COVID Will Have Its Due

 "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." - Proverbs 16:18

The U.S., the most powerful nation on Earth, lost over a million of its citizens to COVID. China, the world's second-most powerful nation, lost 5,000. President Hsieh is well aware of the immense difference those two numbers represent. His Herculean effort to shield the Chinese people from COVID is nothing short of amazing. Here is the rub: He protected hs people so well, they never had a chance to develop "herd immunity" like the Americans - those spoiled brats who demanded their freedom... now! (and then took it on the chin.) For we, the worst of the COVID appears to have passed. China's worse is yet to come. 

President Hsieh is in a bind. He protected his people at the price of their freedom - even at the price of their nations economy which has suffered severely during his draconian lockdowns. Now, his have said, "Enough." Like the Americans, they are ready to face down COVID themselves. 

Because of the contagious nature of the Omicron variant, more Chineses will become infected, and many more than 5,000 will die. When that happens Hsieh will no long be able to gloat in his haughty way, with that insrutable look that keeps the world, and his people, at bay.  

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All Aboard

I hear they want to send a black woman to the moon. Wouldn't that be something? (Sounds like something Joe Biden would propose.) Next, we might want to try sending an LGBTQ person, or how about a redhead? 

Just stop it. Stop dividing people by picking winners based upon what they look like. Such an approach is manipulative, and demeaning, like you-know-who declaring, "I'm going to pick a black woman to be my vice-president!" before he had actually won the Democratic nomination.

Send your best to the moon, and beyond. That is how we realize our best chance for success out there. Race or gender does not matter. What matters is ability, and resourcefulness. Let them be all-white, all-black, all-gay for all I care, just as long as they are all good.  

Wernher von Braun Stuck the Landing: Kanya Keeps Missing the Mark

Kanye West, appearing on an Alex Jones podcast, declared, "I love Hitler." Then, he doubled down and said it again. He went on to suggest that Hitler invented the microphone, and highways; neither of which is true. (The first paved road was built over four thousand years ago.)

The Nazis did, however, advance rocket technology far beyond what anyone else had achieved at the time. After the war, Hitler's top engineer, Wernher von Braun, was snatched from war-torn Germany and spirited to America where he would design the Saturn V rocket (and flight path) that put America on the moon. It is the single greatest achievement in human history. 

Something else came of Hitler's madness: His assault upon the Polish frontier in 1939 became a harbinger of the demise of European imperialism. England, especially, was so ravaged by Hitler's Wehrmacht that it no longer had the financial, or military means, to sustain its empire. Suppressed peoples throughout Africa and Asia rose up out of Europe's ashes and declared their independence.

Hitler's intense desire to enslave had spawned the liberation of a billion human beings. 

Statesmanship Rears Its Fine Head

For all of the talk of statesmanship, how often do we get to see it? It can be an ethereal thing, barely noticeable, except in retrospect. Then, the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, just the other day, shows us what it looks like in real-time. It is a breath of fresh air. 

Nancy announced that she will not seek the leadership position in the upcoming Democratic caucus. She will, however, serve out her elected term as representative for the people of San Francisco, and the nation at large. This is more than Nancy stepping aside for a new generation of Democrats in the House. This is Nancy showing the 80-year-old president, Joe Biden, that it is okay to graciously stand down. 

Too much of our politics is governed by tradition, often leaving us with stale leadership - entitled men and women whose crusty grip on power becomes fixed, and unassailable. Time to concede to reason.  

"Feeble", in itself, means "far past one's prime." That is Joe Biden. For Joe, there is no "eighty is the new sixty." He looks it; he carries himself like the quintessential 80-year-old. He becomes a caricature of "befuddled" by the day.  

It is not Nancy's place to tell Joe when to retire, but there is nowhere that says she can't show him. By removing herself from leadership contention, she, in essence, appears to gently coax Joe away from the disaster of a divisive primary challenge to a second Biden term. The consensus among voters is they hope he does not run again. They like Joe. They do not like him four-more-years worth. Joe confuses their kindly affection and touts the great job he is doing, and how fit he feels. Sounds delusional; you decide. 

Then, let us ask ourselves this: Given a multi-trillion dollar business, (which is what the U.S. is), who among us would hire an 82-year-old to run it? 

I Am Not a Body Part

I never got bent out of shape over abortions because I always felt it was out of my depth. Abortions were pure women's league. Men were spectators. We could cheer, or boo, but we were not allowed on the field, (unless in an official capacity). Then, it came to me: That embryo is not a part of that woman's body. It is an entity of its own. That notion became a game-changer. That put us all on the field.  

People have abortions to save themselves from unwanted pregnancies. The actual motives vary from "saving the life of the mother," to "having a baby right now would be an inconvenience." All reasons are capped by, "It is her right to choose what she does with her body." According to the polls, most Americans agree, even when the goal of each abortion is a prenatal death. How could a species have veered so far from its genesis? This is not a matter of evolution. This is a conscious decision to kill our offspring by the millions to create more space in our lives for ourselves. 

We understand the argument - "her right to do as she chooses with her body." But, that embryo is not part of her body. Her body surrounds the embryo. Her body is designed to protect that embryo. It is a benevolent design. 

We seem to have come to accept that the embryo is part of the mother's body, even though we know it is not.  I mean, what could it be, another organ? Hear this: The embryo has its own design - to father or mother future generations. That its own parts are so tiny, we think that gives us the right to kill it? 

Perhaps a random mutation has occurred in our DNA - a modification - that allows mothers to mentally disconnect from the umbilical cord while the physical cord remains intact. What else could have short-circuited this vital reproductive messaging that has bound the female gender of all living organisms to the utter survival of their offspring? What else could have precipitated this unnatural selection?

Mothers around this nation are declaring: "I do not want this embryo n my body. I do not feel that i am bound to protect it." If not her, then who takes up that charge according to creation? When the mother refuses this sacred trust because she is an advanced species of mammal - one with such intellect and self-awareness that she can assume rights (of choice) not included in the precepts of creation, then what ensures that her most sacred duty is done? By assisting in dislodging the embryo from the womb, we sully the lines of motherhood and render the protections that make it all possible obsolete by law. Is that what we want - to undo the hand of God; to render his work passe'? Have we taken God's place in the natural order? Is this carnage of innocents the price we pay for usurping his proven plan? Whatever we think we are doing, it will not work.

