Managing Problems

This week has brought a renewed, if unwanted, focus on Major League Baseball's managers. AJ Hinch of the Houston Astros, Alex Cora of the Boston Red Sox, and Carlos Beltran of the New York Mets were all with the Astros in their World Series winning season of 2017. Hinch was manager, Cora was bench coach, and Beltran was a player. All three were named in the Commissioner's report on the Astros' sign stealing cheating in that season.

All three of these managers were fired by their teams this week, after the Commissioner's report became public. Hinch was also suspended for one year by the Commissioner. Cora and Beltran continue to wait on word as to any suspensions they will face.

I believe that each man deserved/deserves a suspension. I believe that they deserved to lose their current jobs.

But the firings of Cora and Beltran highlight another, even more significant, problem.

There are thirty Major League Baseball teams. There is one African-American manager in MLB, Dave Roberts of the Los Angeles Dodgers. With the firings of Cora and Beltran, there are three remaining Latino managers: Dave Martinez of the Nationals, Charlie Montoyo of the Blue Jays, and Rick Renteria of the White Sox. Roberts is the first minority manager the Dodgers have employed, but the team of Jackie Robinson has been admired for its progressive approach to the game for decades. The Nationals, Blue Jays, and White Sox have all employed minority managers previously, as have the Mets. They are each to be commended for their openness. Cora was the first minority manager for the Red Sox, who were the last team in baseball to bring a black player to their major league roster when Elijah "Pumpsie" Green was called up in 1959, a full twelve years after Jackie Robinson's advent in Brooklyn.

Most major league teams have never had a minority manager. That fact is hard to understand when you consider who comprises baseball teams.

Cora and Beltran represented 40% of baseball's Latino managers, and 1/3 of baseball's minority managers. I can only hope that the three teams who have sudden and unexpected openings for Major League Manager will consider a wider range of candidates to fill those positiions.

It is shameful that only one team is led by an African-American manager. And it is absurd that only three teams are led by Latino managers.

Baseball must do better. And wouldn't even have to try very hard to do a whole lot better.

Faces

I'm an almost 60 year old white man, born into the heart of the Jim Crow south. I've lived within the bounds of the confederacy all my life but for 7 years, and those were spent in a still wildly racist border state, in a county that retained unwritten Sundown Rules into (at least) the last decade of the 20th century. I had one set of grandparents who never quite mastered saying "Negro" at the time that that was the preferred term. I attended a high school that was created by building a walking bridge over the street that had separated (but unequalled) the town's black and white high schools, just a very few years before I got there, by court order, of course.
I retain a cracker accent, despite of my best efforts.
And yet, I've somehow managed to never, ever dress up in blackface, brownface, or any other face than my own.
Never.
Not once.
At any age.
Just sayin'.

"Thoughts and Prayers" My Ass

There have just been reports of a mass shooting in...um...is it Philadelphia this time? I just can't keep up any more. 
But don't worry! The Thoughts and Prayers crowd is already on the job, ensuring that nothing will ever be done to stop this insanity!
If any of the myriad deities that segments of humanity worships, or has worshiped, was willing, or, more pointedly, able to do anything about human violence, don't you think that she, he, or it would have already done it? US mass shootings? Rwandan genocide? Vietnam? The Holocaust? World War II, generally? World War I? American lynchings of the post-Civil War period? Genocide against native peoples throughout the Americas? Crimean War? 
All the way back to the beginning of human existence!
Or, if there were anything to religion, don't you think that the various gawwds might be depicted by their own devotees, in their fairy tale books, as something more than bloodthirsty killers themselves?
Or, here in the real world, don't you think it might be time to stop crying out pointlessly to the sky for relief, and do something, ourselves, right here and right now, about our infinite capacity to kill ourselves?
But, then again, who am I kidding? There's WAY too much money in killing for what we willingly accept as our "leaders" to ever let go of the death and destruction.
But keep on praying! It just ensures that the gun manufacturers, the contractors for the Department of War, the private prison industry, and various strongman leaders around the world that have grown rich from stealing from their own minions will sleep on ever-growing piles of cash that we just can't wait to fork over to them.
Why?
To make us safe!

Shelby County Schools Promote Trump's (Utter Lack of) Ethics

We had a problem with math this year, and wound up in summer school. Kate Bond Elementary is the only site within a half hour of our house, so we went there.
The first week, a girl larger than my granddaughter tried to intimidate her by getting in her face and putting her finger in my granddaughter's face. We have taught our children, from oldest to youngest, that we do not accept bullying and intimidation, so my granddaughter pushed her hand away. The girl then hit her in the chest. When I met with her teachers, Stewart of Cordova Elementary and McGee from parts unknown, they saw it as an equal offense situation, and told me that my granddaughter must not put her hands on other students.
Last week, at lunch, a boy called my granddaughter a "dumb bitch." Earlier this week, the same boy asked her, "Are you a whore?" She is ten years old. I spoke with Stewart about this matter yesterday, and she ducked, passing me off to McGee. McGee, obviously a saintly person as she wouldn't say "whore," rather spelled it out to me: "H-O-R-E." This person is an English teacher.
She told me that it was a "he said-she said" situation, so no disciplinary action would be taken toward the boy. This response was, obviously, completely unacceptable.
Today, I went to school and met with the principal, Crutcher. She is not the person listed as principal on Kate Bond's website, so I don't know if that is her school, or she's just assigned there for the summer. Crutcher's position is that the real problem is that my granddaughter discussed what was said to her with a couple of the other children in the room. What I know is that my granddaughter came home and asked what "whore" means. She didn't know that word. She was trying to find that out in the classroom.
This elementary school victim of physical intimidation, bullying, assault, and sexual harassment was blamed by those in power for each of these incidents.
We are no longer in summer school. It is an unacceptable environment for a ten year old girl.
And we wonder how we wind up with a president who dismisses the 20th sexual assault/rape allegation against him by explaining, "she's not my type." And gets away with all of it.
We are training our bullies and future rapists and woman abusers in our public schools, and pardoning their behavior when someone makes an attempt to call them on it.
This country has already gone to hell in a handbasket.

