Month: January 2018

I read a sports highlight blurb this morning which noted that, in their VICTORY yesterday, the Los Angeles Lakers made two free-throws out of fourteen attempts…an abysmal 14.3 percent efficiency, if you can call it that. And, yes, it was an all-time NBA record for futility.

For those who don’t know, a free-throw is awarded to a basketball player when he has been fouled (interfered with) by an opponent during play. The fouled player gets to go to the free-throw line, which is 15 feet from the hoop, and shoot an uncontested shot.

The free-throw shot was considered so easy in the early days of basketball that the reward for being fouled was always known as “going to the charity stripe”. It was a gimme; professional players routinely made 80 to 90 percent of such shots. Jerry West, whose image is on the NBA logo, averaged 82 percent of his charity tosses. He loved those freebies.

The NBA record for consecutive made free-throws is 97 straight by Michael Williams of the Minnesota Timberwolves. A non-professional player named Ted St. Martin once made 5,221 free-throws without a miss, and another non-pro named Fred Newman made 88 straight while blindfolded. (I’m not making this up!)

I played high school basketball, and, at every level, players had to conclude practice by shooting free-throws. As I recall, after varsity practice, a player couldn’t head for the showers until he had made 8 out of 10 free throws. We all showered every day…and our classmates appreciated it.

My point is that everyone could make these things fairly easily; in fact, we used to be able to bounce the ball, off the floor, into the hoop with a little effort.  I’ll bet that we could have made better than 2 of 14 goofing around like that. And, my buddies and I who did these stunts weren’t even first-string players. (Note: That may be why we were not starters; we were having too good a time amusing ourselves! We used to bank basketballs off the gym wall…into the hoop…on a dare.)

Our “star” player who had me riding the pine was named Oscar Guerrero, and he did end up playing college ball at my alma mater, Cal State Los Angeles.  But, he wasn’t nearly good enough to go pro…no, Sir.  Out of the tens of thousands of really good basketball players on this earth, only the top 400 or so make NBA rosters each year. These guys are basketball prodigies: the  cream of the crop.

Which…makes it so incredible that any professional basketball player can miss a large portion of his free throws! These guys get PAID to play basketball, and many of them make many millions of dollars per year. The average NBA salary is $6.4 million, and a number of players make about $30 million per year.

The best player in the game today is Stephen Curry, who, in addition to making about 42 percent of his shots outside 30 feet from the basket, also makes about 92 percent of his free-throws. Now, THAT’S what I call doing a professional job.

Conversely, Ben Simmons of the Philadelphia 76ers was the first overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft. He makes about $6 million per year, is considered a “star” player, and… makes less than 56 percent of his free throws! What a bum.

Although…that is a tad better than the career stats for Shaquille O’Neal, one of the top ten NBA players of all time, who averaged about 52 percent from the charity stripe. If Shaq could have made 80 percent of his charity tosses, the Lakers would have won a couple more NBA titles.

A big Lakers fan, I hated Shaq when he would step up to the foul line and casually fling the ball toward the backboard, seemingly without purpose. Opposing players fouled him on purpose (they called it “Hack a Shack’), because of his inability to convert his “free” shots. He sucked…but made up for it in other ways, like toying with his opponents in the key, using his 100-pound butt to clear his path to the basket.

 

Wilt Chamberlain, who was the greatest scorer in NBA history, averaged 46 points per game in 1966-67. However, his free-throw efficiency was only 38 percent; he averaged less than four free-throws made in ten attempts.

I was actually an NBA fan at that time, watched Wilt Chamberlain play, and could not, for the life of me, understand why this athletic specimen (he was also an Olympic-caliber high jumper) had so much trouble with free throws.

What was Wilt the Stilt thinking when he went to the foul line? (Note: In an autobiography published long after he retired, Wilt claimed to have slept with 20,000 women during his career. Wow, that’s a lot of…sleeping! Perhaps Wilt was thinking of his next conquest, each evening after the ball game, when he stepped to the charity stripe and failed to concentrate on his shot? It’s probably difficult to shoot the ball when you’ve got a couple of naked women waiting back at the hotel. I’m just sayin’.)

Just sayin’ again: Incredibly, Wilt Chamberlain owns the NBA record for free-throws made in a game: 28. For some reason, he made 88 percent of his charity tosses that night! I’m guessing that he had no plans after the game, if you know what I mean.