Abortion is a "heads I win, tails you lose" proposition for the unborn. Regardless of the motive the adult declares, the unborn loses utterly. That is abortion's design. There are no second chances for these embryos. They cannot be the objects of pregnancies a year from now, five years, or a hundred years. They cannot be born again. What we have here is not evolution, it is devolution. At our present pace, unless there is a signpost ahead - a detour - we are headed straight for hell. 

The tendency here in America is to vilify. There is no time for that. This is the time for finding safe passage for the unborn, to make sure they make it to the promised land called "life." Nature has provided all of the infrastructures - gave the mother all of the room she needs to carry the child; designed a breathing and feeding apparatus; even given the growing tyke the reflexes, if not the self-awareness, to communicate his intentions. That is the point of those wonderful little kicks. He wants to let us know he is coming - chopping at the bit to join the race... the human race. We are the final place of the infrastructure. He/she has become everyone's responsibility. 

Where mothers declare they are neither willing nor bound to protect these fatal children, a fellowship must stand at the ready to ensure each and every life gets its chance. Without such a society, we become savages the likes of which this Earth had never imagined, and beings throughout the universe would despise. 

Season of '73 (Stuck in Your Craw)

Sixty home runs is "Hot News" in any baseball season; it no longer makes history. Yet, the powers that be - the media - want everyone to buy into what they call Aaron Judge's "historic pursuit" of Roger Maris' American League record 61 home runs. Maris broke Babe Ruth's record of 60 home runs 61 years ago. Closets to half-century later, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa surpassed Maris' mark with 70 and 66 home runs, respectively. A couple of years later, Barry Bonds hit 73, establishing a new Major League record. 

Today, the sports media would have us speak in hushed tones of what is left of Maris' mark, so hallowed his 61 has once again become. they are even amazed and saddened that we do not all feel as they do about their nonsensical crusade to elevate a bygone standard to its former glory. Some go so far as to suggest that when Judge finally passes Maris's total, Judge's final homer mark should be declared the new Major League record. (Not even Judge believes that.)

What is wrong with these people? They never spoke of the National League home run record during the reign of Ruth and Maris. Suddenly, the American League record deserves distinction? 

The Baseball Writers of America have thus far succeeded n keeping Barry Bonds out of baseball's Hall of Fame. They cannot, however, change the facts of what he accomplished. Because the home run record is pre-eminent among baseball records - among all sports records - Bonds is, as they say, "stuck in their craw." His shadow pervades a "Hall" that they will not let him enter. Their public relations campaign to diminish his work fizzles by the day. Aaron Judge provides them with a foil, but he too is wary of their antics. By his reactions to their petty goadings, I wonder why he does not regard such propagandists as fools. 

Sarah Spain, pundit on ESPN's "Around the Horn" tried to explain to her colleagues that many people are unsure whether Bond's actually cheated, while others wonder whether Judge has not cheated, himself. (He has 60 home runs. The next closest hitters have around 40.)

Sarah is right. At the time of McGwire and Sosa, we cheered them on, unsuspecting that something could be amiss. (Something could always be amiss.) We cheered Bonds with the same innocence. We cheered them all, as we cheer them today. How could we know they may have been using banned substances? Incidentally, many of these men associated with baseball's "steroid's era" deny having ever used steroids. Many, including Bonds and Roger Clemens, never tested positive for a banned substance. They are held in suspicion based mainly upon hearsay testimony, and innuendo. 

No one can be absolutely sure about players in a league like baseball whose long history of cheating includes corked bats, spitballs, amphetamines (called "greenies"), sign-stealing, etc. For all we know, Babe Ruth, himself, may have cheated. Only in our faith can we find certainty. 

Ms. Spain, with her astute observations, has thrown a life jacket to her floundering colleagues. They refuse to see. In their zeal to project a pre-supposed purity that, in baseball has never existed, they inadvertently reveal the bias and hypocrisy in their own hearts.  

Barry Bonds, like it or not, is the all-time home run king - for a season (73); for a career (762). No one has hit like Barry. Recently, they booed Toronto pitchers for repeatedly walking Aaron Judge, rather than giving him something good to hit. For the season, Judge has accumulated about 100 walks. In one season, alone, Bonds was walked over 230 times - 120 of those were intentional passes - so feared was his bat. 

Bond captured our imaginations, similar to how Mike Tyson captured the imagination of this country, and the world. Such energy cannot be planned. It happens, like a "Big Bang." Neither Bonds' nor Tyson's moment lasted long, but they left indelible marks upon those who bore witness.  

I was there. I saw Bonds standing at the plate with the eye of an eagle, inscrutably watching pitches go by. Then, suddenly, with a mere flick of his wrists, he would launch a baseball into the ocean - beyond Candlestick Park, into that corner of the Pacific known as "McCovey Cove".  

Bonds was like the "Mighty Casey" of poetic legend, in the flesh. The sports talking heads cannot erase that; we saw it for ourselves. More to the point, other major leaguers saw - generations that included Aaron Judge in his pre-adolescence; staying up late school nights just to see Bonds work. Now, the 30-year-old Judge - the current apex predator of baseball (along with the phenom Shohei Ohtani) - defies the defiers by barely blinking at Maris' record, knowing in his heart that only Bonds' 73 is worthy of the note they desperately seek to bestow upon his eclipsing of what is essentially a Yankee team standard. 

Despite the muddle, about this, there is no doubt: Barry Bonds holds the golden chalice, thus says the official archives of Major League Baseball. Aaron Judge, as of this writing is 13 home runs behind with eight games remaining on the schedule. Swing away, fair prince. Here comes a high hard one. Swing away.  

Next, The Hamptons

The Democrats make fools of themselves by the day. They have the most feeble president in American history talking about running for a second term. They complain about MAGA Republicans being a danger to democracy, and then spend millions to help them win primaries over responsible Republicans. Now, they cry "foul" when Florida governor, Ron Desantis, flies a busload of migrants from Texas to Martha's Vineyard. They accuse him of abuse of migrants. Seriously? 