A Season of Seasons, or, More Religionist Bullshit

Religionists may always be counted on to find a way to use the language to make sure that everyone within earshot knows that they are smarter than you, and think on A Seriously Profound Level far beyond your poor capabilities. What you should know about that absurdity is that it's precisely the bullshit that it sounds like it is.
The latest of these pseudo-intellectual pretensions is the use of the word "season." Not in reference to the portions of the year that we designate as winter, spring, summer and fall. Certainly not in reference to the period of games in whatever sport is ongoing at the moment. But, perhaps in some tip of the miter to the section in the old testament book of ecclesiastes that Pete Seeger used to prove that he could make something wonderful even out of the fairy tales book commonly called the bible, before Roger McGuinn and the boys turned Seeger's song into Turn! Turn! Turn!, a hit record for the Byrds in the mid-1960s. (McGuinn is also a story of a religionist nut, but that's for another day.)
I heard this abuse of season clomping into common usage like a Star Wars At At Walker tromping across the frozen tundra of some remote planet even before I grew up and got out of the church. It was tossed around, first, by The Ambitious, those that lacked the TV evangelist looks to get noticed, the work ethic of the true believers, or the depth of the able and well-educated. But, hey, as Tessie Tura, Mazeppa, and Electra tell the young Gypsy Rose Lee, "You gotta get a gimmick!" Intellectual Poseur is the only path to Religionist Leader that a certain percentage can come up with. So, go with what you know, and whatever your limited ability and con artist soul give you to work with!
Seasons has become ubiquitous. I ran into it again today. It was in a blog linked on a friend's page, written by someone I do not know. Truth is, his (I'm guessing...) blog is so well arranged that I can't even find a name on it. Anyway, he went to lengths to describe our current National Policy of locking up children, women, and men legally pursuing political asylum in concentration camps as "our current season of civic, social, and political madness." He had done a pretty good job of tracing the history of concentration camps, and tying in some work on Germany's descent into Nazism. But we are, according to him, simply in a "season" of this behavior in America.
Bullshit.
Whenever I hear this inanity, I am invariably taken back to Jerzy Kosinski's brilliant 1970 novel, Being There, which was spectacularly adapted into a 1979 film, by Hal Ashby from Kosinski's screenplay, starring Peter Sellers in his best film performance (along with Dr. Strangelove). This film presaged the rise of Ronald Reagan, and our political existence of the last 40 years.
Chance was a gardner. He seems to have been a bit slow, and Chance had been taken into the home of The Old Man (his illegitimate child?), the wealthy owner of the home and grounds where Chance lives, and works the gardens. The Old Man has died as the story opens, and the necessary steps are taken to close the house, which includes The Old Man's attorneys interviewing Chance about his intentions to file any sort of claim against the estate. Chance has no clue what they are talking about. He works in the garden, watches television, and eats the meals prepared for him by Louise, the maid. This is the only life Chance has ever known.
The attorneys tell him he must leave, so he dutifully packs his trunk and leaves. He walks out into a world he does not know and cannot understand. He finds himself mildly struck by a car belonging to one of the richest and most influential industrialists in America, and is then taken back to this old man's mansion to see after his injury, and prevent a lawsuit.
Over the course of just a couple of days, Chance becomes an Influential American himself, through a comedy of errors that includes his name being misunderstood (upon being asked his name he responds, honestly, "Chance, the gardner," but he groans in the middle of saying it as the doctor examines his leg, and he is misunderstood to have said, "Chancey Gardener," which then becomes his name), and, most significantly for my purposes here, his habit of answering any question that he is asked, but cannot understand, by immediately reverting to talking about his garden, and its seasons. These responses are taken as profound metaphor by Important People Dealing With Important Issues, and wind up being quoted by the President of the United States as an adviser's economic forecast for the nation. Kosinski uses "seasons" in Chance's mouth to demonstrate the idiocy of people who cannot recognize their own pretensions, their own arrogance, and their own stupidity. At the end of the film, as Chauncey Gardener walks across the lake behind the rich man's mansion, as any good savior would, the Important People Dealing With Important Issues are heard talking about him in reverentially whispered tones, at the funeral for the second dead old man, about the possibility of persuading such a popular, accomplished, and knowledgeable person as Mr. Chauncey Gardener to run for president as their next candidate.
Which perfectly summarizes the crisis in leadership from which religionists suffer today.