It really all comes down to coaching. If your coach focuses on the fundamentals, and makes them a priority, then you will practice and hone your fundamentals. Much has been made of UCLA’s great coach John Wooden and his “Pyramid of Success”.

This was a coach who drilled fundamentals every day in practice. Wooden was a three-time All American basketball player from the era when players were expected to make 80 to 100 percent of their free throws. No player on one of his UCLA teams was allowed to treat free-throws, or any other part of the game, in a casual manner. Wooden’s UCLA teams won ten national championships. He would have shown Shaq the door.

Which gets us back to the Los Angeles Lakers and their apparent cavalier attitude toward free-throws. Not one player on the Lakers is averaging 80 percent from the free-throw line, two of their starting players are averaging under 70 percent, and their star rookie Lonzo Ball, who was the 2nd overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, is averaging 48 percent from the charity stripe. That is deplorable; a totally unprofessional effort. Ball’s shooting technique remarkably resembles that of Shaquille O’Neal…a half-assed fling toward the basket, a prayer that usually remains unanswered. It’s a disgrace for a professional basketball player. He needs some shooting lessons; where’s Kobe Bryant when we need him?

The Lakers team as a whole is averaging a crummy 68 percent free-throw efficiency, making about 15.6 of 22.9 per game. If their free-throw “made” percentage improved to 80 percent, which is what should be expected from professional basketball players, the team would average 2 more points per game. Over a season, that would translate into more wins in the close games, and wins have been in short supply lately.

If the Lakers could allow the civilian, Mr. Fred Newman, to shoot their free-throws blindfolded, they would improve team scoring by almost 7 points per game and would have already won five more games this season.

I think Lakers coach Luke Walton needs to do more coaching.

 

 

 

Charlie and I (and the dogs) watch a lot of those home improvement shows on cable TV. You know the type: the re-modelers take a run-down house, fix it up nice, and then there’s “the reveal”, when the new homeowners get to see all the nice improvement and fancy furnishings. We watch a ton of these “reality” shows and genuinely have a lot of respect for the creativity of the designers and builders.

Anyway, the other night the lucky couple was impressed with the improvements during the reveal, as they moved from room to room, jaws agape. The wife was super-impressed with the changeover, and, in a space of a couple of minutes, used the exclamation “Oh, My word!” at least seven times (pretty much every time she entered a new room). It was quite annoying: (1) for repetition/lack of originality; and, (2) what does “Oh, My word!” mean, particularly since every reality show is scripted, and you know that the “reveal” has been revealed already, in rehearsal. I can see the director telling the lady, “Then you say, “Oh, My Word!””…again and again. Neither these actors and nor this director will win an Emmy, trust me.

With regard to item (2), I have no idea what it means or where that phrase comes from. I’m thinking that it came from the same place as “Land sakes!”, “My stars!”, “Oh, my gosh!”, and Gabby Hayes’ notorious “Jumpin’ Jehosephat!”.

We Americans have quite a few expressions which, upon closer examination, don’t make much sense or mean anything specific. But, “What the Hell?!”, we use them all of the time. Newcomers to this country must be puzzled, thumbing through their English dictionary. What did he say? What does THAT mean?

Some of the phrases that we commonly use, that don’t make much sense nowadays, had historical roots, like: “Turn a blind eye”, “Run amok”, “Paint the town red”, “Crocodile tears” and “White Elephant”, etc. I guess they’ve become shorthand terms for complicated ideas.

It burns me when I run into someone who has the annoying habit of using the same lame expression repeatedly (like “Oh, my word!”), not bothering to use some creativity and put some variety in their speech. Charlie and I have a friend who uses the word “Stunning!” way too much. I mean, how often can one be stunned? When you are stunned, you are basically knocked to the floor or rendered oblivious to your surroundings…a stun gun kicks the “Living Hell” of you, to use one of those weird expressions. I can’t remember the last time that I was truly stunned…maybe when we got a surprise tax refund. I was totally “gobsmacked” when that happened, I tell ‘ya.

In one of my previous blogs, I chronicled the Oregon Christmas Tree expedition wherein one of our teammates used the F-word in all its variations (as noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and conjunction) as a matter of normal discourse. Kind of like “stunning”, but with more flair and descriptive emphasis. Can you imagine the dramatic effect if the wife had walked into the newly remodeled kitchen and exclaimed, “This is fucking spectacular!”? It would have caught my attention, for sure.