Martha's Vineyard is one of the richest communities in this country. Those migrants the Dems are wringing their hands over crossed the border into Texas with the clothes on their backs, and neither a p-- to p--- in. Suddenly, they are flying on a chartered jet to "posh" Martha's Vineyard where they are fed, sheltered, and provided other choice amenities. Are you kidding me? 

I can imagine many Americans, this very morning, wishing for a chance to fly for free to this isle of the rich - to strut their stuff, to breathe the air of the affluent. For the Dems to try to drum up sympathy for this bunch of foreigners is like taking up a collection for a lottery winner.

These people have hit the migrant jackpot. Of course, they will be eventually relocated. But, for the moment, sounds like a vacation many of us would cherish. 

If I were one of them, I'd send postcards. The folks back home would get a kick out of that. 

The Queen

Back in the day, there were men referred to as "shade-tree mechanics." They were community fixtures - good guys who'd fix your car for a six-pack. You could count on their resourcefulness to get you back on the road. I am reminded of these men whenever I see the soft-spoken little lady they call Queen Elizabeth II. 

Besides that, I have a bone to pick with the queen. Instead of retiring, and turning the throne over to her aging son, Prince Charles, she drove deep into her nineties, preferring to die on that throne rather than relinquish power.  

We see too much of that in the world today, especially here in America. Look at Pelosi, McConnell, Grassley, Feinstein... I could go on and on. But, none so cling to power as d the Supreme Court justices who, to a man and woman, hold on to their raiments as though they, themselves, were royalty. They seem to forget that each of them is a mere political appointee.  

Lately, none has been so fixed as had Ruth Bader Ginsburg who, thoough strickened with cancer in her eightis, refusd to relinquish her seat on the bench. She chose to die with gavl in hand as though it were her salvation. At some point, the mantra of "public service," which they all extol, sadly devolves into pure vanity.  

If Ms. Ginsburg had been more considerate, she would have retired during President Obama's second term, while there was still plenty of time for him to pick a liberal successor. Rather, she stubbornly sallied forth into the Trump adminstration, dying at the age of 87, toward the end of his single term in office. There, a sliver of time remained - just enough for the wily Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, to offer up her empty seat to President Trump, who filled it with the conservative justice, Cavanaugh. From her deathbed, Ginsburg had asked that the seat be left vacant until the new adinistration took office. McConnell ignored her. More than any one person (perhaps, besides McConnell, himself, who took one justice from Obama, and another from Biden). Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a fit of vanity, delivered Roe v. Wade to the trash heep of history.  

Back to the queen: They made a movie of her life - "The Queen" starring Helen Mirren. In the movie, the queen's car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, and she goes about fixing it with the pluck of a shade-tree mechanic. What a lady! What a queen. 

Serena, In a Man's World

Serena has let it be known that rather than being referred to as "one of the greatest female athletes of all time", she would prefer the moniker, "one of the greatest athletes (period)." The only problem with that is she has only competed against other female athletes. If she had competed against male athletes, she would still be called the "greatest female tennis player ever" because she, doubtless, would have been the one female who came closest to defeating a male tennis player.  She would, however, have "zero" grand slam titles (instead of the 23 she accrued against women), and there is the real chance that, on the tour, competing against men, she would not have won a single match. 

I understand what people would prefer to hear. That would be politics, however; sentimentality, and a subjective desire to ignore reality for what feels better - a pleasant fiction.  

Of all human endeavors, none so starkly draws the line between men and women as does athletics. Women can compete with men on a multitude of levels - the classroom, the boardroom, on the political stage. But, they cannot out-hit, out-run, out-throw, out-jump, or out-fight their male counterparts. They lack the requisite muscle mass, plain and simple. That fact has not changed in a million years. 

Certainly, a trained female sprinter can outrun a pedestrian male, just as the tennis great Billie Jean King out-played the hustler Bobby Riggs, in a tennis match. But, Billie Jean could never have defeated Arthur Ashe, Jimmy Connors, or any of the other professional male tennis players of her day. That would be as unlikely that it would have been nearly impossible. 

ESPN's Stephen A. Smith, in a fit of verbosity, declared he would place Serena on the Mt. Rushmore of Athletes. First, most sports aficionados never speak of the tennis greats - Nadal, Federer, Djokovic - with the same breathlessness with which they extol the titans of football, baseball, basketball, and boxing. Second, Serena on Mt. Rushmore" That would mean, after placing Muhammed Ali, Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, and Jim Brown upon those glorious heights, you would remove one of them and replace him with Serena. Really? 

I could devise ten Mt. Rushmores - fully 40 all-time greats - and no female athlete would make it to the foothills of any of those mountains. Try to remove Jim Thorpe, Willie Mays, Lebron James, or Tom Brady from Rushmore II. Or, have at Joe Louis, Tiger Woods, Josh Gibson, or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Rushmore III, etc., etc., etc. When it comes to athletics, it truly is "A Man's World", and we do not need James Brown to remind us. 

Serena, respect the Mt. Rushmore of women athletics. Take your plae alongside Diana Taurasi, Simone Biles, and Babe Didriksen Zaharias. Be honored to stand among the first pantheon of female sports legends. 

(All Secrets Are Classified)

Trump continues to harp about the FBI "raiding" his home and taking his stuff. He is like a child, a hard-headed child. He takes things that do not belong to him, declares them his, then feigns injury when the rightful owner sends agents to take them back. Part of his problem is he does not take "classified" seriously. Trump's take is this: "It's serious when I say it's serious."

America's rivals love it. They want our top secrets and are giddy when we are cavalier about guarding those secrets. Twenty years ago, China took down an American jet that happened to stray into Chinese airspace. The Americans demanded the jet back. The Chinese responded, "We'll send it back to you when we finish with it." That jet was a form of classified material. The Chinese took it apart piece by piece. 

The Iranians, likewise, took down an American drone and took it apart. (Classified.) Now, the Iranians are building such sophisticated drones, the Russians want to buy their product. 