National Priorities: We Get What We Pay For

Some of you may remember the late-1980s PBS series Ethics in America. A distinguished moderator led a discussion by a panel of accomplished Americans on issues ranging from personal ethics, to medical ethics, to ethics in government, and everything in between. It was a brilliant group of programs, and I was always left with several things to think about after I watched it.
One of the brilliant moderators was Professor Charles Ogletree of Harvard University. He was a career academic, now retired, but his thinking was crystal clear for communicating with lay people, his questions invariably penetrating, his positions typically unassailable. I always enjoyed the shows that he led. I also enjoyed the times he made the members of the panel squirm a little bit. People like Newt Gingrich, Rudolph Giuliani, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, and Antonin Scalia, among many others. People who didn't normally have to squirm very much. Good for the soul, don't you know.
The next time I heard of Professor Ogletree was during the first presidential campaign of Barack Obama. Ogletree taught law to both the future president and the future first lady. No wonder they were each such effective attorneys.
I've seen Mr. Ogletree's name again tonight. The Cambridge, MA, police have issued a bulletin asking for the public's assistance. Professor Ogletree is now an Alzheimer's patient, and wandered away from his home tonight about 5:30.
It breaks my heart to learn that this man, who enjoyed such a formidable intellect throughout his life, is struggling with this dread disease. It scares me whenever I hear that a person with Alzheimer's has wandered away from home.
And I wonder how much farther down the road toward a cure or prevention we might be if we hadn't spent trillions of dollars fighting ultimately meaningless, pointless wars since the time Professor Ogletree was moderating those wondrous episodes of Ethics in America.
We owe better to a lost, confused man in Cambridge, Massachusetts, tonight. And a great many other Americans, too. Americans who are ill, hungry, homeless, unloved, and uncared for.

NOTE: Professor Ogletree was found, safe, and returned to his home about midnight tonight.

Warm Springs, Georgia, April 12, 1945: 74 Years Ago Today

I hold that Abraham Lincoln was the greatest American president, for reasons that I assume to be obvious. I place George Washington second, because he had to take what the Constitution listed as his responsibilities, and put them into effect out of nothing. No precedent. No tradition. Just how his vision for America led him to set things up. 
Franklin Delano Roosevelt comes third on my list. He inherited the Great Depression from a republican who believed that the thing would eventually just work itself out. Hoover did nothing.
Nothing.
FDR, basically, did everything. He tried. If it worked, he kept it. If it didn't, he ditched that, and tried something else. He held the country together, did all he could to put it back to work, and worked to keep America's spirits up through one of lowest times we'd ever known.
Then, on the heels of the Depression, we landed squarely in the middle of World War II. He supported Great Britain. He inspired us to rise from Pearl Harbor. He fixed the vision. He led the fight.
But he didn't live to see the victory.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt died 74 years ago today, in Warm Springs, Georgia, his retreat that renewed him throughout his years of struggle against the effects of the polio that robbed him of the use of his legs, six weeks before the war ended in Europe; four months before the war ended in Asia. But he had agreed to put on his fourth ticket a man, plain, plainspoken, simple, and direct, to lead the nation through to the end of the war in both theaters: Harry Truman.
We would not be the nation that we are today, the one whose institutions fascists are still working to destroy, had it not been for the strength, intelligence, persistence, hope, expectation, and sunny disposition, always believing in the future of America, that comprised Franklin Roosevelt.
We are a fortunate people that there was such a leader at such a time. We will remain profoundly indebted to him, just as to Lincoln and Washington, as long as this country endures.

Empathy

I'm an old retired white man who was born here and lived here all my life, and I know how horribly I feel about where things are with my country. 
I can't imagine how I would feel about it if I were in a religion other than redneck evangelical (pardon the redundancy, and, I'm no longer in that religion, but that's the protected group), a woman, born in another country (especially one to the south of the US, or in the Middle East that doesn't do business with the Trump Organization), a teacher, a union member, a member or spouse of the US military generally, and a transgender member of the military in particular, a member of the LGBTQ community, an African-American, a Latino, a journalist-you know, a real journalist-one who doesn't work at Fox News, a child who is incarcerated after being taken from their parents at the southern border, a parent who is incarcerated or deported whose child has been taken from them at the southern border, a person of color who has had a loved one gunned down in the street by the police, a person who has lived every minute they can remember of their lives here but now been torn from their family and work because they were brought here by their parents 20, 30, 40, or 50 years ago, and has never known life anywhere else, or any one of a thousand other groups that have had war declared on them by power.
But I'm trying to imagine.
I'm trying to understand.
Because that's the only way that any or all of this shit is going to be stopped.

The Longest-Lived President

I'm a bit skeptical whenever I hear the announcement of a new "World's Oldest Person." First, it means that someone else has died, and, second, it's not a lasting title.
It seems the same with American presidents.
That said, I find it remarkably satisfying that Jimmy Carter has become, today, the longest-lived president in American history. Mr. Carter surpassed George H.W. Bush at 94 years and 172 days. 
Jimmy Carter is widely adjudged to have been a failure as a president. This evaluation is grossly unfair and inaccurate, and betrays our general American emphasis on image over actual accomplishment, propaganda over fact. His character has been assassinated by republicans, beginning with the abominable Reagan and his lackies, for 45 years. Carter's basic human decency, over the issue of the Shah of Iran seeking admission to the United States for treatment after being diagnosed with cancer, led to the takeover of the American embassy in Tehran, and the subsequent hostage crisis. He had the release of the hostages negotiated and agreed to when George H.W. Bush, acting for Reagan, communicated to the Iranians that a Reagan Administration would offer a better deal to Iran than Carter had. The Iranians sat on the hostages for additional time, until Reagan was sworn in. Reagan's people subsequently sold American arms, illegally, to the Iranian government, in order to illegally fund the Nicaraguan Contras' war against the Sandinista government. (Republicans have a long history of colluding with foreign governments against American interests. In addition to Trump and Reagan, Nixon killed an agreement over the Vietnam War in the same way, for the same purpose, in 1968, costing Hubert Humphrey the White House, and resulting in the only resignation from the American presidency. So far.)
Carter established the Departments of Education and Energy. He made both national issues. He installed solar panels on the White House (which Reagan had taken down). He preached and practiced conservation. He personally negotiated the only peace agreement between nations in the Middle East that has lasted: the Camp David Agreement between Israel and Egypt. He and Walter Mondale remade the role of the vice president. He sought to dramatically decrease American dependence on oil from OPEC and other producers. He governed by intense study of the issues before him. And he was the only American president of my lifetime who actually practiced, in detail, the faith that he claimed to live by.
Jimmy Carter was a good president. 
He has been a great former president. He has made the eradication of the guinea worm one of his top priorities, and has very nearly gotten the world to that point. I will leave it to you to search out the horrible consequences of guinea worm infection. He has continued to this day to build housing, with his own hands, for low income people, through Habitat for Humanity. He has monitored more elections in more countries, and brought home more Americans held in other countries than anyone in my memory. Through the Carter Center, based in Atlanta, he has continued to advocate, forcefully, for human rights around the world. And particularly, since the days even before he left the Southern Baptist Church over its policies toward them, the human rights of women and girls. President Carter has never forgotten the remarkable guidance of his mother, Miss Lillian Carter, and has always treasured his astounding and full partnership of almost 72 years with former First Lady of the United States Rosalynn Carter. These relationships shaped President Carter's understanding of the desperate need for justice in education, employment, family planning, and rights, generally, for women. 
Jimmy Carter is a great man. He was an effective president, and has been the exemplar for former presidents. He has stood for what is right and just. He is just the man to be remembered as our longest living president.
I am proud, to this day, that the first vote I ever cast in a presidential election was for Jimmy Carter's reelection.

