To the Precipice: Are We There Yet?

The other day, while riding a subway train, Jordan Neely, a homeless man, cried out, "I'm tired of being hungry... I have nothing to live for." Daniel Penny, an ex-Marine riding on that same New York City train, took it upon himself to put Neely in a choke-hold, and end his life, even as the train hurtled on to its next stop. It was a microcosm of the American experience imploding. Are we there yet? 

Shooting upon shootings, public chokings: We are headed for the cliff. In a civilized society, average American citizens have been given the green light to kill other citizens if they feel threatened by them. In a country so reckless, how long before our children expect the right, themselves, to "stand their ground," and shoot? they live under the threat of physical violence as much, if not more, than adults. Must they continue to ball up their little fists and settle things the old-fashioned way? 

We humans are at the top of the food chain.,. by far! Yet, we feel we need 400 million guns - the estimated number of guns circulating amongst the American populace - to cement our standing. If we were cows chewing our cuds, perhaps a sidearm would help. But, compared to all other earthlings, we are already super-beings. And, it is not guns that make us so; it is our minds. Guns only dumb us down - convince us to settle for for being bestial by flashing our teeth and our claws instead of our intelligence, and our humanity. 

Guns are so dumb. And, we are approaching the cliff... or, are we there yet? 

Quartered Potpourri

The NAACP has issued a traveler's advisory for African-Americans in Florida, even going so far as to discourage them from settling there. These warnings are prompted, they claim, by Governor DeSantis' "aggressive efforts to erase black history." 

First: NAACP, how about joining the 21st century. No more of this National Association for the Advancement of "Colored People." Change your name to NAAPC, for the advancement of people of color. Then, shove your traveler's advisory. You're fomenting fear. People of color should be encouraged to travel anywhere they damn well please. This entire country is their country, too.  

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In the "Land of 400 million firearms," Memphis Grizzlies phenom, Ja Morant, flashes a pistol on a home video, and the NBA suspends him... to protect its image. Image? This is the same NBA that nestles itself in China's back pocket - the same China that stifles free speech and forces its minority Uighura into re-education camps to teach them how not to be Uighura. 

Stay warm, Commissioner Silver, and be careful you are not suspended... for flashing your billions.

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Looking at the 89-year-old Diane Feinstein clinging to power - being pushed through the halls of the Senate in a wheelchair - reminds us of what an 84-year-old Biden might look like halfway through a second term as president.

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Queen Elizabeth's funeral cost the citizens of the United Kingdom 200 million dollars. What a waste. That is why I insist: Bury me in a pine box. 

The People and Their Government: A Shaky Alliance

Twenty-one-year-old Jack Texeira is in deep doo-doo for sharing with us innocents the truth. How could he? The man is despicable. He must have known that only America’s finest can handle the truth. Now, we are traumatized for life. Fie on you, Mr. Texeira!

Pardon my sarcasm, but… really? Recently, Pete Hegaeth, co-host of “Fox and Friends,” spoke in support of secretive government: “People are doing dark, dirty work on our behalf,” he said, “that we know nothing about, and do not want to know about.” And, we, the American people, are supposed to be comfortable with that - feel obliged toward people who do “dark and dirty” things… for our good? How about we say to them, “No, thanks.”

 

President George W. Bush led us into the Iraq War, for our own good, where over 4000 young Americans were killed, and many more were left without arms, legs, and recognizable faces; where a hundred thousand Iraqis were killed over weapons of mass destruction that never existed. People who leak truths might have exposed Bush Administration lies before so many people were slaughtered.

 

It is not just America. All nations – all government – it appears, lies unapologetically to their citizens. To further make themselves indispensable, they will create bogeymen for us to fear, tht they then must slay to keep us safe.

 

The leaker, Bradley Manning, among other truths, exposed the number of Iraqi civilians killed by American troops in Iraq, and revealed the extent of U.S. abuse of Iraqi prisoners. Edward Snowden revealed how many millions of Americans were being spied upon by the U.S. government. Jack Texeira has exposed truths the Biden Administration does not want us to know about the Ukraine War, which American taxpayers are upwards of $100 billion deep into subsidizing. And, don’t forget Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the “Pentagon Papers,” famously contradicting U.S. assertions that we were winning the Vietnam War, when we clearly were not. And, then there is Julian Assange, who exposed everybody; the Russians, the Saudis, the Germans, the Brits, etc., etc.; and yes, the Americans. He shined a great light so that all the world’s citizens could bemoan his very existence.