Our rivals will take our secrets any way they can get them. They will shoot them down, or they will seek them out in your wife's closet if you're foolish enough to keep America's secrets there.  

Parenting

Most of us have been raised, and have raised our children to refrain from name-calling, vindictiveness, and other baser instincts that Trump would liberate in Americans. No other president has lied so, been so investigated, so impeached; none other has been so decried for his insults - like when he called countries on the African continent, "shit-hole nations," or when he call Omarosa, a black woman, and one of his top White House advisors, "a dog." Yet, he is as popular with much of this country - especially his infamous base - as he has ever been. 

Trump's words, his actions, do not exist in a vacuum. The way he thumbs his nose at the law and social norms, and is then lionized, would weaken the fabric of any nation. How do parents in this country hold children to account when those same children watch their parents prostrate themselves before the Trump circus, and become accessories to his unprecedented boorishness? 

This nation is fast becming irrelevant as a moral authority on the world stage because so many American adults have become irrelevant as moral authorities in their own households, which is where America gets its start.  

Universal Jurisdiction

Isaac Newton's Third Law of Motion states, "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." People continue to chafe at the Justice Department's "unprecedented" decision to search Trump's home. They might want to consider how unprecedented was Trump's decision to take top secret documents out of the White House, store them at his own residence, and then refuse Justice Department entreaties to return the materials to their rightful place. There are 44 previous presidents to serve in America's White House, none of whom committed such a willful violation. Trump's indefensible action - the hoarding of top secret material at his private residence - was unprecedented and required an equally unprecendented response. 

It is not easy to do something that is unprecedented. We are, by nature, creatures of habit. Often, the only reason we do unprecedented things is when something unprecedented happens to us. 

Marrick Garland did not want to go into Trump's home, if for no other reason than he knew it would create a firestorm. But, firestorms or no, he knew that once Trump committed the bad act, he (Garland) was the only one uniquelly authorized as the US Attorney General, to hold a former president accountable for his blatant flaunting of the la. 

What A.G. Garland did was bigger than American law, bigger than its politics. Whether Garland knows it or not, he was driven by the forces of nature, itself. Physics compelled him. It is the law of the universe. 

UNPRECEDENTED!

The Republicans are in an uproar over the FBI's search of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago: "This is unprecedented!" 

Let's face it: Trump, himself, is unprecedented. As much as we may want to treat Trump like all the other presidents in American history, he never gives us a chance. When he is not behaving like a spoiled brat, he is carrying on like a mob boss. 

By the way, shouldn't two "unprecedenteds" equal a precedent? 

Killing Fields

In Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, the Russians occupy the largest nuclear power facility in Europe. The Ukrainians claim they are using the plant as a military base, and storing weapons there. Now, the plant is being shelled, risking a nuclear catastrophe. Both sides are blaming the other for the shelling, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) claims to not know which side to believe. 

First, who would be so irresponsible as to use a functioning nuclear power facility as a military base? (The Russians.) Who would be so reckless as to fire on that military base? (The Ukrainians. Why would the Russians fire on a plant it controls?)

What is happening in Ukraine is similar to what happened when the Germans invaded the USSR in 1941: Total War. The destruction Germany visited upon Russia, and what the Russians gave back in return, is unlike anything that transpired between Germany and its enemies on the Western Front - France, England, the U.S., etc. The eastern front was the ultimate "killing field." Twenty-five million Russians died in less than four years, as did over five million Germans. 

Today, America and its NATO allies are pouring advanced weaponry into Ukraine on a biblical scale. That, along with Russia's grim determination to subjugate Ukraine, threatens to turn that land into the "killing fields" of the 21st century.  

How Precious is Life

We all think life is precious, especially our own lives. How many times have you heard someone relate an experience, and at the end exclaim, "I almost died!" How unthinkable one's own death can be. 

Roe v. Wade is about life (and death), and when it matters most (and least). It is about women (and men) who declare their rights to live unencumbered by the children they conceive. It is about children waiting, and in their pre-nascent, simply hoping to be born at all. 

Kyrie and KD

Remember Fred Sanford, back in the '80s... "Sanford and Son"? Fred's son, Lamont, had a friend named "Rollo," who was notorious for getting Lamont involved in half-baked schemes. Fred, directing most of his ire at Lamont one day, dubbed the two, "Rollo and Follow." Sounds like Kyrie and KD. 

In a nutshell: Kevin Durant followed Kyrie Irving to the Brooklyn Nets where, based upon exquisite talent, alone, the two of them hoped to build a basketball dynasty. It started out well, then reality, i.e., fate struck in the guise of COVID, injuries, and a dose of selfishness, (courtesy of Kyrie), the likes of which have rarely been seen in the annals of team sports. Within two years, the pre-supposed dynasty began to crumble. 

Durant is no leader. He is emotional and impulsive; he follows. He follows with his heart. That makes him special - good, in an honest kind of way. But, in the dog-eat-dog world of the NBA, it also makes him vulnerable. At this current pace, he will get the worst of this Brooklyn debacle, despite appearing to be the most genuine party in the bunch, having come to the show with the best intentions. 

Now, he says to the Nets, "Trade me." It is an emotional response designed to "fix" those who misled him. Unfortunately, he is headed for the worst "fix" of all. 

"Trade me?" Durant has no idea where he might be traded and seems oblivious to the fact that because he is such a great player, wherever he goes, that team will be gutted (to pay for him) by the time he gets there. (If Nets management cares anything about Durant, they will treat him like the child who wants to be a fry cook, but his parents insist upon piano lessons, instead.) 

This Nets management, which is no paragon of leadership, itself, should not panic. Both Kyrie and KD are under contract. Keep them there. Tell Durant, "Be ready to play come October," (the start of the NBA season). Durant, regardless of his trade demand, will be ready because, if nothing else, comes game time, Kevin Durant is always ready. 

Kyrie will also be ready, not because he has any loyalty to the game, or to anyone in the game. Kyrie will play "lights out" next season because he will be a free agent after the season. He knows that if he jacks off this upcoming campaign like he did the last time, his free agency stocking will be filled with coal instead of a $200 million max contract, (which is what he stands to gain.) 