We Never Truly Know

It's been a pretty lousy week. A man that I'd known of for over 40 years, and known, lightly, for almost 20 years, died. I learned his name from west Tennessee high school basketball. He was very, very good. Good enough to be All State, and High School All American. Good enough to get an NCAA Division 1 scholarship. And play.
I wanted to be a basketball player. I stalled out at 5' 6 1/2". And I like pizza.
I made his acquaintance because he also became an incredible musician. He often told the story of how one of Memphis' legendary guitarists, Teenie Hodges, taught him how to play. He was signed to a national recording company. He had a legit top 10 hit. He made a couple of great albums. Then he got caught in the vagaries of the recording industry, his company going belly up, and leaving him unpromoted, with a contract hanging over his head, and needing years to get out from under it. He played around town, frequently, in the years when I was able to haunt most of the music venues. I heard him often enough he began to recognize me at his gigs. We talked a little.
I wanted to be a musician. I bought a guitar. I learned how to strum a few chords. OK, for playing along with the cd player, with only my ears in attendance. Never got any better than that.
He was a scholar. He did good, profound work on one of the Nobel-winning Irish poets from the earlier part of the 20th century.
I majored in history, then got diverted for 28 years.
I did some really stupid stuff in my high school and college years. The kind of stuff that would have caused me to take the car keys away from my children, permanently, if I'd caught them doing some of the same stuff I did. But, for whatever reason, I was lucky. I didn't hurt myself or anyone else. And I didn't wind up addicted. I don't know why. It just worked out that way.
He did some stupid stuff as a young man, too. Same kind of stuff as me. But he wasn't lucky. He wound up addicted. I don't know why. It just worked out that way.
He went through hell, but found a door. That door was faith, the church, and ministry. He moved through all of the required steps, and came up for ordination. He was four years older than me, but I'd already passed through those steps of the process a few years ahead of him.
I voted for his admission.
He'd been through hell, but he was determined that he wasn't going to leave anyone else there. He did the various kinds of work that ministry requires, but he put tremendous time, effort, and skill into reaching addicted people, because he knew what they were dealing with, and going through.
He was great at it.
I couldn't begin to estimate the number of people whose loads were made lighter, and lives were made better because he was there for them. He found a church, or they found him, or pastor and church found each other, where he could focus on that sort of ministry, and he helped lead that work into being a vital part of his church's life.
Then, apparently, his addiction reared its head again. The news reports said he was in a rehab facility. Today they reported that the coroner's autopsy said the cause of death was suicide by hanging.
We never truly know how it's going with someone else. Every time I saw the guy, or listened to his music, I thought to myself, what a guy! How I'd like to be like him, in any one area of his incredible talents! Much less, have all of them! But he, clearly, was hurting, and struggling, no matter the face that he invariably presented when you ran into him.
I'm grieving his passing. I'm heartsick over the circumstances of it. I wish that, in that awful moment, he could have found solace in his impact on the lives of so many people fighting addiction, no matter how his own fight was going right then. I wish that he could have found solace in the poetry that was so dear to his heart. I wish he could have banged it out on his guitar, and written another new song that would have spoken for him and to so many of us. I wish he could have picked up a basketball and hooped it out until things looked better. I wish someone could have been there to wade through it with him. I wish I'd been able to make the offer of help, myself.
But he's gone now. I don't know why. It just worked out that way.
And I'd like to think that I'll be a little more intentional, now, about trying to know what's going on in the people in my circle of acquaintance.
Because we never truly know.

Brain Function Speed, Where Does Roger Stone Live Anyway, and Lindsey Graham's Lost Head, or, The Old NFL Ball Game!