 

There is a heroic quality about these people who render these truths at such great risks. Might they be seen as latter-day knights – not perfectly chivalrous, (then neither were the knights of old), but willing to stand in the breach to advance a cause nobler than themselves?

 

The media speaks of these “leaks” as though they were some awful contagion. These leaks are unassailable droplets of truths we may not have known in our lifetimes, except for people who told us the truth now.

 

CNN’s Smerconish says, “This young man (Texeira) compromised national security. He needs to be punished harshly.” (George W. Bush “compromised national security” when he turned Iraq, a bulwark against America’s enemy, Iran, into an ally of that nation. No one is punishing him.)

Biden has pooh-poohed Texeira’s disclosure – said of his leaks: “Nothing contemporaneous here.” Biden’s critics pooh-pooh his pooh-poohing, calling him, “…either out of touch, or dishonest with the American people.” Of course, these leaks are contemporaneous. All exposed lies are contemporaneous because they reveal the truth nature of our present-day relationships.

 

The foundation of all good relationships is trust. Without trust, we manage shaky alliances, at best. More and more, that has become the plight of relationships between the world’s governments, and their people.

 

Sunlight is still a great disinfectant, and transparency democracies’ ideal. If that is not enough, the hear this: Nothing rattles relationships like lies, and nothing is so profound as the moment when truth displaces them. 

Where Are Your Manners?

We all possess the same emotions and have experienced these emotions since the beginning of time – anger, joy, frustration, etc. It may be fair to say that of all our emotions, throughout the millennia, fear has been the most prevalent.

FDR once told Americans, “All we have to fear is fear itself.” Americans seem to have taken his words the wrong way. “Fear” is perhaps the driving force behind Americans’ obsession with guns. Yet, we fear nothing so much as we fear guns in the hands of fellow Americans. What are we doing?

 

In the wake of the school shooting in Nashville, where three nine-year-olds were murdered, along with three adults, I thought about our manners. Japan has a virtual gun-free society, and by that token, know nothing of the 40,000-plus gun deaths gun-happy America suffers annually. They also have good manners, something upon which America has lost its grip.

 

Good manners are a simple proposition, but absolutely essential to a peaceful society. We take for granted the good manners of the Japanese people – imagine it being ingrained into their national psyche, and thus easily achieved. Then, what is ingrained in ours – aggression, violence, vanity? We certainly do not make a big deal out of manners – not in our communities, perhaps neither in our homes. Then, where do we expect our children to learn that essential nature? The history books?

 

The Japanese have found – perhaps knew all along – that they do not need guns, having learned early on that the best defense against ill-mannered people is forbearance and a dose of humility. Having guns, rather than alleviating our fears, probably exacerbates them. We are much more likely to grow monsters in a subconscious effort to justify our guns, and then upgrade to more lethal weapons as our self-importance grows.

 

Guns have one purpose: to kill. We need one another much more than we need one another dead. Bad manners stand in our way. They are the spawning grounds from which springs the violence, rape, theft, and other such manifestations we fear most. How deeply endemic is this malignancy in America? Can we reverse it? Perhaps we have gone too far – dug a hole so deep we could not heave our guns out if we wanted to.

 

There will be many more shootings in America because that is where the guns are, and guns have a stupid way of making people and their manners obsolete. They have a gravity about them – a gravity all of their own, And, as our fingers steadily gravitate toward these guns, we become Tolkien’s Golem, and they become our “Precious.” 

Tin Man, JK Rowlings, and the Love of the Game

President Joe Biden may walk like the Tin Man of "The Wizard of Oz", but lately he has been on a bit of a roll. That ten-hour train ride from Poland to the embattled Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, was a master stroke. Then, unfortunately, he got off the train and began to walk, such as it was, down Kyiv's red carpet. That same man wants to run for re-election in 2024.

Look, I loved my father. But, if he had said to me, at the age of 82, that he was thinking about running for President, I would have flat out said to him, "I'm not voting for you." I wouldn't vote for any 82-year-old to run for anything unless 82-year-olds were all that were left.

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J.K. Rowlings. She is the British author, who hit the mother lode with her creation of the Harry Potter Chronicles. 