With a perennially-motivated KD, a "lights-out" Kyrie, and a rejuvenated Ben Simmons... who knows? This crazy-ass Nets team could win it all, after all. Take that, Fred Sanford. 

The Heavens

When you think of "the heavens", do you feel bound to look up, even though the heavens are to the left of us, and to the right? If Earth was transparent, we could even look down and see the stars. We are thoroughly ensconced in this eminent host dubbed "the Milky Way." Of the trillion or more galaxies in the universe, the Milky Way is the only galaxy we can now intimately; the only galaxy whose panoramic visits we can see with the naked eye.

Our nearest neighbor galaxy, Andromeda, is 2.5 million light years away. Fully 50% larger than our Milky Way, it presently hurtles toward us at 250,000 mph. Even at that speed, it will take the colossus, Andromeda, over four billion years to get close enough for us to see it: another half billion years before the big collision. 

In that way, we are insulated from the trillion other galaxies out there. To us, our Milky Way is "the heavens." Along with the hundreds of billions of other stars in this galaxy, our own (and Earth) are integral partners in this singular intragalactic dance. 

Now, imagine a civilization on a distant planet within the Milky Way looking at us in our neighborhood of stars, and beholding us as "the heavens," (like we have beheld them.) Like us, they will have failed to comprehend the majesty of their existence.

We are stellar. We are "the heavens." Perhaps it is time we start acting like it.  

I Almost Loved

We all think life is precious, especially our own lives. How many times have you heard someone relate an experience, and at the end exclaimed, "I almost died!" How unthinkable one's own death can be.  

Roe v. Wade is about life (and death), and when it matters most (and least). It is about women (and men) who declare their rights to live unencumbered by the children they conceive. It is about children waiting, (and in their pre-nascent minds hoping to be born, at all.)

The decision to abort a pregnancy is a life and death moment for a woman. Sometimes, it is a collective effort: friends, parents, and even family ministers will collude with the mother to save her from an unborn child who would destroy her life. All the while, that child is waiting for her chance - not to destroy, but to open her eyes and look around in wonder, like babies do. She is waiting. She is alive in there. 

Meanwhile, they are telling the mother, "You can have another baby... later." Yes, she can, but she cannot have that baby living inside of her "later". That baby gets only one chance at life. Nobody can have that baby ever again.  

The mother ponders, and the living fetus grows. It can only grow into one thing - a human child. It is the only way a human child can come into this world. 

Her parts grow steadily. She flexes her muscles. She is getting ready for life. (One day soon, she could be smiling, and jubilantly flailing her little fists at the world.) She is on her way to the only life set aside for her. But, her mother is having none of it. She is thinking about her own fragile life, and how this little wanna-be inside of her will spoil things if she makes it out alive. 

I hear tell of the "rights of the unborn," but I fear those rights exist at the behest of those whose own existence matter much more. That should leave us all to worry for the aborted child who will never know how precious is life. The most she will ever get out of it is a whiff.  

Masha, Masha, Masha...

As Russian shells exploded on the outskirts of Lysishansk, a city in eastern Ukraine, a journalist asked nine-year-old, Masha, "Are you afraid?" She smiled, and said, "Nyet." He asked her, "Why not?" Still smiling, she responded, "I am the oldest girl." 

There is no courage anywhere more profound than what I saw in that little girl's demeanor - in her eyes, in her posture, in her certainty. My heart broke. What people would not fight forever for such a child? 

******

The other day, I heard this on the Science Channel: Our Milky Way galaxy is on course to collide with the Andromeda galaxy, the Milky Way's nearest neighbor. Both galaxies are estimated to have over 400 billion stars, each. The scientists note that during the imminent collision, there is a 100% chance that none of the Milky Way stars will actually collide with an Andromeda star. 

Of all the mind-boggling prospects in the universe, what could be more mind-boggling than that?  

******

The U.S. is sending billions of dollars worth of advanced weapons systems into Ukraine with a goal to not only "weaken Russia" but to defeat it. (And we will fight to the last Ukrainian to get it done." This is the dilemma: The closer we get to what we really don't want - the launch of Russian nuclear warheads onto Ukrainian soil. 

Besides a response in kind to a Russian tactical nuke, what other option have the NATO nations left themselves? They have already sanctioned Russia to the hilt, so much so that, besides crushing Russia's economy, the head of the "sanctions snake" is turning on its master, and slashing at the economies of those NATO nations, as well.  

But, who among NATO would have the guts to do more? Certainly, not France, for fear that Russia would nuke Paris, next. England, likewise, would not risk London for Kyiv. Only the U.S. would possess the wherewithal to respond to a Russian nuclear escalation, except we simply do not love the Ukrainians that much.  

Now, Uvalde: Let's Get Biblical - It's Time

Of all the mass shootings in America, none rattles us like the school shootings. For obvious reasons, they cut us to our core. We cry in unison from a thousand miles away. Sandy Hook, Parkland, Columbine; now Uvalde. Between sobs, our leaders invoke such rantings as, "Something must be done!" But, there is no mention of sacrifice because there is no heart for true sacrifice where sacrifice is desperately needed.

These mass shootings are like singular plagues, the kind that rocked Egypt during the time of Moses - boils, lice, blood, darkness... "even darkness which may be felt" (Exod. 10:21). Each plague, though devastating, failed to sway the Pharaoh from keeping his Hebrews enslaved. What will it take to sway America from keeping its guns? (I wouldn't want to say even if I knew because it will be so terrible that all 330 million of us will run with our guns to the nearest ditch, and throw them into the fire; and, strange to say, suddenly begin to live better lives.) Just think, for all of the ten plagues God visited upon Egypt, it took the parting of the Red Sea to free Pharoah from his addiction. 

Let's face it: Americans are no more capable of solving their gun problems than Pharaoh was of solving his issues. Such a daunting task is not for men and women whose true purposes is to serve their vanities. First, overshadowing all efforts to fix this problem is the 2nd Amendment - Americans' right to bear. Apparently, that right is sacrosanct. But, how sacred could such a right be when no other nation espouses it; nor does any other document, save our own U.S. Constitution, which once espoused this right 250 years ago? Given a chance today speak for itself, that same Constitution would not dare espouse that right again. 