You know, I wanted the Saints to win the NFC Championship, too. 
But, really.
The Conspiracy Theorists have now come up with the utterly meaningless factoid that four members of last week's refereeing crew live in southern California. Sure, if you care nothing for sports, or were on the moon, or, like Lindsey Graham, had you head completely buried up Trump's ass, there was a totally blown pass interference foul that should have been called on the Rams late in the game, that would have put the Saints about as deep in Rams' territory as they could get, with a guaranteed touchdown mere seconds away. 
At least that's the way that Saints devotees see things.
But here's the thing: do you really think that the referees are SO skilled that in that split second, the guy could process Pass Interference...but it's the Rams...and I'm from SoCal...so I want the Rams to win...so I'm not going to call what I saw!
Really?
Newsflash: nobody's that good. Or that quick. The synapses just don't flash that way.
It's just like the JFK Assassination Dependents. If the NFL was going to conspire against anyone, it would have been the Patriots. Because the NFL offices hate the Patriots, and the Patriots hate the NFL offices.  Hello! Spygate! Inflategate! You know. The Patriots always get away with everything.
Except when they don't. 
But even if you want to believe this stupidity, do you really think that the CIA, or, in honor of Roger Stone's indictment and jailing, if you think Lyndon Baines Johnson somehow ran from his vehicle in the Dallas motorcade, shot Jack Kennedy in the head, and ran back to his car, without anyone...ANYONE...seeing him do that, as Stone pretty much claimed in his idiotic book, do you really think that the government could keep that quiet for 56 years? We know by 2 pm when Trump throws a fit over not getting an extra-large fry with his Big Mac at lunch! The NFL conspired to send 4 SoCal refs to rig the Rams-Saints game? Need I ask your opinion of the moon landings?
I suspect not.
If you're on board with this nonsense, well, just keep on MAGA-ing!

Captain Bonespurs And All His MAGA Tough Guys Need Their Blankie

Captain Bonespurs took to the airwaves tonight. The same networks that couldn't find the time for the legitimately elected to two terms President Obama to give a speech on immigration had plenty of time tonight to let the treasonous professional liar spew forth his terrifying fantasies.
I didn't watch him. I can't watch him. Whenever he appears on my television, I immediately want to Elvis the tv. 
I can't afford to replace our televisions on a daily basis. 
I have read some of what he said. He did not declare the rumored "National Emergency." This was his one shot to make the case for such a fascist, authoritarian, Nazi action. He cannot come back later and make that case. 
This was it.
He seems to have simply regurgitated, one more time, the same bullshit he's been peddling since the campaign, laced with some bizarre appeal to the "humanitarian" circumstances, as though there has ever been one moment of his increasingly pathetic life when he has given even the most minuscule shit about what's happening to anyone other than himself.
He doesn't care about the two children who have died. He doesn't care about the families who were in such fear for their children's lives in their home countries that they would make a multiple thousands mile march to a foreign land that is being run by a sociopath, simply to try to protect their children. He doesn't care about relations with Mexico, or crimes against humanity, where agents of the United States government, acting on his orders, have repeatedly violated Mexican sovereignty by firing tear gas and bullets into their country. He doesn't care about the circumstances of our troops, as he ordered thousands of them to the border. He doesn't care a whit about American law, which makes provision for people who approach our borders to make a lawful appeal for political asylum. He doesn't care about the damage that this entire charade and fiasco does to our standing amongst the family of nations around the world.
He just doesn't care.
I don't either.
But what I don't care about is the way this fascist manipulates his willfully ignorant supporters. I don't care about his cowardly stance toward people who are asking our help to save their lives, and their children's lives. I don't care what lies he tells to try to sell his stupid wall. He cannot have one single dollar to build a wall that announces to the world that the United States of America is afraid. Afraid of poor people. Afraid of brown people. Afraid of living up to our laws. Afraid of living up to our principles.
Afraid, afraid, afraid. The sum total of 21st Century American conservatism.
We cannot live that way.
The cowardly Captain Bonespurs, and his disgusting brand of cowardice, must be utterly and finally rejected over this idiotic fantasy of a wall that would keep all the scary, scary people away from our door.

republicans being republicans? Count on it!

I am confounded at all of the people who are shocked by the naked displays of power, rage, and fury that republicans have exhibited since Trump's coup d'etat usurped the presidency, and that were so visibly on display from their senators and Supreme Court nominee yesterday. 
This is precisely what republicans have been since Richard Nixon's campaign, nomination, and election in 1968. Nothing has changed. Nothing is new. This is what they are. This is what they have been since my childhood.
Oh, every now and then a Howard Baker, a Colin Powell, a John McCain, a Jeff Flake, or a Bob Corker will make some weak, feigned effort at showing some concern about what his party is doing. They all had/have beautiful words of concern about what their party is doing. But not one of them, not one, has ever put his country over his party and stood up to what has happened to us at the hands of republicans.
Maverick? Conservative with a conscience? Independent voice?
BULLSHIT!
Every single one of them has toed the line and voted attack after attack after attack on the American people.
And, if we continue to sit back and let them, they are just getting started.
But, hey, if we allow them to steal elections, hack voting machines and manipulate vote totals, commit treason with Russians, nominate pedophiles to high office, and put rapists on the Supreme Court (we are shortly going to be up to TWO sexual predators on our highest court, to cover for the one in the Oval Office), then we are getting just exactly what we deserve.
It is up to us, the American people.
And I have less confidence in that statement today than I have ever had in my life.
"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." -Henry Louis Mencken
Mencken the acerbic editor of the Baltimore Sun, also said, "On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." He should have included the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Supreme Court.
(Note: Mencken was not a good or decent man, but he was dead-on correct in assessing the future of American governance.)

