, a stray Terrapin that had lost his way.

            I think it's important to dispel any ill-feelings that some may have to these future (and current for that matter) leaders of America carrying themselves in such ways.  First of all, Navy Lacrosse tailgaters and games are not more than a weekly occasion, whereas Joe College Fratboy, your future doctor, lawyer or kid's school teacher, is doing far worse on, what in many cases may be a daily affair.  So chill out.  Second, they work hard day in and day out, and an afternoon of fun is well deserved.  Finally, would you rather these fine young men and women be spending their Saturday afternoons shining shoes and doing homework, or engaging in an immense social spectacle of patriotism and pride for their nation, their services and their school that rings throughout the land? 

            I dono, but for me as an American, the emotion of these Midshipmen builds something within me that puts a big smile on my face, and will always maintain my belief that "we will win."

I drank alot at the opening day celebrations for the O's on Monday, so its taken 48 hours of sleep to get my head back to normal and write something down here.  My last and first post talked a little about influences and how we should be wearier of them, but in a conversation with my friend Thor, I realized I left out a really important point. 

First of all, I have to say how damn funny it can be sometimes when you've been drinking and you think you’re Ari-freakin-stotle.  Like you're in the perfect state of mind to realize the answers to every question that mankind has.  So back to the point I didn't make last time, which was how your parents affect your socio-political ideals and beliefs.  Huge point I missed, but a difficult one to quantify or estimate, because of the factors associated with the role of parents in each individual's life.

Looking at myself, my parents are great, but the influence that my father's political beliefs have had in the development of my own has swayed in a number of directions. I'm 22 years old now, on the verge of having a real job, making real money and having real responsibilities, and I feel like I am far more likely to listen to my father and have educated discussions with him on politics and the economy than I was when I was a wiseass 16-year-old.  That said though, I'm more educated now, and my days of impressionability have come and gone, the prime of which has taken place during the past 3-4 years I have spent in college.  So while how my father thinks has and always will be important to me, this is one possible scenario of many.  

I could have had parents that just didn't care, I could have not had parents at all, I could have spent all of my life rebelling against them or I could spend my own life not giving a rats a$$.  Either way, I think it's important to consider what influence our parents had or didn't have in the development of our personality and our beliefs. Just a thought, maybe next time I'll talk about some real stuff.

Enough serious stuff, go O's, Best Monday ever, Markakis Awsome, thanks to Thor, keep it real, and Thanks for readin.

So chances are I fall into the minority of blogger's at Campus Progress, not because I want to but because I have no choice.  Let's start with the basics, I dig the death penalty, doing something big with the immigration situation, stem-cell research, Dave Matthews and I think Anne Coulter is kinda hot.  I don't dig abortion, most gun control, people thinking they know what's actually goin on in Iraq myself included, people scaring other people about the environment, and spiders. 

So I got that goin for me, but I have to tell you I'm new to this concept of writing down what I think and hoping people care enough to read it.  Which reminds me of a blog I just read about how Fox News is infiltrating facebook. The first thing that came to my head was "who cares?" I mean, I just go on facebook to see if any of the dumb crap I did the weekend before made it onto someone's camera, but then I got to thinking and it led me to the first point I'm going to make in this new venture. As 18, 19, 20, 21, ... year old men and women, we swim in pools of bias.  Whether it be left, right, up, down or around, institutions of higher learning throughout the United States are shaping the political climate to come, not Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hanity or The New York Times.  Their incites are left primarily to the baby boomers and our parents who are over the proverbial hump.

Ninety-nine out of 100 of us are going to form our beliefs on politics and government as a function of the institutions that raise us, and maybe only 60 out of 100 are gonna care enough to do something.  I'm no angel and I may or may not fall within that 99 or 60, but it should be forums like this, conversations with each other, and finding out for ourselves that builds our beliefs and our characters and fights the biases we see and feel everyday.  I'm not sure, but I don't think I'm gonna loose any sleep when The LA Times puts a link up on doratheexplorer.com, but it does shake me up to see how much we swallow in class and around campuses, without really considering it fully.   Thanks for readin.