Today, America is a war zone: 400 million guns in the hands of 330 million citizens. What are the targets of so many weapons?  Can't be wild animals. We've killed most of them. The few poor creatures left must keep their heads down last trigger-happy America shoots the survivors for fun. The targets must be Americans, themselves. With that in mind, what individual would unilaterally disarm, leaving himself at the mercy of fellow Americans who choose not to? The alternative is what we have: Lock & load: (keep up with the Joneses)

For Americans to simply toss their guns away would be the equivalent of the antebellum South having the strength and wisdom to cast aside slavery. They didn't have it First, the South was firmly convinced that slavery was their right, safely embedded, as it was, in the Constitution. Second, they loved slavery; they loved their slaves. 

Thenn, came Abe Lincoln, and the Union army. The northerners wrested slavery from the South, and ended it. The North was able to do this only after spending the previous 200 years weaning itself off of slavery. Imagine how impossible ending slavery in American would have been had the North continued to embrace it along with the South. Fortunately, we were deeply divided. When it comes to guns, however, borth sides of the Mason-Dixon line is enthralled - so much so, that he - (guns) - is unregonizable as a killer, and is played off as an innocent, even as a savior. Do not be fooled. Guns are not innocents. They are bombs waiting for a chance to explode.  

The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, and the subsequent ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865, abolished all slavery in America. This nation was finally released from its self-imposed shackles - freed to become the democracy it had previously only pretended to be. Now, we are faced with another such desperate, and defining moment. 

Four hundred million guns in the hands of America's citizenry is every bit a failure of our society as was four million African-Americans in bondage. Only through the abolishment of these weapons will America become a society worthy of the future the Founding Fathers once envisioned. Absent that, America will continue its headlong descent into more death, and darkness. 

Russia v. Ukraine

 "He has come to open the purple testament of bleeding war." - Richard III, Shakespeare

What has gotten into these people? Look at the Ukrainian soldiers hunkered down in the Azovetal Steel plant in Mariupol. While we marvel at their courage, we must wonder, "Why don't they surrender?" 

In World War II, Stalin forbade his troops to surrender to the Germans. He expected them all to fight to the death. If they surrendered, he considered them traitors. His own son was taken prisoner by the Germans. When the Germans realized they had captured Stalin's son, they offered him up in a prisoner exchange. Stalin replied, "I have no son."

Hitler was no better. He forbade his generals to retreat, no matter the circumstance. In Stalingrad, over 100,000 German soldiers of the 6th Army were trapped by Russian troops. To preclude a surrender by the commanding general, Friedrich von Paulus, Hitler promoted him to Field Marshal. That was the highest honor. No German field marshal had ever surrendered his army. Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus surrendered anyway. Ninety thousand German troops were marched from Stalingrad to Moscow in the dead of winter. Of those 90,000 men, only 5,000 made it back to Germany alive. That is the nature of these people. Their history is in them. 

*******

Chemical Warfare

What is the difference between nations using chemical weapons against their enemies - which is a war crime according to the Geneva Convention - and the police using tear gas, which is a chemical agent, against their own citizens? 

I know what tear gas does. I was tear-gassed, indirectly, (collaterally). I thought I would die. When it happens, you can neither see it, nor smell it. Suddenly, you simply cannot breathe. It starts with a cough, then gagging. Panic quickly sets in. (That's what happens when you find you can't breathe.) Someone yells, "Tear gas!" Now, you understand. But, there is nothing you can do. Too late to cover your nose, your mouth. It is not about tears, it is about breathing. Most people survive a tear gas attack. But, they never forget that moment when they could not breathe. 

Terror of the Wand

Ten years ago, the Michigan Department of Corrections implemented a high-tech system for doing prisoner count: Each officer is issued a heavy, metal wand they use to press against a metal nodule embedded in each prisoner's door. Presumably, they are to gently press the wand against the nodule to register a requisite "beep". Being that the wand is a sturdy object, however, allows the officer, if he pleases, to slam it against the nodule (with no apparent effect upon the wand, itself). The negative effect of said "slamming" upon prisoners' mental and physical health should not be understated. 

These officers do not need to bang against the prisoners' cell doors to complete their count. We know this because there are officers who come in and do their jobs - perform their prisoner counts - without a single "bang." The only noise they generate is an innocuous "beep."  

Banging against the doors seems to be a matter of choice, (if not one of peer pressure to conform to this aberrant norm.) They do not always slam their wands against the doors. Sometimes they rake it over the nodule, or tap, tap, tap at it, always producing that discomforting, grating sound of metal against metal. (Who would devise such a clunky system in the 21st century? Who would buy it, and place it in the hands of a workforce that, throughout history, has been notorious for its visceral cruelty?)

Observing these officers as they wield their wands, I am startled at their unbridled insensitivity. Could they be as oblivious to the stress they wreak upon prisoners as they appear? But, no, even the worst offender will favor a prisoner, from time to time, and go light on his door, signaling a consciousness of wrongdoing; confirming that much of their banging is purposeful, and malign. 

This prisoner count occurs every half hour, day and night. For a prisoner to be subjected to such a consistent barrage might be construed as a low-level form of torture. (Sometimes they rap it so hard, my insides quake, and my blood pressure soars.) Please, imagine someone banging on your door, your wall every half-hour of every day - while you eat read, and sleep. How long would it take for your nerves to begin to fray; like mine have frayed?

I once told an officer, "I wouldn't kick the side of a dog's house the way you (figuratively) kick ours - not even a dog I disliked - because that would be cruel." What these people are doing is the equivalent of zookeepers poking at the caged animals. No one would allow that. Yet, here men as helpless as animals are poked all day long. 

Mind you, these are not renegade officers who bang on our doors. The exception is the officer who does his count without cruelty. The rule is officers who perform those duties with a callous disregard. And, it isn't just the prison guards. Mid-level and upper-level administrators condone this behavior. (How else could it have gone on for years throughout Michigan's prison system?) Besides, many of the administrators bang on the doors, themselves. Even healthcare workers - people whose profession it is to relieve suffering - bang on the doors. I have personally appealed to nurses and doctors, and nothing has changed - not the behavior of the officers who work beside them, nor their own behavior. 

