A New Year, Begins with a Terrible Loss

I was, as many of us were, saddened when I found out that Darrent Williams died early Monday morning, a victim of a drive-by shooting--all stemming from an argument inside a club where he and his friends had been celebrating the New Year. Apparently, if you feel that your pride has been injured, the only option is to spray a person's limo with bullets.

The worst part is that most of us hear about this and recognize it as a terrible tragedy, but the truth of the matter is, we only hear about it because the victim was a rising NFL star. Incidents like this happen far too often in our country, in our world, and it is time that we seriously address what is one of the greatest threats/problems facing our world--violence from within.

A lot of media attention is paid, understandably so, to the situations in Iraq and Darfur and any other country not our own embroiled in conflict. But there is a situation here in our own country, in our own world, and it is a time like this where we must force our gaze inward. I know this blog is connected to sports and sports gambling, and I know that the last thing many of you want is to be reading a lecture of any sort about our country, but this is our country and this is our problem and this is our time here on this planet to try and fix it.

The world will move on, we will continue to make money wagering, and we will laugh and we will stay sharp and play smart--but this problem remains unless we do something. What can we do? That's something each of us has to figure out, and the sooner the better. You see, this blog, all of us here at Positioning Group, we're not just about making money for ourselves and for our clients. We're here to subtly try and improve the world, in however small a way as we can, little by little by offering sound advice and a forum for ideas where you possibly would least expect it. The more people that start talking, the more of a chance we have.

This is a sad way to begin a new year, with a reminder of a problem that is all too prevalent. It's 2007, people...you would think that we would have figured most of this stuff out already...