Things I Have Learned: It Isn't Always Someone Else

On August 16, 2016, my older daughter checked into a heroin detox center. I hadn't known exactly what was wrong, but anyone who had seen her during her four or five year deterioration knew that something was bad wrong, and it had taken a very ugly turn over the six months before that day almost two years ago.
She spent her time in that detox unit, then moved to a half-way house here in Memphis. Shortly afterward, she was thrown out for breaking the rules.
That began a succession of relapses, detoxes, half-way houses, and repeatedly getting thrown out of the various places that continues, off and on, to this day.
She has been involved for several years with a man who has multiple drug arrests, and multiple domestic violence arrests. She refuses to deal with that situation honestly, just as she does her addiction issue.
She has been in a facility in Jackson or the last few weeks. I don't know why Jackson. People in the family have been convinced, yet again, that she had changed her direction and found a better way to get through life.
I learned today that she is no longer at that facility. She has been gone for a week. They don't know anything about where she is. Neither does anyone in my family, or her mother's family.
Shannon's son and my younger daughter are what every parent hopes for: both college graduates, both gainfully employed, both in solid, strong relationships that nourish their souls.
My older daughter is living every parent's nightmare. Unless it has happened to someone you love, you cannot imagine what this thing is. I want her to get well. I want her to care for herself. I want her to have a life. I want her to be the mother that she has never been to her little girl, my granddaughter. 
I want her to be alive. The only thing that she has said to me in the last 10 years that I know to be factually true is that "I'm over 18, and you can't make me" anything. I can't fix this for her. We can't fix this for her.
Unfortunately, when a person is in this circumstance, it doesn't matter what anyone else wants. Until my daughter wants those things, none of them are going to happen.
I can only hope that she wants them before she can't want them any more.
We are as well as we can be. Having lived with this for what seems like an eternity, we've moved through all of the stuff you go through. I have learned that it is not my fault. The accomplishments of the other two kids make a pretty strong argument that we haven't been complete disasters as parents (and when I say "we," I, of course, mean "I.") I have learned, the hard way, that if I let it, it will kill me. I have decided to not let it. 
We are taking care of our granddaughter. We expect that at some point fairly soon, she will, legally, become our daughter. We are committed to her and her well-being. She continues to deal remarkably well with the circumstances. She has seen her father (who also has multiple drug arrests) twice that she remembers, both times at the Christmas when she was 4, when her mother took her to see him as they visited family in the town where he then lived. She has spent very little time with her mother since...well, since she was born. But my family and the ex-wife's family have combined to see that she feels secure, loved, and knows her place among us and in the world.
I'm not really sure why I'm writing this. I don't have any particular interest in any sympathy. I don't mean that to be ugly. I am grateful for the friends I have in this world. But an awful lot of people are dealing with this same thing, or other things that are just as painful to them. I suppose that it helps just to say some of this out loud. I'm not ashamed of it. I honestly don't think I did it. I'm not ashamed of her, for that matter. I am disappointed. I am angry. I am frustrated. That's being a daddy who has a sick kid. But I have too much to do in taking care of my granddaughter to sit and stew constantly over all of it any more.
I hope, I genuinely, sincerely hope, that you never have to go through this with one of your children. But if you think your family is immune, you should rethink how you see the world.

The Pathetic State of the Memphis Grizzlies

Just so we're clear, sports is nothing but an enjoyable break from the misery of the real world right now.
That said, our beloved Grizzlies aren't much of an enjoyable break right now. The front office made the conscious decision to bring in a bright young coach in the summer before the 2016-2017 season. David Fizdale was fresh off the Miami Heat bench, having served as Eric Spoelstra's Associate Head Coach during the whole LeBron James/Championship era in Miami. Under Fizdale's leadership, we were going to become a modern NBA team. We would play fast. We would shoot threes.
To that end, the front office decided to let Zach Randolph and Tony Allen leave through free agency last summer. Those two men were the grit and the grind in the Grizzlies' grit and grind.
Prior to last season, in addition to the NBA maximum contracts given to Mike Conley and Marc Gasol, the Grizzlies signed Chandler Parsons to a third max contract. Parsons was the three point shooter who would loosen up the middle with his marksmanship from the arc. Only he was broken into pieces, and never made any contribution last year whatsoever.
Now, Conley is out, again, with his Achilles tendon. He has missed major portions due to injury three of the last four seasons. Gasol is making 41% of his shots this year, and either cannot or will not rebound or defend. He is 33 years old, ancient in the NBA. He won't get better than he is right now.
And Sunday night, as Gasol had shot 6 of 17 with 5 rebounds through three quarters against the hapless Nets, already seven games into a losing streak, Fizdale sat Gasol for the fourth quarter.
Gasol pitched a fit after the game. He talked to every media member he could find. He said he wouldn't put up with being benched. He said that it was only done to hurt him and make him look bad. He is, in a word, delusional. He does not deserve to be playing right now. 
Oddly, he never mentioned his on-going poor performance.
But yesterday afternoon, the front office heard their prima donna's hurt feelings, got the message, followed his directions, and fired the offending, offensive coach.
Gasol has spent every minute since making sure everyone knows that he didn't demand Fizdale's firing. He didn't have to. After his post-game performance, it was clear he wanted a different coach. NOW! 
He got what he wanted. 
Mike Conley was here before Zach Randolph arrived. Marc Gasol was here before Zach Randolph arrived. The Grizzlies made the playoffs three times prior to Randolph's arrival.
But they were swept each time.
The Memphis Grizzlies never won even one playoff game until Zach Randolph came to Memphis, much less any playoff series. Now, with him gone, and Conley incapacitated, and Gasol more effective at running the front office than playing, they likely will not even make the playoffs again for many years to come.
Not much of an enjoyable break from the real world right now. None, after Tiger football ends with their bowl game in a few weeks.
Never said that before!

Abusing women is unacceptable. Do we really have to tell guys this? Al Franken version.