One healthcare worker told me there was nothing she could do and suggested that I find a way to accept it That is like telling someone who is being waterboarded to find another way to breathe. Why should anyone have to accept abuse? Get used to it? That is impossible. You don't "get used" to abuse. You might survive it, but each day of that survival stretches thin your humanity until you become a sliver of who you were. 

Noise affects all human, and animal lifeforms. Noise frightens and unnerves us. It negatively impacts what sense of security we may possess. There is no reason to implement such an oppressive system that ensures gratuitous noise where no noise is needed to complete the required task. The people who approved this count system, and those who execute it, seem to proceed from the notion that the imprisoned have no feelings free men are bound to respect. That would be a false conceit.  

Hypocrisy Run Amok

American sanctions against Saddam Hussein caused the deaths of over 100,000 Iraqi children. When asked by ABC's Barbara Walters if it was worth it, then-Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright - on national TV - paused for a moment, and said, "That is a tough question, but, yes, it was worth it to protect...blah, blah, blah...the American people...blah, blah, blah...from Saddam Hussein...blah, blah..." 

I was astounded. Albright not only acknowledged that it happened, which is extraordinary, but she said: "it was worth it." One hundred thousand children sacrificed to secure an ideology. Sounds like something Stalin would have done. Yet, this happened in America, by Americans, on the eve of the 21st century. 

Then last week, on Fox's "The Five," co-host, Geraldo Rivera, called Russia's President Putin "a beast" whose shelling has caused the deaths of 105 Ukrainian children. Fellow co-host, Jesse Watters, lamented how these "civilized people" were being murdered, (as though the uncivilized people of Iraq and Afghanistan were simply collateral damage.) I suspect to Rivera, Korea who, thanks to US sanctions, die as we speak, do not matter much, either. I just wonder: Do we Americans has a national conscience, besides the fake one, I mean, that tells us how compassionate we are. 

Last month, President Biden decreed that of the seven billion dollars of Afghan funds the US holds, he will give 3.5 billion to 911 survivors - the same survivors whom we have already lavished millions upon since that tragic day 20 years ago. Biden, too, must consider the Afghan people "uncivilized" and therefore unworthy of what belongs to them, and what they so desperately need.  

America's hypocrisy runs amok. Do we not see ourselves? Are we not still a Christian nation? Do not believe God is watching? Do we care? 

King James

Lebron James, who is recently averaging close to 40 points a game, declares he is having "the time of his life." His team, on the other hand - the Los Angeles Lakers - are getting their doors blown off most every night. They are currently 11 games under .500. I wonder if his teammates are having as much fun as he. Lebron seems to have taken the tact, "Hey, I'm winning my match-ups every night. They're the ones losing." 

Something has changed with Lebron. He was "old school" - of the fraternity of Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Kobe Bryant. There, losing is hateful. That's all. Suddenly, Lebron finds a way to factor losing into a good night?  

Hands Down, Play Ball

Defense wins games; offense sells tickets. This might have presented a conundrum, except NBA teams, and the league, itself, work from separate paradigms. Teams want to win games. They will be happy winning a game 50-49. The league, on the other hand, wants shoot-outs. It doesn't care who wins. When offenses are spectacular, ratings rise; the league wins. And, the league has made this decision: Hands down, play ball.

The NBA will not admit it, but it discourages defense. (Why do you think they let players "step" all over the place?) Contesting shots only slow the game down. And teams - certainly players - are willing falling in line. Think about it: They accumulate most of their fouls on the defensive side of the ball. Play too much defense, like Giannis Antetokounmpo did the other night, and you end up fouling out, which severely limits your offensive output. Just ain't worth it. Besides, adulation, pay checks, post season honors, are all infinitely more impacted by offensive production, than what is done at the other end of the court. 

Lebron James know what time it is. Once a stellar defender, he now saves his 37-year-old legs for the offensive end of the court. He doesn't win many games, these days, but as he, himself, says, he is having a damned good time.  

 

More Weapons, More Weapons...More Blood

There is no romance in war. Romance is for the movies, and literature books. War is bloodshed and death. Yet, Americans want to romanticize the Ukraine debacle, and pretend that the glorious Ukrainian people have reaffirmed our faith in the human spirit. They have not. The nature of most biologies, when cornered, is to fight back. Putin has done the reaffirming. He has reaffirmed man's inhumanity. 

Ukraine made a mistake when it lined up and fought the Russians. There was a middle ground they could have chosen, one that would have admitted humility, but would have spared their families and their cities the devastation they now will be left with. What a tremendous waste. 

Now, we want to label Putin a "war criminal." Of course, Putin is a war criminal for his unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation. So, too, are John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon war criminals - that trio who led an unprovoked invasion of an agrarian society, and slaughtered a million Vietnamese people. George W. Bush is a war criminal. He launched an unprovoked attack upon the Iraqi people under the guise of ridding the world of "weapons of mass destruction." Finding none, he killed 100,000 Iraqis in the ensuing conflict. Then, there is Obama, Trump, and Biden who continued Bush's "war of choice," killing countless men, women, and children because we were there.  

How soon we forget, though it was only months ago when Biden slaughtered a family of eight with a drone strike on his way out of Afghanistan. Who will adjudicate Putin's crimes - the International Criminal Court, the same people who looked the other way when America committed similar crimes, and worse? 

Putin is Putin. He is a relic of the Soviet past. He cannot help himself. What is our excuse? Let us look in the mirror and see the modern war criminal: It is us who cry for "more weapons" to feed the Ukraine, who cry for "more blood" to be spilled. It is the media, the politicians, the average American citizen who lionize those "brave Ukrainians" who fight and kill and die; they who blow up their own bridges (until their own refugees cannot get away); they who watch as the future of their nation - those precious, precious babies - flee a gutted country, while we cheer them on. We stop to commisserate over the  carnage, then cry for more weapons to create more carnage in the name of twisted romance. 

We supposed-civilized people are the war criminals who wisdom has forsaken us, whose imagination has shrunken to a primordial cry for "more weapons, more blood."