Dirty words, used in the right circumstances, can certainly convey emphasis. Maybe this is what they teach at the Wharton School of Business, which President Trump attended.  He uses very descriptive words, like “shithole”. I don’t know exactly what that word means, but I’m guessing maybe a …septic tank? Or, an anus? Or, some people might use that term to describe the President’s potty mouth. But, I digress… However, Presidents are not supposed to use vulgar words like “shithole” in public; at least, they weren’t until Trump came along, because nebulous words like this can be misconstrued.

There has always been a certain component of society who try to avoid blaspheming, i.e. using the Lord’s name in vain.

So, there has been variety of clever word-smithing which attempts to skirt the Commandment or just plain suck up to the Heavenly Father. For example, we have “Oh My God!”, “Holy Cow!”, “Holy Smokes!”, “Geez!”, “Heavens to Betsy!”, “Heaven Only Knows!”, “Bejeezus”, and “Lordy, Lordy”. Or, there’s my old boss Larry Parrish’s  standby “Jesus, Joseph and Mary!”, and my Catholic in-laws’ goofy “Crips Mickey!”. Then, way out in left field we have this very peculiar exclamation, of unknown provenance: “Christ On A Crutch!” Now, WTF is that supposed to mean?

Sometimes we have the temerity to actually speak for the Boss Upstairs, like “Bless You!”, or “Damn You!” I think what’s actually intended is that one is (silent prayer) asking God to do one of these things, as in “May God Bless You, Sir!” But, standing on it’s own, “Dammit!” is considered semi-vulgar, even though you might actually be imploring some Heavenly action. Now, a full-throated “Goddamnit” just doesn’t sound polite, which probably led to the famous Gabby Hayes exclamation of exasperation: “Consarnit!” (Of course, he could have totally wimped out and said, “Dang It!”, but, c’mon, were talking about Gabby Hayes here. He invented his own language.)

For the super-straightlaced, interjections of surprise which should offend no one might include “Gee Whiz!”, “Shut the door!”,  “Hell’s Bells!”, “Gee Willikers!”, and Gomer Pyle’s famous, exaggerated “Golly!”

And, don’t forget sport broadcaster Keith Jackson’s signature exclamation of excitement, “Whoa, Nelly!”, which he used in football, not thoroughbred racing, telecasts. (Now, if that same supposedly astonished wife had seen the remodeled kitchen and blurted out, “Whoa, Nelly!”…what would we have made of that?)

My Goodness, who came up with this stuff?

The point is, when you say something, it should mean something, rather than nothing, like “Oh, My!”, which is probably a shortened version of “My Goodness!”, which means…exactly NOTHING.  Vagueness leads to speculation, which leads to mixed interpretation, which can lead to…fake news. We don’t want any of that, do we?

Therefore, if you want to be taken seriously, say exactly what you mean,and mean what you say. If you do not like black people, have the balls to say it, rather than demeaning their “shithole” country of origin.

Because, even Republicans can’t agree what that means…at least publicly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s that horrible time of year again. No, not Winter, not Flu season, not the short days, not the fact that I can’t wear Bermudas and flip-flops every day, etc. It is Tax Season…..Booooooooooooo!

My wife Charlie is, among other things, an Enrolled Agent of the I.R.S.; i.e. she is a certified Tax Preparer. Her main business, bookkeeping, keeps track of the trials and tribulations of many local enterprises, and, truth be told, one of the objectives of bookkeeping is to make sure that small businesses pay the least amount of tax that they are legally obligated to pay.

When I was working for the County of Riverside, one of the most important tasks of that government entity was the collection of local taxes. One of my responsibilities in the Executive Office involved the development and management of a fee collection system, the proceeds of which paid for infrastructure required in our fast-growing county.

So, you could say that Charlie and I know more than we’d like to know about taxes…particularly, as Californians, because we pay so many of them.

No one wants to pay more for anything than they have to; that’s a fact of life. Particularly, when the money disappears into a giant hole (called “government”) and it is hard for the untrained eye to discern what the money is eventually used for. Many people, with limited imagination, conclude that it is “wasted”, and, therefore, they resent paying taxes. The political phenomenon of “populism” gains a lot of its support from folks like this.