Al Franken became a hero of mine through his association with Saturday Night Live, at first with his old comedy partner, Tom Davis, and, later, on his own. I was thrilled when he became part of Air America, in the effort to counter the massive right-wing media (Fox News, Limbaugh, etc.) with a liberal presence. His friendship with Paul Wellstone solidified Franken's interest in politics, and my desire to support him. I couldn't have been happier when he was elected, and re-elected, and his service in the US Senate has been exemplary. I can't imagine any US Senator with whom I would be in more complete agreement on issues. I have been hoping that he would run for President in 2020. I fully intended to vote for him.
But today, Leeann Tweeden told her story.
She told her story, and shared a photograph from a 2006 USO tour. Al Franken is 66 years old now, which makes him 55 in 2006. No 55 year old man can possibly think that it is acceptable to pose for that photograph. Ms. Tweeden is clearly asleep in the photo. Franken does not appear to be touching her in the photograph, but his hands are positioned in places where a decent man would not and cannot position his hands. And her story goes well beyond a photograph.
Roy Moore should not be in the US Senate because of his behavior with girls and young women while he was in his 30s. Al Franken should not be in the US Senate because of his behavior with a young woman while he was in his mid-50s. Franken should resign, and should resign immediately.
This behavior is not acceptable. It cannot be made acceptable. It must, invariably, be made public, and the appropriate consequences must be borne by the perpetrators of this behavior. Harvey Weinstein lost his company. Kevin Spacey and Louis CK have lost their careers. Roy Moore should not get a Senate seat, and Al Franken should lose his.
And I would simply ask, again, why is Donald Trump, a constant and unrepentant sexual predator, still allowed to be in the White House?

Our American Hobby, Las Vegas Edition, October 2, 2017

At 8:15 am on Monday, October 2, 2017, CBS is reporting the numbers out of Las Vegas as "50+ killed, 400+ hurt." Another white man. American born. No significant police record. With multiple automatic weapons, of course. There is no other way to kill and wound that many people, short of explosives.
We have seen this happen in elementary schools. We have seen this happen in high schools. We have seen this happen in movie theaters. We have seen this happen in nightclubs. What we have not seen is anything change after any and all of these previous incidents.
Now? I doubt it. 
Except, possibly, for one thing. 
This was a country music festival.
This attack on country music fans carries with it somewhere between a possibility and a likelihood that many of the dead and wounded are members, or are closely related to members, of the National Rifle Association. 
This is the NRA's strongest demographic.
Will this be the moment that Americans realize that the NRA gives not one shit about human life? That the NRA has not bought and paid for members of the House or the Senate to guarantee anyone's freedom? That the only interest that this trade association has is selling more guns? And the bigger, stronger, more deadly, therefore more expensive, the better?
Profits are all that matter to the National Rifle Association.
They don't give a damn about children.
They don't give a damn about young adults.
They don't give a damn about people in a nightclub frequented by LGBTQ men and women.
They don't give a damn about christians at prayer in their church.
They don't give a damn about people gathered in a movie theater.
They don't give a damn about our military personnel on their bases.
And we are about to learn that they don't give a damn about people gathered at a country music festival.
Their own people.
Their own demographic.
Their own gun owners.
They don't give a damn about anyone or anything but profits from the sale of guns.
And now, I would guess, we won't even give a damn when the NRA's fraud is finally left exposed for all the world to see. Their only interest in gun owners is as marks to turn over more money to gun manufacturers. Their only interest in your freedom is in your freedom to die at the hands of a gun nut.
No one outside the military needs automatic weapons. No one outside the military needs these voluminous magazines that makes it possible to fire so many rounds that the smoke in a hotel room becomes so thick that it sets off the smoke alarms. That, by the way, is how the police figured out where this shooter was. 
He shot so many times that the fire alarms went off.
We have decided that it does not matter that our democratic process was pirated by Vladimir Putin and his minions.
We have decided that it does not matter that we are led and represented by a raving lunatic who lacks the impulse control of the average two year old.
We decided long ago that it does not matter if numbers of our fellow citizens, including our children, are murdered indiscriminately on a daily basis.
Now we will decide if the NRA's own people can join this list of It Doesn't Matter, if, truly, no one and nothing matters but profits from selling guns.
I know what I expect that answer to be.
I sure would like to be wrong.

