Sunday Morning Coming Down

 My last solo trip on an airplane was after the TSA started screening passengers and I remember almost missing my flight because it took some time to put on my belt and shoes and get to the gate and again having to adjust my belt as I sat in my seat on the airplane before taking off. My nephew accompanied to the airport and traveled with me this trip.  The TSA folks kept moving me over to the short lines, the guy at the front desk asked me if I needed a wheelchair.  Long story shortened I guess I looked like an accident waiting to happen and I would probably screw up the longer line if I fell down.  Being out of practice, I forgot to take off my belt and was excused from taking off my shoes, preferring to being wanded and explaining I had a hip replacement and would need a chair to put my shoes back on.   Moving sidewalks seemed less daunting than a "train" with various stops along the concourse with the added advantage of admiring art in public places and ...

Quandaries are real and most folks and end up in predicaments more often than we wish on ourselves.   The pandemic has brought on some pretty big changes and some quandaries too.  I'm not forced to go back twenty years to 9/11 but there were decisions made about that terrorist attack that set off the never ending war on terror and launched the field of counterterrorism.  Homeland Security, the TSA,  air marshals and all the way to taking off your shoes at airports unless you are 75+ I gather. How many folks wondered after the toppling of the World Trade Center Twin Towers if the world would be coming to an lot sooner than we might have imagined.  What if the United States had used nuclear weapons to punish Al Qaeda? and what would the response have been from our adversaries? The 2001 burial of my Mom was delayed because all the airports were closed and when they reopened there were National Guard folks with M-16s.  She died on September 9th My brother-...

How was the play Mrs. Lincoln?  Be careful what you ask for: you might get it.  And a lot of folks who don't blame themselves for what happened before they were born or even their parents were born might take a moment to pause and reflect. This isn't meant to be snarky.   Requiem for a Nun  is the source of one of  Faulkner ' s  best-known lines, " The   past   is  never dead. It's  not  even  past ." Ask yourself about the American Indian Wars?  Ask yourself about the Mexican American War.  Ask yourself about the Civil War in the USA?  Ask yourself about "colonialism"?  Ask yourself about WWI, WWII.  Why were these wars started and was the end of these wars the beginning of a lasting "peace".   And then there was the "war against communism".  Cuba, North Korea, and Viet Nam, Russia, China, Kosovo, and a few other places, maybe they aren't shooting wars any more but it's still like a...

Over the last six years I've come to believe that a significant portion of this country has decided they would rather ignore issues, or deny that problems exist or invent problems that don't exist to justify or believe whatever they want. Sadly enough the tools exist to stir up enough stuff that even what is rock solid can be called into question and enough of a crowd can be whipped up to do even more damage to institutions that are already hard pressed to provide a common experience. My older sister said I should "keep my own counsel" or translated "keep my plans or opinions to myself". To me it meant mind your own business which doesn't always work. And religiously I think work is a good thing, I think living within your means is a good thing and trying to be kind is a trait we should all work on.  At this point it doesn't seem to matter whether the Grand Canyon was created by God or Nature or the result of Science. Three weeks a celebration of lif...

It's been reported that Bobby Bowden died.  I think he is one football coach that will live forever.  I watched his last season at WVU in 1975.  He had a good season finishing with a 9-3 record and beating Pitt in a 17-14 squeaker, a game in which Artie Owens was just as good as Pitt's Tony Dorsett Heisman Trophy winner and leader of Pitt's national championship season.   It's been reported that he took the job in Tallahassee to be closer to his Mom and because the Florida weather was better than Morgantown.  It's also reported he wanted to be the head coach at Alabama.  I think he was lucky that he chose FSU and was able to play Florida and Miami every year "The greatest mistake is to continue to practice a mistake." "That boy don't know the meaning of the word fear. In fact, I just saw his grades, and that boy don't know the meaning of a lot of words." "I'm not too proud to change. I like to win too much." "If short h...

