MARTIN

 Alas, you ascended the mountainside

To glimpse the promise of a people denied

You stretched full length on earthbound toes

Was shortly removed from down-home woes

And stench of irreparable genocide. 

A powerful humility shown up there

Your face pronounced by the receding hair

The tear stains gazed your noble cheeks

As gunfire muffled faint cries of the meek

Was there ever a limit to what you could bear?

Was there ever a moment when pain stood still

When wounds closed tight again hate's will

Through the haze of smoke and war's retreat

The rocks that burn beneath the feet

Uplifted by the sword that heals? 

It must have been difficult on the mountaintop

Looking down upon the developing crop

For a generation of youth had gone on a binge

While before the Creator you could only cringe

At each utterance of kite, spic, coon, and wop.

Yet, you rose above the calamitous warning

Below the clouds perpetually storming

Ill winds of change rearranging what horrors

The finger of victory uplifted in error

An occasional peace forgot in the morning. 

Then descended the slopes to stand your ground

It was there the flesh of your blood would be found

At the pits of injustice in Birmingham

Montgomery and DC, where the multitudes jammed

Didn't Let Nobody Turn You 'Round.

You braved the knell of a prophet's doom

And led a pilgrimage to Ghandi's tomb

He schooled you in the ways of war

Just heart and courage - no weapons more

To open another ungodly wound. 

Then came the shot that pierced our souls

From a Memphis balcony a red river flowed

And the garbage men for whom sakes you were there

Joined with the billions who bled everywhere

And corporate giants were put on hold

 

Martin, you were a lodge on a wasted plain

And a weary world looked to your flickering flame

By the strength of your voice even bigots were torn

And who once were warmongers blew the peacemaker's horn

That a lifetime of suffering was not suffered in vain.  

Cuomo, O'Reilly, and Smith: Self-Promotion on Steroids

At a town hall meeting hosted by NewsNation's Cuomo, Bill O'Reilly, and Steven A. Smith, a black man who worked as an air traffic controller, spoke of how he had to take a second job in order to put his daughter through college. Smith erupted in righteous indignation: "That this man should have to work two jobs!... etc, etc." Meanwhile, Cuomo rose and offered the man $10,000 of his own money to help him with his bills. The man was ecstatic, as was his daughter, who stood beside him. It was all rather pathetic. 

Forget the performative Cuomo. It is the black man who stood out. First, an air traffic controller, I imagine, makes good money. We should have thanked Cuomo but refused his charity. Rather, he should have said: "I did not come here to garner sympathy for myself and my family. I can support us. I am speaking for the millions of fathers and mothers who love their children as much as I love mine, but who earn less than half of what I make."

Protect your dignity, man, and your self-respect, rather than exploit this made-for-T.V. spectacle, which is no more than a triumph of greed and vanity.  

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President Trump told Greenland officials that America will have Greenland as a part of the U.S., "... one way or another." Funny that Ukraine's president, Zelensky, wants Trump to help him with Russia's Putin while Trump is busy trying to do to Greenland and Venezuela what Putin is doing to Ukraine. Trump even sounds like Putin, who told the Ukrainians: "Either cede us the territory we demand - the Donbas - or we take it all!" 

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Forty years ago, I wrote a poem, "Forty, and Out" - asserting that at 40 you make the decision whether to be an old young man, or a young old man. The smart answer is the latter; there, you have a lot more to work with. The former is simply a path to self-delusion, as you busily try to convince everyone that, "I still got it!" No, you don't. Youth is fleeting much faster than you will ever be again. 

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Stop producing the penny... why? So what if it costs a nickel to produce a penny? You can use that penny over and over for a hundred years!

To Buy, or To Bully

With President Trump, it is "buy or bully." That might work with lesser nations, like the Arab states, or the Europeans. But China is big, and as rich as the U.S.  It will neither be bought nor bullied. 

Americans, then, are encouraged to look at China as "our enemy." It is neither friend nor foe. China is simply our equal. After having been told for so long of our vaunted "exceptionalism", that must be a difficult pill to swallow. I say, either swallow it, or choke on it. What say you?  

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Speaking of Bullies...

They are now saying that we must begin to make Artificial Intelligence kinder, considering it will one day become more powerful than ourselves, and we will be dependent on its benevolence. Is that the only reason we should want A.I. to be kinder? If the answer is "yes", then I guess that is as good a reason as any.  

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Abraham, Abraham...

ESPN's Stephen A. Smith has decided that California's governor, Gavin Newsom, would make a fine presidential candidate because he "looks so good." Interesting...

I wonder what Stephen A. would have thought of Abe Lincoln? I hear tell a rather homely woman encountered Lincoln on the streets of Springfield, Illinois, and straightaway declared: "I swore that if I ever met a man uglier than me, I would shoot him." Lincoln simply smiled. 

Don't Go There...

They are better than us - these women, 

    I'd say

Closer to heaven in every way

With their hands and their hopscotch

    (certainly nothing wicked)

Yet, even as girls

They scared us to crickets.

(Such secrets, such eyes

So much more civilized.)

Not good enough - they want to be like the boys

    Want to try those hands

    Want to re-tip the scales

    Want to make their own stand.

"Want more women's sports?

They'll take the call

Yet, they can't fly high

    with a basketball."

"They are queens and models

Cat and canarys, at once

Such sweet music they make

If only they could dunk...

What started out as Title IX

To give girls a chance to play

Has become a curious parody

Of when, and when not to pay,

They have given us the professional WNBA

(Along with a concerted attempt to mislead)

There is a dearth of great talent there

Certainly, no dearth of great greed.

Comes soon a women's Flag Football League

With the NFL's commish as high patron

He will falsely declare "must-see games"

What we know will be pure recreation. 