As we have previously discussed in this blog, about 80 percent of the Federal budget is used to pay for Defense, Social Security, and Debt. Do we spend too much money on these items? Probably, but no Congressman will vote against them.

The evidence of your taxes at work is all about you, at least here in the United States, and particularly in California. As former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “Taxes are the price of civilization.” One only needs to do some traveling in a few Third World countries to understand what that means.

 

These are some of the “shitholes” that President Trump was referring to when he opened his yap last week. They are places so poverty-stricken that people can’t afford to eat, let alone pay taxes. As a result, the environment in which they exist is sub-human in many respects…at least that’s what many Americans think when they are exposed to such squalor. We wouldn’t want to live in those places, and the residents there don’t want to either.

Americans take for granted the infrastructure that they enjoy. We’ve been around superior public facilities and well-run government operations for so long that we forget how we got here.

Sure, we all have stories about hitting a nasty pothole, getting stuck in a traffic jam, having a burglary in our neighborhood, or not being happy with one of our children’s teachers. But, let’s face it, 99 percent of the environment that we live in is pretty spectacular…particularly if we consider those who are unfortunate to live in the Third World.

No matter where I’ve been in this world, I’m always happy to get back on U.S. soil. Why is that? Because our country includes all of the creature comforts of advanced civilization…and we miss them when we’re gone.

Your taxes pay for this.

When you flush your toilet, a tax-funded sewage collection and water treatment system takes your waste products and makes clean water out of it. When you are done wrong, your tax-supported criminal justice system finds the perpetrator, adjudicates the matter, and puts the bad guy into your tax-funded prison system. When you’ve got to get a long way in a short amount of time, you can use a freeway or a jet airplane; the road system and the air traffic control system are tax-funded. Your children go to tax-funded schools, your community was planned using local taxes, and the not-so-fortunate members of your community, be they out of work, elderly, or disabled, benefit from tax-funded programs. On the larger scale, your federal taxes obviously provide security services both foreign (military) and domestic (Homeland Security). If you want to take some time off, your local and regional parks and National park systems, all tax-supported, are there for your entertainment.

Practically everywhere you turn, if you keep your eyes open, you can observe your local, State, and Federal taxes at work. You might complain that they aren’t working hard enough, but…everyone thinks they work harder than the next guy and everyone thinks that they aren’t getting sufficient value for cost. It’s just the way humans are.

Some of the things that our taxes pay for are regulatory agencies. These can be local building and code enforcement departments, State food inspection agencies, or Federal workplace standards enforcement departments. For example, we have agencies that enforce laws prohibiting “sweatshop” operations in the clothing industry…inhumane working conditions at barely subsistence pay.

These are typical of the sweatshops in Asia where Donald Trump’s signature “power ties” are made and where Ivanka Trump’s designer shoes are produced. We don’t allow such working conditions and low pay in the U.S., which is why billionaire entrepreneurs have their products made overseas: they can make more profit (even if they’re benefiting from what amounts to slave labor.

Personally, I have no issues with paying taxes. Sure, I’d like to pay fewer of them, but I appreciate the quality of life that I am lucky to enjoy courtesy of the many tax-supported services.

Most Americans feel that way. You can see that in the actions of elected officials; rarely do they vote to reduce or eliminate existing “standard of living” services. Quick now: Who’s in favor of poor water quality? Who wants more potholes? Fewer police? Larger classroom sizes? More smog? Etc.

Social services, food stamps, welfare? Now that’s another issue. Typically those that “have” are not supportive of services to those who “have not”. Human compassion has its limits, I guess. “Those bums deserve what they get!”, blah blah blah.

This is all well and dandy until…it’s your son who just got “downsized”, who lost his house, and has no money to feed his kids. Then, of course, those safety net services are important and need to be funded.

We should be happy that we, as a nation, can afford to pay taxes and enjoy the full benefits of a civilized country: billions of people in this world are not so lucky.

They’re stuck in the “shitholes”.

 

 

 

 

President Donald Trump tripped over his Johnson yet again this week when, while discussing immigration policy with a bipartisan group of legislators, he described Haiti, El Salvador and most of the African continent as “shithole countries”.

