Sunday Morning Coming Down

Ninety days into 2023 it has been reported that there have been 130 mass shooting and way too many of them in schools.  13 school shootings in schools have resulted in deaths or injuries to students or staff.  I00% of parents want their kids to go to school and not have to experience an active shooter incident and if they are lucky run out of the building with their hands in the air. Maybe the Congress isn't the place for gun legislation.  Unfortunately, state legislators in states like Florida think that more people with guns is an answer to mass shootings.  Most law enforcement people realize that guns in the hands of more people just makes the problems worse. Is it easier to police people if an officer starts to assume everybody has a gun, limited training, and maybe having a "very bad day". One advantage of a federal system is allowing states to experiment with laws regarding access to guns and what kind of guns should be available. And in the next breath, it is ...

I enjoyed last Sundays basketball game that the University of Miami won.  And it was on my birthday to boot.   Yesterday the MLB season began.  Day 1, the Cubs fly the W and the Marlins lost their opener to the New York Mets.  Mets 2023 salaries are almost $229 million dollars, while the Marlins salaries are $85 million dollars.  The Mets are spending even more than their crosstown rivals to get to the World Series. I would guess the University of Miami players through NIL are making serious cash and more than SDSU, UConn, and FAU, (and maybe even all three combined). The NCAA got about $940 million dollars in revenue for broadcasting rights to various championships in 2022 according to reports. The NCAA got money, schools got money, coaches and staff got money, and before name, image, and likeness "gilt" players got next to nothing except for tuition, fees, and laundry money. Do I resent how much money college athletes now make for entertaining me? No, I e...

  It happens all the time. Public Servants in the bureaucracies and elected officials get busted and lose their office and sometimes go to jail.  It might have happened with Richard Nixon but the process got short circuited. He resigned.  President Gerald Ford pardoned him.   The Ford Pardon of Nixon in 1974 was full and unconditional. President Ford felt that Nixon admitted his guilt and was contrite in accepting the Pardon.  After all, President Nixon resigned rather than go through the impeachment process. Fifty plus years after the Watergate Cover Up the punishment fit the crime. Historians feel that Ford's Pardon cost him in 1976. No love lost for Nixon, some might have tolerated his policies, but there were a lot of institutional reasons to get him (Nixon) out of office and hit the reset button. Doesn't look like any Republican Leader wants to say "Our long national nightmare is over". And it seems that any criminal indictment of a former president m...

 Sometime in grade school I remember having "Brighty of the Grand Canyon" being read to the class.   This morning in the NYT I read about donkeys. The phrase ''donkey work" will replace scut work in my everyday vocabulary. It just seems kinder.

 It has been reported that Santos has filed paperwork for his reelection which will allow him to raise money for his reelection. Yes, this is politics these days.  His donor list will be reviewed this time.

Some things need to reinvent themselves.  Most things evolve and most of the time evolution is a positive thing.   I'm not sure what the Florida Governor is trying to accomplish academically by removing the college president at New College and packing the board of trustees and replacing the college president with a close ally and a salary increase that is way out of line with a current enrollment of about 700 students. It is hard to understand the threat of a rigorous program of independent study given the success that many New College students have achieved.  The New College Website highlights:   Students’ progress should be based on demonstrated competence and real mastery rather than on the accumulation of credits and grades. New College also values having a diverse, equitable, and inclusive academic community. The alumni understand this as trying to fix something that isn't broken and a baldly political attempt to politicize a nationally known honors pr...

 There are limits to what minority rule can accomplish.  Eventually even non elected despots and long reining queens get replaced.  After the death of Queen Elizabeth II who was by all accounts popular, the succession of her son Charles is still a work in progress. The resignation of Boris Johnson and his replacement by Liss Truss shows that even those in power are subject to policy and personnel missteps that require changes if they are to move forward. The successions in the United States with periodic elections for Presidents, Governors, the House of Representatives, some Senators and elections for various offices in the fifty states all at the same time make voting an important part of our election cycle whether or not the election of a president is on the ballot. This year's election is important for the near future and as most commentators speak to on the future of democracy or the acceptance of something very much less than democracy as it has been practiced in the...