Recently, she offered up her feelings regarding transgender identity:  "If you were born a man," she said, "then, you are not a woman." One of her fans responded: "Your legacy would have been one of the most beloved in history had you not said that." J.K.'s response: "Legacy? How pompous is that? I don't care about legacy."  

What a woman. She prefers being genuine to being loved by people who prefer she be a phony. 

J.K. did it again. She hit the mother lode.  

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With all the hand-wringing in the National Basketball Association over load-managing - the proclivity of star players to sit out regular season games - a glimpse of a Major League Baseball player from the 50s and 60s might help give some perspective:  

Ernie Banks, Hall of Fame shortstop for the Chicago Cubs, after playing a nine-inning game in the early afternoon would often declare, "Let's play two." 

Love of the game. That's what the NBA needs most from its stars. Simply, love of the game. 

A Potpourri of Shorties

U.S. Representative, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, is under fire for referring to Israel as an "apartheid regime." She is not the first prominent American to tell the truth about Israel. Former president Jimmy Carter wrote a book, "Peace, Not Apartheid", detailing the systematic abuses of the Israeli government - the primary beneficiary of American foreign aid - against the Palestinian people. What the Israelis inflict upon the Palestinians today is kith and kin to the systemic apartheid the South African regime once heaped upon its black citizens. And, no one, besides her, President Carter, and a few others in America seem to care. 

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Al Sharpton, at Tyre Nichol's funeral, called Nichol's family attorney, Ben Crump, "America's black attorney general." Utter hogwash. Attorney Crump is the quickest "ambulance chaser" in America, today. That's all. Gloria "Me, Too" Alred is the second quickest.  

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Headline: "CHATGPT passes U.S. Medical Licensing Exam." That is artificial intelligence - Generative Pre-trainer Transformer - a computer program that can spit out professional papers, expert prose, poems, songs, etc., at the push of a button, and attribute the writing to any Tom, Dick or Harry you please. It is a time-saver, a money-saver, (indeed, some medical folk say, "a lifesaver"), and it will absolutely put some writers out of work. 

For writers who have committed their lives to their craft, CHATGPT is more formidable than a dragon. Now, I know how John Henry must have felt when he heard about that "bleeping" steel-driving machine.

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There is a terrible civil war going on in Myanmar, courtesy of a military junta that has replaced the country's democratically-elected leaders in a coup. Tens of thousands of innocent civilians are being killed; over a million of its citizens have been driven out of their homes into the cold. Almost no one knows about this war. Why is that? Perhaps because the people are not white; perhaps because these brown-skinned Burmese do not look like Ukrainians.  

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Speaking of guns: Ask yourself, if given the chance to live in a community where everyone has a gun or a community where no one has a gun, which community would you choose? Your answer is America's answer to 400 million guns on its streets.  

The "Load Managers"

The National Basketball Association has a problem. many of its players have no respect for its regular season. They would rather "sit out" games - call it "load managing" - while basking in their pre-playoff auras. Poor Commissioner Silver does not know how to address this vainglorious sloth. (Begging the players to "suit up" - "for the fans, the fans" - does not work.)

Try this commissioner: Chang the way you appraise their regular season performances. Currently, the scoring title goes to the man who averaged the most points per game over the regular season. He can play in as few as 65 games of an 82-game schedule and still be crowned scoring champion, despite someone who has played in every game and has out-scored him by hundreds of points. Simply award the scoring title to the player who scores the most points. That way, these prima donnas will have to play in as many of the scheduled games as possible to achieve the honors they crave. 

The same goes for rebounds, assists, blocked shots, etc., just like homerun and RBI champions in baseball, and touchdown and yardage leaders in football. For the biggest awards - Most Valuable Player, and Defensive Player of the Year - base their very consideration for such awards upon their availability to play. Insist that players play 90% of the schedule or a minimum of 73 games for any chance at MVP. That way, they will not sit around "load managing." Rather, they will play in every game they possibly can, and will save those precious eight games over the minimum for when they really need a day off. 

Though they are men, these NBA players cannot be trusted to honor the game they profess to love. The work ethic that saw Michael Jordan, and many greats before him, play every scheduled game no longer exists. 

Time to revive that ethic, Adam Silver, even if it means leading your pampered stars to center court like one would lead thoroughbreds to the starting gate. Put honor back in the game... for the fans, for the fans.