I'm not in favor of political dynasties.  This is an update on stuff that doesn't end well. This isn't an exhaustive list.  And as an American I'm not in favor of "royalty".  Unfortunately, too many ascribe some sort of royalty to political families or a member's spouse. American political history is filled with political families like the Bushes, Kennedys, Rockefellers, Romneys, Cheneys, Udalls, and Cuomos. And this doesn't really include family members of the rich and politically connected that benefit from a family relationship. Florida has taken it a step further.  Incumbent Javier Rodriguez (D) was beaten by Ileana Garcia (R) with the help of  Alec Rodriguez (no relation to baseballer A Rod) who received 6,377 votes in an election that was ultimately decided by a total of 31 votes.  Alec Rodriguez did not actively campaign in the November 2020 election. Newspaper report that Frank Artiles and Rodriguez have been charged with violating campaign con...

I grew up in Bensenville, Illinois and moved to Miami in 1971.  I have said many times I wish I was more proficient in conversational Spanish.  Had I stayed in Bensenville, Spanish proficiency would still be a plus.  On a lark I looked at the census figures for my home town Bensenville, in 2020 49.3% of the population was Latino or Hispanic.  Some of the best tacos, tamales, and burritos I've ever had were found in or near Bensenville Fifty years ago when I left Bensenville it was a different place.  O'Hare was big and it has gotten much busier and bigger and folks left the city and moved to the suburbs and folks moved from one town to other towns. Living in Miami and working for Miami Dade County, I supervised offices that provided job related services to literally thousands of entrants into this country from the Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Panama for a long time.  Locally floods of people have made existing problems worse but in the long haul this is a countr...

It took a relatively long time to make smoking tobacco something that could be regulated.  In other words something that was so unpopular and dangerous health wise that it could be banned in public places.  To this day, because it can be taxed, and is addictive and relaxing, and smokers are shunned outside and there are active programs to encourage folks to quit or never start smoking.   It is also quite expensive. And sadly even some non smokers have died from what would appear to be smoking related diseases. And so we are now continuing to discuss and fight over the use of masks in public places to continue to limit the spread of the disease that can cause serious medical problems much more quickly than a lifetime of smoking and contribute to deadly consequences should someone get COVID19. Folks are again starting to realize that getting vaccinated will hopefully make the consequences of getting the disease less serious and slow the spread of the disease.  Isn...

Baseballwise it was very good to see Rizzo, Bryant, and Baez get off to good starts with their new teams.  It will be jarring to see them in different uniforms.  I had a friend that was a die hard Giant fan.  He would have had a good time kidding me after Bryant's home run this weekend. According to Sports Center  They're the first trio of former teammates in the Modern Era to start the season on the same team, and then homer in their respective debuts with a new team later that season.  

This morning I woke up to a phone call can you take care of the birds?  Yeah, ok.  The S.O. has family visiting from the DR and they planned to go to Orlando for a couple of days. I might have thought the trip should be cancelled but the brother and his kids have gotten their shots.  When the trip was planned it seemed like things were improving and now we seem to have taken another turn. The newspaper headlines are up in a roar about new cases, filling hospitals with younger patients but thankfully relatively few but still too many deaths from the many new cases. While getting new water for the parrot, he decided to escape from his cage and during his hiatus from his cage he has landed on my shoulder for a quick Cook's tour of his temporary home.  Then he landed on my head and decided to pick at my hair.   Sister called and said the place sounded like a pet shop.  I thought someone might I know might knock on my door and take pictures of me like I was...

  Then the wagons circled, and the excuses were made:  It wasn’t that bad. It was Antifa and BLM. It was people full of love, hugging and kissing policemen. It was like a normal day of tourism. It was Pelosi’s fault. It was the FBI. This is a paragraph I lifted from a National Review article that was tweeted by Charlie Sykes..  America Gone Nuts. I watched what happened at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 as it happened and have seen other scenes from other cameras and police body cams.  Upwards of 500 people have been arrested as a result of their actions.  And I also subscribe to the idea that the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and democracy as we know it is under siege. You can't whitewash these actions.  "Geez I guess we dodged that one" and then go back to "Our thoughts and prayers go out...". Charlie Kirk, the young Republican leader, called Simone Biles a “selfish sociopath” and a “shame to the country.” He said, “We are raising a gener...