Wednesday, July 17, 2019

FOOLED YA

I thought I could withstand the pressure from you readers but due to overwhelming demand, I am dropping this in mid-July and swear you won't hear from me again until Labor Day or thereabouts.   That demand thingy in the previous sentence was fake news.  But, in terms of real news, I am starting with some soft serves.

If any of you doubted or continue to doubt the impact of Title IX on women's sports, I present to you the world champion U.S. women's soccer team.  Virtually beat all of your Europe's best and please do not tell me how much better European teams have gotten.  Perhaps they are better but then the Americans have also improved.  The penalty resulting in a penalty kick was iffy; but Rose crunched a goal off her left foot and that was enough.

A BIT OF SPORTS TALK (Skip on down if you must):
--Since we are two weeks beyond the 4th of July, I promised some baseball thoughts.  The red Flops bullpen is in tatters but I still think in the end they will be a playoff team.  Just too many excellent hitters.  My Yanks are playing out of their minds but my translation of that is that they are also playing way over their heads with thin starters but a very deep bullpen.  A Labor Day update is in the cards. That baseball game in London was stupid and both teams stunk.

Now lets get serious.  More or less two exact quotes from our crack team of Border Patrol agents on the Southern border:
    --"You can just look into their eyes and know they are or will be gang members".
    --"Immigrant children can just leave the shelters even if they are just 10".
On top of which, we have the discovery of all those racist emails on some sort of secret website used by the agents.  OK, fine not all of them.  But enough so that the culture is infected.  A positive culture depends on shared values and respect for the "customers" being served--in these cases the immigrants. A culture requires a leader who can define those values and who can enforce adherence to them.  We have seen no such leadership.
--Some Congressmen/women visited some of the shelters where sleeping apparently has to be done in shifts because there is no horizontal room for laying down.  They were appalled.  Pence went and prayed on it and wished we could talk more civilly.  Wonder what Mother Pence says/thinks.
--OOOH, Kelly Anne wants to know the ethnicity of a reporter.  What is that about although already being on edge, I can guess she wanted to slime him.  Glad he refused to answer.
--POTUS really believes he was a super genius at Wharton. And has no racist bones in his body.
--I do love the "squad" but I worry POTUS will distract us with attacks on them.
--Listen up, Spuds:  You can draw a direct solid line from POTUS to 3 southern governors.  Wallace of Ala., Maddox of Ga, and Barnett of Miss.  Back in the day, they also appealed to white nationalists and eventually faded away.  I worry this guy will not--not with the support of those silent Republicans and the evangelical Christians.  It's just about the judiciary which in turn is about overturning Roe V. Wade.
--I missed the parade--did I miss anything other than bombers in the air and tanks on the ground?
--And then a suburban synagogue north of Boston was leafletted with fascist slogans aka "make America great again".
--Some of my most consistent readers believe we should "do something" about the Great White sharks.  Besides getting the fuck out of the water, what is that we should do?  Maybe kill all the seals so the sharks starve or relocate them?  It is called wildlife for a reason--it is wild and such is life.
--More to come, god willing, in September.

Shalom