Of course, the Liar-in-Chief later denied that he said this, although Congressmen of both parties, who were present, verified that he used the vulgar term. As the week progressed, and a veritable shitstorm engulfed the media, GOP leadership who were present began to have fuzzy memory of the incident…”I don’t recall”, “I didn’t hear from where I was seated”, “some course language was used by everyone”, etc. Yeah, sure. Nice damage control…

(Some comedian projected the vulgarity onto Trump’s International Hotel in Washington D.C., with a video that has a “Pay Trump Bribes Here” projected onto the front door of the hotel.)

Seriously, it’s not even news anymore when the supposed Leader of the Free World embarrasses himself and his country; he’s a flat-out racist, and he makes no bones about it. “Same insult, different day.”

And, it’s not news anymore when our President tries to cover-up some damn fool thing that he has said. Virtually every day Mr. Trump tweets some off-color, racist, or plain stupid comment or publicly states (on TV) something that is patently false or doubles down on a previous lie. Most of the time, he’s called out on this by the press, but…nobody seems to care anymore. He’s the Teflon President.

There used to be a certain dignity that attached to the office of the President of the United States. Sure, our leaders were/are political animals, and they had their opinions about all manner of things. But, they kept their private thoughts to themselves while they represented all Americans of various races, religious beliefs, and economic backgrounds. A President was expected to speak in measured terms, “with malice toward none and charity toward all”. America was respected because America gave respect to other countries.

Under the leadership of the undignified, hate-monger Donald Trump, we’ve lost that respect.

It goes without saying that the United States is a “melting pot” of immigrants; in fact, every person in this country had ancestors who immigrated here, including the “Native Americans”. Mr. Trump seems to have a healthy bias in favor of Caucasian-Christian immigrants (note: Trump’s ancestors immigrated from Germany). His favorite of the week, based on comments from the “shithole” meeting: Norwegians.

After the meeting, Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Neilsen (sounds Scandinavian to me), when asked about the ethnic make-up of Norway, supposedly didn’t know that the country is overwhelmingly Caucasian. This is the caliber of the President’s brain trust in Washington D.C….or, the level of disingenuous lying that permeates the White House these days.

At the same time, the President regularly displays his maniacal bias against any immigrant of color. Hence, his public comments about Mexican immigrants being “rapists and murderers”, African immigrants coming from “huts”, and assuming that all Haitian immigrants “have AIDS”.

Following Trump’s shit-for-brains statement, a Republican pollster brought up the fact that “43% of immigrants from ‘shithole’ African countries have a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 33% of the overall American population. Nigerian-Americans, for instance, have a median household income well above the American average.”

Mr. Trump: Get your head out of your ass, Sir!

Interestingly, there have been times in this country when Irish and Italian immigrants were looked down upon as coming from “shithole” countries, Japanese immigrants were called “Jap heathens”, and German immigrants were “Nazis”. Well, at least some immigrants who were already here felt that way, wanting to deny others the opportunities that they had enjoyed. Thankfully, this attitude didn’t become national policy, or, heaven forbid, Trump’s ancestors might not have been accepted.

“Make America Great Again!” was the President’s campaign slogan. Question: When was America great? And, why?

I don’t think the Mr. Trump has ever answered these questions, and…maybe it’s time that he did, truthfully. If he did, he would probably showcase for everyone his basic misunderstanding of this country and what made it great in the first place.

Observation: I spent 90 minutes yesterday getting a deluxe pedicure at the local Creative Nails shop. The place was packed, like it is most of the time, because they excel and what they do. Every worker in that shop, including the owners, are first-generation immigrants from Vietnam. They are polite, hard-working individuals who are thrilled at the chance to come to America and better themselves. Their children speak English, get good grades, and aspire to do better than their parents. The owners of the salon have taken some of their profits and opened a high-class Vietnamese restaurant in Temecula; it’s doing well, too. Their children are well-behaved and will be going to college. No nail salons in their future; the work is too hard. They will work smarter, not harder.

These Asian-Americans might be called “gooks” and “slants” by some of Trump’s political base, but they bring things with them from the Eastern culture that we need more of in this country: dreams, aspirations and tenacity. Slacking, laziness, dependence on others…these are concepts that are alien to these “aliens”.

This is the typical story of immigration to America, despite some of our President’s cockamamie ideas. Immigrants, whether they be black, brown, yellow or white, come to our country to better themselves; there’s opportunity here. If there weren’t jobs here, poor Mexicans wouldn’t be swimming across the Rio Grande.