Make Sense of Today by Looking Through History's Prism

In support of their independence from Russia, Ukrainians assert their "own history" prior to once being a part of Greater Russia. To that, I say, almost every state on Earth had its own histories before being incorporated into the nations they belong to today. Germany, Japan, Italy - each started out as collections of geographical regions, like the city-states of Athens, Ithaca, Sparta, etc., who clung to their singular identities until they combined to become the Greece we know today.

In the United States, Texas can legitimately claim to have had its own history before becoming part of this great nation; so can every other state in this union. Once each state became a part of the U.S., each of their singular histories became subservient to the history of the whole. 

Without defending Putin, I suggest that his obsession with Ukraine is similar to the obsession this nation had with Texas, Virginia, Tennessee, and the other states who quit the U.S. and formed the confederacy. It was a secession President Lincoln, and the states which elected him refused to recognize as legitimate. As a consequence of this secession, the Union pummelled the secessionist states, none so vigorously as the state of Virginia. 

In a lot of ways, Virginia was to the Confederacy what the Ukraine was to Russia. Its size, resources, and political importance made it critical to the visibility of the larger state. And, like the Ukraine, which bore the brunt of World War II, Virginia bore the brunt of America's Civil War. 

President Lincoln, himself, told General Sheridan to lay waste to Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, the breadbasket of the Confederacy, "until even a crow flying over, will have to carry his own provender." More battles were fought on Virginia soil during the Civil War than any other state in the Union. Likewise, the Ukraine became the central meeting place for the slaughter that became World War II. At the end of a single battle between the Germans and the Russians - the Battle for Kyiv - the Germans took 600,000 Russian soldiers prisoner and marched them to slave labor camps in Germany. Other great battles followed on Ukrainian soil - Kharkiv, Donetsk, Zhytomyr, and the bloody sieges of Odesa and Sevastopol. Russians bled a river defending the Ukraine from Hitler's Germany. 

Perhaps, Putin feels that Ukraine's place in Russian history is far more fundamental than any history Ukraine can muster on its own. This does not excuse his invasion of the Ukraine. It only gives it some perspective. 

Ukraine

Most military men are astute students of history. Adolf Hitler justified his treatment of the Jews, based in part, upon America's treatment of its native populations. Today, Putin's foreign minister, Sergei Levrov, wonders how the world can be so apologetic about Russia's treatment of Ukraine when this same world, across the board, never lifted a finger to impose a single sanction when America, under George W. Bush, brutally invaded Iraq, though Iraq had not committed a single offense against America. 

By the way: Ukraine's President Zelensky made a mistake when he forced his civilian men between the ages of 18 and 60 to take up arms against the Russians. Once civilians fire on enemy troops, those civilians become legitimate military targets. After shooting at Russian soldiers during the day, those civilian soldiers, no doubt, go home to their apartments. Those apartments, then, immediately become legitimate military targets, especially when those civilians are soldiers, from time to time, take shots at the Russian soldiers, or drop "Molotov" cocktails from their apartments windows and roofs.   

When President Zelensky started passing out weapons on the street with the instructions to "kill Russians" he gave up any right he might have had to cry "war crimes!" when the Russians return fire on his people. 

I don't care anything about the Russians, but we must be fair.  

Reign of the Three-Pointer

Steph Curry was reigning down 3-pointers of a biblical scale. Folks were having such fun. I tried not to say anything. But, when the clamor descended into hysteria, for the sake of humanity, someone had to say something.

Steph Curry is not the "greatest shooter God ever created," as ESPN's Stephen A. Smith so vociferously advocates. Steph is good. He may be great. But, is not "the greatest." 

The 3-pointer is one of many shots taken on a basketball court, including dunks, lay-ups, mid-range jumpers, hook shots, etc. Of these, the 3-pointer is the easiest shot to attempt. Let me give you an example: In a recent game between the Bucks and the Heat, both teams combined to take nearly twenty 3 pointers in the first quarter, alone. (They missed most of them.) In that same quarter, not a single dunk shot was attempted.  

Looking at the latest rankings of NBA player stats, I noticed that Steph is not among the top 30 in field goal percentage in the league, (though his brother Seth is ranked 20th at 51%). Neither does Steph's percentage rank among the top 30 3-point shooters, (though his teammate, Wiggins, is 16th at 42%). Steph ranks somewhere below the Lakers' Carmelo Anthony, the 30th ranked 3-point shooter at 40%. How could the 'greatest shooter God ever created" neither rank among the top 30 shooters in overall field goal percentage, nor 3-point percentage... in his own time? The objective answer is: He is not the greatest shooter ever. He is not a greater shooter than Jerry West or Kareem Abdul Jabbar. He is not a greater shooter than the Celtic, Sam Jones, whose pull-up 20-foot bank shot was "pure money." In Steph's own time, he is not a greater shooter than Kevin Durant.  

When it comes to shooting, we measure excellence by accuracy. In the five-game stretch surrounding Steph's assault on Ray Allen's 3-point record, Steph made 24 of the 74 3-pointers in attempted. That is 34% shooting. Nevertheless, basketball analysts across the land quickly attach their emotions to Steven A. Smith's visceral response. One analyst, Dominique Foxworth, a contributor on ESPN's popular "GET UP!" morning program, said of Steph's record-breaking performance, "I almost cried." Considering Steph went 4-14 from 3-point range that night, I ask, tongue-in-cheek, "Why ('cry')?" Because he missed so many? Seriously, I am becoming convinced that many of the people in today's media are getting paid based upon how prettily they can clamber onto the bandwagon. 

The basis of all "great shooter" comparisons should begin with, not volume shots taken but the percentage of shots made. If Ray Allen, Reggie Miller, or Steph's own father, Dell Curry, had taken 15 three-pointers a game, any one of them would have made as many 3-pointers as Steph has today. Reggie said it himself: "Five 3-pointers a game was the limit coach would let me take."

There are many great shooters in NBA history. We must refrain from settling such debates with subjective profusions. Better to simply say, "Steph is the most likable shooter of all time." That would be more accurate, especially since accuracy is what we are shooting for.