Summer

I was a bit anxious at the outset. More than a bit, actually. Because when I first thought about this summer prior to school's dismissal in late May, I thought that it had been quite a long time since I had spent a summer responsible for a child. Sheer terror set in as I thought about it, because I quickly realized that I had never been at home, every day, all day, with a child for the entire summer, and, since Grandmommie teaches Summer School each year, that was exactly what was about to happen. 
And suddenly, late 50s did not seem like a good time to try to learn how to do that. Granddaddy was sweating it, big-time!
Three weeks would be simple. My parents take Kaly to Vacation Bible School each summer. They continue to choose to be religious, and that's their business, not mine. And you try to tell great-grandparents that they can't have their great-grandchild. Then, she had been accepted for a week of the school system's CLUE Camp. (CLUE-Creative Learning in a Unique Environment-is the Shelby County Schools program for gifted children.) Finally, Grandmommie had registered her for a week of camp at the Memphis Zoo, given her love for that wonderful place and its animals.
Kaly thoroughly enjoyed each of those weeks, especially Zoo Camp, and that just raised the bar for the remaining time of Hanging Out with Granddaddy.
I was determined that we wouldn't sit in the house watching TV all summer. Which was kind of silly, because one thing we have learned about our granddaughter, since she came home in mid-October, is that she really doesn't watch TV. So that one was easy. The iPad, however, was a genuine challenge. And I was no more interested in a summer of small screen than I was of giant screen.
I knew that one day would be Library Day. That is a summer tradition for us. Even when she wasn't living here, we did our best to have a significant library visit each week in the summers. Then, I knew that for at least a generation, Malco Theaters' Summer Movie Camp had played on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings throughout the summer, and the movies tend to be pretty good. They certainly were again this summer! (Rio 2, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, Penguins of Madagascar, Trolls, and Horton Hears a Who) Hard to beat for $2 apiece per film! Also, the Orpheum Theater's Summer Movie Series always includes family films. This year, we caught the annual Wizard of Oz, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (That's the Gene Wilder version. You know, the GOOD one.), and The Princess Bride, one of the greatest films ever made.
And, in checking on options, I found that Memphis Botanic Garden was holding Mudpie Mondays and Adventure Fridays. On Mondays, the kids were able to make old-fashioned mud pies for the garden fairies who live in the My Big Backyard part of the Garden. Fridays brought a presentation on something fascinating about the natural world each week. (Mosquitos: why they bite us, and how to run them off, for example) Each of those activities was followed by some time in the Garden's spray park, where it thunders for two minutes to signal that the rain is about to fall, every 30 minutes. Then I discovered that our wonderful Brooks Museum held Wacky Wednesdays. The Brooks is our fine arts museum, and they had volunteers to help the kids make a piece of art (Wire Sculpture was her favorite), then they showed several short films from Caldecott and Newberry Award winners, then they provided a bingo game that encouraged the kids to tour the museum to find the pictures shown on the game cards. Then we threw in a few Saturday morning visits to the Memphis Zoo for animals, the Teton Trek fountain, and picnics. We also mixed in a few Lazy Days, just to take it easy.
I think that I have never had so much fun in one summer. It has been an absolute blast spending it with this delightful little girl, who has so much personality, so much confidence, such an intellect, and her mother's beauty. 
She made this intimidating prospect of a whole summer a great deal of fun for an awfully anxious old Granddaddy!

Our Historic Good Fortune

We were incredibly fortunate that George Washington was on the scene when the Revolutionary War broke out, and again, when the Articles of Confederation failed miserably, and we moved to our present form of government.
We were incredibly fortunate that Abraham Lincoln was on the scene when the approximately 90 year struggle over slavery (referring strictly to the time when there was an independent American government) broke out into warfare.
We were incredibly fortunate that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was on the scene, first, when the Great Depression was at its peak, to restore a sense of hope and institute the New Deal to get the country moving again, economically, and then again when war came to America again in 1941.
We were incredibly fortunate that, in 1962, John F. Kennedy was on the scene when the Soviet Union put nuclear missiles in Cuba, and our military leaders wanted to attack them. His cool prevented World War III from breaking out, and got those missiles removed.
We were incredibly fortunate that Barack Obama was on the scene when the worst economic disaster since 1929 befell the world in 2008. His judgement and determination contributed mightily to saving the world economy.
We are incredibly fortunate that, in 2017, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron are on the scene. Since the United States has decided to abdicate our responsibility to lead the world by inexplicably allowing in office an utterly ignorant and ill-mannered buffoon, we depend mightily and totally on these statespersons who know, and are committed to, the traditions, the values, and the principles that have sustained the western world in this post-World War II period. This critical moment, as each of those described above, is no time for ignorance and arrogance as policy.
At least the citizens of Germany and France know that.

Colin Kaepernick Exercises Freedom of Speech; "Patriots" Livid

I've seen many versions of this ignorant crap floating around since the 49ers quarterback sat out the national anthem the other night. Many of them have said something to the effect of, "Our military didn't fight and die so you can disrespect the flag." 
Yes, they did.
Because in this country, we are guaranteed the freedom of our speech, the freedom to dissent, and the freedom to seek redress of grievances. And the freedom of speech, in particular, is a guarantee to speech that is NOT popular, NOT the norm, and NOT what the majority of people think. Because you don't have to protect popular speech, normal speech, or the speech of the majority. That speech is protected by its bulk.
I've read others saying, "there oughta be a law..." It would be unconstitutional. And, before the case was decided by the Supreme Court, it would be a law that demanded to be violated. Just like the Jim Crow laws in the south that led to the Civil Rights movement. The prime defense in the Nuremberg Trials at the end of World War II, when the surviving Nazi bigwigs were put on trial for their war crimes, was, "I was just following orders." It didn't work. It never works. We are each responsible for ourselves. You abide by an immoral law, you are an immoral person. Such a law would never stand.
I admire Colin Kaepernick. He took a stand, or a seat as it were, based on his clearly articulated grievances with our country. I think he is right in his named grievances. Clearly, there are major issues for people of color in the United States of America. I also admire that he, apparently, made the decision to take the heat that will be heaped upon him now. There is no more draconian institution in America than the National Football League. Since Kaepernick has been a marginal player, at best, since the year he led the 49ers to the Super Bowl, he will likely be fined, may be suspended, and I doubt anyone in the league would criticize the 49ers if they released him. But, remembering the parallels again, John Lewis was beaten half to death, Martin Luther King was murdered, Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman were murdered, James Meredith was shot, Medgar Evers was murdered, and on and on and on, for standing up for what they believed. America may guaranteed the freedom of speech, but there is no guarantee that you won't be killed for it, either literally of figuratively, by the most un-American of Americans. 
But no matter how loudly the popular speech today may condemn Colin Kaepernick for sitting, this country was built precisely on the principle that he, indeed, could do it. And I'm grateful to him, and every other American, who has taken this country at its words. Those in the Constitution. Not the words of Fox "News" or Rush Limbaugh or Donald Trump. But the words, largely written by James Madison, perfected by the Constitutional Convention, ratified by the original states, and accepted by every state that has joined the Union since. They are the only words that matter. And Colin Kaepernick was genuinely American and patriotic in trusting and relying on them.
Whether you like it or not. Especially if you don't like it.