When those immigrants get here, they contribute their “alien” ideas, which get tossed into the melting pot, and the good ones improve the broth. That is the beauty of diversity…a plethora of ideas stimulates imagination, which leads to innovation, which moves the country forward. It has worked for America since the beginning…why would we want to change this model?

Every biologist knows that that diversity is the key to the evolution of the species. Dog breeders know that pure-bred dogs are not as healthy as mutts which have a range of dog breed genes in them. Investors know that putting all of one’s money in one stock is foolhardy; that a diversified portfolio allows for more opportunity for growth. A room full of smart guys kicking around ideas is more creative than one guy, alone in his cubicle, trying to come up with the next Pet Rock.

For the past several hundred years, America has been a laboratory where anyone, from any background or walk of life, can experiment with new ideas and attempt to move the needle of success. That’s why there are 500 billionaires in this country. Most of them are self-made.

Racism is the opposite of this. It would exclude whole swaths of humanity from participating in this “noble experiment”, and rely on ideas from one race, one religion, one political philosophy, etc. At the extreme end of racism, you have fascism, where all of the ideas come from one guy…a dictator. Hitler made his bones by blaming Jews for problems and promoting the idea that only Aryan peoples (Caucasian/Christian) could lead the Fatherland to success.

Does it ever scare you when the President makes comments like, “I’m smarter than the generals”, “Only I have the answers to that problem”, and “I know more about taxes than anyone in this country”? Sounds a whole like a narcissistic megalomaniac, doesn’t it?

It is apparent that Donald Trump has a very un-American view of the American Dream. In his world, the guys who have already made it big (the 1%) need to be the source of all ideas, and the poor need to be marginalized, kept needy, and ignored. In his view, black and brown people are the Devil’s spawn, and salvation lies with dominance by Caucasian/Christian peoples. The commingling and mixture of the races is antithetical to the Trump agenda. The overall concept is known generically as White Supremacy.

One wonders what the President thinks about Prince Harry’s engagement to Meghan Markle, who has black ancestors?

(Actually, since all of mankind had their origin in Africa, we all, including Mr. Trump, have black ancestors and originated in one of those “shithole” countries. The self-described genius has probably never considered this…)

I wonder what the voters who elected President Trump think about the man’s very obvious attempt to ethnically cleanse America? Not a day goes by that the Trump Administration doesn’t make headlines by slurring black and brown races, attempt to restrict travel to this country by non-Christians, try to rally Congress to deny medical care to poor minorities, threaten to “build a wall” to keep Mexicans from entering the U.S., and/or give support to White Supremacy groups in their various hateful endeavors.

MAGA Fan: Is this what you had in mind when you voted for this man?

The scary thing right now is that President Trump’s approval ratings seem to have stabilized at around 36 percent. This is an all-time low for a first-term President, by the way. But, that number seems to be fairly static, which tells me that about 1 adult in 3 condone this white supremacist bullshit in this country…a very sad state of affairs.

These are people who really don’t understand America and how it got great in the first place.

 

 

 

 

 

The ratings for NFL football are down this season. I think last year was similar. Pro football used to be more popular.

Donald Trump would like everyone to believe that the decline in popularity is because of the players disrespecting the National Anthem before the games. That would fit his populist agenda. I think that might be a contributing factor, but ratings were heading south before the anthem protests began a couple of years ago.

I used to be a big pro football fan. Not only did I watch the games on Sunday, but I was also in a Fantasy Football league, so I was quite absorbed with individual team and player performance, stats, injuries, and off-field issues. I followed ESPN, the NFL channel, read the sports pages in the newspaper, and could have acquitted myself with style in an NFL trivia contest.

But, I haven’t watched a complete NFL game in several years now, I quit my Fantasy league a couple of years ago, and I don’t spend much time with the various sports channels that broadcast NFL information. I’ve just lost interest. Why is that?

For one thing, there is too much product on the airways. It seemed, in the old days, that the televised games on Sunday were important, that actual “stars” were involved, and the “color” analysts on TV focused on the X’s and O’s a lot more. Nowadays, it is possible to watch professional football either live or taped on any day of the week. That means all of the games, even the duds, are taking up airtime. Not only do we have four to five live games on Sunday, there are also the Monday night and Thursday night live games. Plus, there are rebroadcast games during the week on the NFL channel. In addition, there are many weekly shows on ESPN, Fox, and the NFL channel which preview upcoming games or dissect completed games.