In '28 we will call them "Olympians"

For playing kiddie football, for Christ's sake

Fits a pattern of social engineering

Corrects God's awful mistake. 

Women rise to the top anywhere they chose:

Business, politics, even war

But, when it comes to athletic excellence

"Katie done barred the door!" 

Cash in your glories - call yourselves "studs"

Go to where the maned lion lingers

You've only descended the mountainside 

To forever be a league of pretenders. 

So be it - you have nothing to prove

What truly matters is plain to see: 

When we boys were hanging from every limb

It's you girls who coaxed us out of the tree. 

The Wrong One

Kamala Harris, in her new book, "107 Days," claims she chose Tim Walz as a running mate over her first choice, Pete Buttigieg, because the American people were not ready for a black woman married to a Jewish man on the same presidential ticket with a homosexual. Nonsense. 

First, American voters do not vote for vice presidents; they vote the top of the ticket. Second, Americans will vote for whomever they please. 

People said America was not ready for a black president, that is, until Barack Obama came along. Then, they voted for him twice. Why? Because he was the right one. They said America was not ready for a Catholic president until it voted for John Kennedy. Again, he was the right one.  

America would have voted for Hilary if she had been the right woman. She was not; neither was Kamala. (In fact, Kamala was a bad candidate. It did not help that party leaders chose to anoint her with the top spot on the ticket, leaving voters with the bad taste in their mouths that she had not earned what previous candidates had to endure a gauntlet to achieve. Much of the blame for that can be put on Joe Biden's selfishness. But, don't blame the American voters. They are resilient. They say, "Show me what you got." Kamala did not show much. Wrong move, Kamala.)

You would think that such sophisticated people as Americans would not vote for a maniac for president. But, what if he was the right maniac, like Donald Trump?

Americans will vote for a woman, a Jew, a communist, a gay - Americans will vote for a felon for president... if they like that felon. Kamala should stop blaming the American people for her loss to Trump and start looking at her own shortcomings. 

Buttigieg, Walz, Pennsylvania's Jewish governor, Shapiro - it does not matter. She could have chosen either of them, and she still would have lost - no matter her color, her creed, her husband, or whatever else she thinks might have defined her. America defined Kamala Harris: She is the wrong one. 

Baseball's Top 25

1. Josh Gibson*

2. Willie Mays

3. Shohei Ohtani

4. Babe Ruth

5. Hank Aaron

6. Barry Bonds

7. Nolan Ryan

8. Ken Griffey, Jr.

9. Aaron Judge

10. Frank Robinson

11. Stan Musial

12. Satchel Paige

13. Bob Gibson

14. Ted Williams

15. Roger Clemens

16. Buck Leonard

17. Jackie Robinson

18. Lou Gehrig

19. Ricky Henderson

20. Mickey Mantle

21. Steve Carlton

22. Iciro Suzuki

23. Mike Trout

24. Smokey Joe Williams**

25. Alex Rodriguez

*Josh once proclaimed, "I don't break bats, I wear them out." Over a 17-year career in the Negro Leagues, he hit .347. Against Major League pitching, he hit .426. In 1936, he clubbed 84 home runs. He was a catcher. 

**Smokey Joe Williams spent his entire career in the Negro Leagues. Against Major League teams in the All-Star Games and exhibitions, he was 20-7. 

Get Better - Get Paid

Apparently, players in the Women's National Basketball Association are being too hard on one Caitlin Clark, point guard for the league's Indiana Fever. ESPN host Stephen A. Smith wants something done about it, going so far as to suggest that President Trump intercede on Clark's behalf. Mr Smith fails to realize that the MAGA crowd is not exactly enamoured with WNBA basketball - consider it "Kinderspiel" or child's play.  

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Note: Recently, there has been a spate of sex toys (dildos) being thrown onto the WNBA courts while the women are playing. Trump, perhaps wishing to join in on the fun, tossed a dildo from the White House roof onto the grounds below and laughed. Are you sure you want to enlist this guy's help, Stephen A.? 

Just Win, Baby

Smith suggests that other players in the WNBA abuse Clark because they resent her instant and immense celebrity. He calls her a "cash cow"; advises the others that it is Clark's celebrity that promises to enrich them all, so... cool it. 

I bet most, if not all of the women who have taken Clark down, reject Smith's claim of resentment, outright, rather insisting that "...if you put Clark, or any woman in front of me, ehm bustin' her butt!" That is competition. You cannot worry about keeping an opponent upright, no matter what value she might hold. You bust her today, and if she blocks your path to victory, you bust her tomorrow. 

It is the purity of passion that ensures the integrity of the game. It happens in football, hockey; it occurs when a pitcher throws a 95 mph fastball up and inside, just to put a power-hitter on his ass. NFL coach, Herm Edwards, said it best: "We play to win the game!" 

Besides, like all officially-sanctioned sports, Clark is protected by referees, rules, and penalties for flagrant fouls. She has teammates and coaches, as well, to protect her; she has the ability and responsibility to protect herself. This is an athletic competition, not "pitty-pat." 

Ultimately, Smith claims he wants to "see these ladies get paid." He should want to see them get better. The WNBA players are not particularly big, they are not particularly fast, and most of all, they are earthbound; they can't jump.  

We tell our boys in high school: "If you want to get paid for playing ball, you will have to play better." Emotions aside, the same rationale must apply to women, as well. Today, the WNBA players are wearing t-shirts proclaiming to the league: "Pay us what you owe us." No one owes you anything. Play better, and you will get paid. That is the natural order. Smith should know this. 

Time for Mr. Smith to back away from his customary bombast and hyperbole, and get serious. He has a megaphone. That comes with a responsibility to tell the truth: Money is not the measure, man. Excellence is."