So, there is a flood of NFL game product; it’s not that special anymore.

Secondly, a lot of the banter on TV and radio by the so-called “experts” deals with players’ off-field peccadillos, contract issues, trade speculation, and pie-in-the-sky mindreading about the next NFL Draft. There are many TV and radio shows which specialize in this aspect of the sport, and they have to fill airtime, so more and more inane information is blathered about, more and more gossip about players’ private lives fills the airways, and baseless opinions are debated for hours at a time. To make matters worse, some of the channels loop these shows, so the same material gets repeated endlessly all day long.

TMI…too much information!

Another thing that has turned me off to NFL football is the trash-talking culture. It used to be that gridiron monsters like Dick Butkus would give an opponent the stink eye (letting him know he was coming for him), wreak mayhem on the opposing linemen, unload pent-up aggression (and, hatred?) upon Mr. Fancypants running back, and simply head back to the huddle, with drool dripping out of his mouth, mission accomplished. Nowadays, it seems that every player on the roster has, as his first priority, the goal of bringing attention to himself before, during, and after the game. Celebrations, which have obviously been orchestrated in advance, follow virtually every play on defense…to bring the spotlight on a player…who might have just been doing his job. It used to be that spectacular plays warranted exuberance, but it is hard now to find a play when some defensive player hasn’t taken the opportunity to brag about a routine tackle that he just made. I think this look-at-me culture has cheapened the sport, and it is most prevalent in the NFL.

What happened to..TEAM?

The only NFL franchise that interests me anymore is the New England Patriots. I do follow their exploits, from afar, and…why is that? Maybe it is because they are the consummate team, year after year. They don’t have the greatest talent, but they have excellent ownership and, perhaps, the greatest football coach of all time in Bill Belichick. It is interesting to me to observe how this wizard puts disparate pieces of the puzzle together (oftentimes guy who’ve washed out in various stops across the NFL), gives each guy a role to play, and then tells each guy to “do your job”. Another thing that I like about the Patriots is that showboating, celebrations, and “me first” attitudes are not tolerated within the organization. If you are a player, and you demand that the spotlight be focused on you, you’re not Patriot material.

So, in a nutshell, I don’t watch games anymore, don’t follow the cable “talking heads” shows focusing on the NFL, and, really, am only able to muster any interest when I check to see how Bill Belichick has, once again, made wine out of water.

I wonder how many other ex-NFL junkies have similarly lost interest? To a certain extent, with the information overload, it almost like the age-old proposition of “What is sexier? A naked woman or a scantily clad woman?” Sometimes less is more; the imagination is a powerful device. Too many games, too many crummy games, too many “experts” shooting their mouths off, and a game which has changed from gladiatorial combat to blinged-out entertainment theater…I liked  it better back in the day.

And, let’s face it: there are more entertainment options than there used to be. Guys who used to sit in their easy chair on Sundays, guzzling beer and noshing on chicken wings, while watching the Game of the Week…now have 500 channels of entertainment to choose from on their TV, have video games that they can play, and can stream NFL output to their phones, tablets and such. The audience that used to watch such fare only on TV (which got 100 percent of the viewership) is now divided like a pie…with the natural result that TV ratings will be lower than they were previously.

I doubt that a small number of predominantly black NFL players kneeling during the National Anthem has had much of an impact on NFL popularity. The very parts of America that are football crazy (i.e. the South, the Bible Belt), just so happen to be the regions where offense might be strongly taken.

But, those rednecks aren’t going to give up their football. No frickin’ way.

My Mom passed away this morning. She was a few months shy of 90 years old. The poor thing caught that crappy chest cold that everyone in So Cal has had since Christmas, and she just couldn’t shake it.

My brother and sisters and I were with her yesterday at her board and care facility in Murrieta, watching her fight it and letting her know that she was loved. She never was conscious, but I think she could hear us and feel our kisses. She was brave ’til the end.

Mom now joins our Dad, who died almost twenty years ago. If there is a place “up there”, then they’ll both be happier today.

My Mom lived a big life for a young lady born to a couple of flaming alcoholics in Los Angeles back in 1928. She got very little love from her father, and spent a lot of her youth taking care of her mother, who was a barfly and floozy, and would bring drunk “boyfriends” home from the local bars. It is amazing that she found her way out of the mess, but she did, when she was lucky to get a job at a paper box factory during WWII…and met the mother of her husband-to-be, Richard Manning.

The two of them set about securing their portion of the American Dream. My Dad was a mechanic and my Mom, in the Fifties, was a stay-at-home housewife, doing the hard work of raising four young children. I don’t know if I told you this, but my Mom was a very striking woman. She was a natural brunette, but she always colored her hair strawberry blonde. She and my Dad were early waterskiiers, and she always looked so beautiful back there behind the boat jumping the wake in her single ski. Our family had such great times in our two ski boats, first “Skisix” and, then, “Big Daddy”.

My Dad’s business venture in Santa Cruz failed in the early Sixties, so the family retreated to So Cal, Dad went back to work at a Ford dealership, and my Mom got a job with Zellerbach Paper Company. She had to lie to get the job; she said she had two kids, when she was actually raising four. Mom started out at Zellerback as a basic office flunky, but did so well there that she kept getting more responsible tasks assigned to her until she was a major buyer for the company. Management really loved her there, and she loved being appreciated by the bosses and Zellerbach’s clients all over the country. That job really gave her the confidence to believe that she could do anything.

Charlie and I introduced Mom and Dad to travel back in the early 80’s. We went on a few cruises with them, and then they took off on their own and traveled all over the world in the next two decades. They went to Russia, China, Europe, Canada, Alaska, and, of course, all over Mexico and the Caribbean. Charlie and I probably did a half-dozen cruises with them, the last one being a lengthy Mediterranean cruise. Mom broke a tooth on the first day, but soldiered through the trip with a goofy smile.

It wasn’t long after that cruise that my Dad passed; he just didn’t wake up one morning, dying of an apparent heart attack. It devastated my Mom; they had just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. They were having so much fun, traveling, dancing, and enjoying their retirement years in Vista. I really wish they could have had more time together in the “golden years”, because they deserved it.

My Mom always loved me special, maybe because I reminded her of my Dad. I can’t remember her being anything but a loving mother over all the years, and a source of comfort and advise when times were tough.

I surprised Mom and Dad when I was 25 years old by revealing to them that I had fallen in love with a divorcee who just happened to have four young children. Both of my parents gave their complete thumbs up to the romance and marriage, and always treated my step-children like any of the other grandchildren in the family. My Mom had a tremendous heart to do that, particularly since I was her prize specimen.

Mom and Dad were thrifty and they saved and invested well. She was the manager of the finances, and was quite proud of the way she kept the bills paid, arranged for the lay-away gifts at Christmas, squirrelled away money for vacations, and talked my Dad into their home purchases. They were all good ones, and my Mom was a very fine home decorator, so her homes always looked great and inviting to guests. I was always proud to bring my friends over to my house.

I will miss my Mom. We shared many experiences over the 70 years, laughed and cried together, and she was always there for me when I needed a comforting embrace. I was always proud to say, “That’s my Mom!”

I know that everyone thinks that their Mom is the greatest, and who am I to argue with them? But, as far as setting an example of how to love and care for someone, being fun to be with, and treating other human beings with respect and thoughtfulness, I think that my Mom was “as good as it gets”.

 

 

 

If someone gets paid to do dangerous things, is that person a “hero” when he or she does their job?

I would say that climbing aboard a 1,400 pound Brahma bull, and trying to stay aboard for 8 seconds, is about as dangerous an occupation as there is. The chance of a bull rider getting hurt, or seriously hurt, is pretty high, every time he straps in. Broken bones, concussions, internal injuries and worse happen all of the time. So, is a bull rider a hero when he does his job, or, alternatively, is he just a risk taker who happens to get paid for doing some damn fool thing?

I think the term “her0” is overused, clichéd, and cheapened in our society. It’s like the word “superstar” in sports; nowadays, guys who sit on the bench, wishing they were playing, are considered “stars”, while the guys who are actually out on the field making the plays are deemed “superstars”. What is the superlative for a guy like QB Tom Brady of the Patriots? Maybe a “Super Superstar”…with cheese.

Similarly, the words “hero” and “heroic” have been bandied about to the extent that they have lost their cache. Any policeman or fireman who does their job is routinely called a “hero”…even though they are trained and paid to do dangerous things occasionally, like climbing a tree to rescue a cat. Back when I was involved in local government, the statistics on firemen were that 80 to 90 percent of their “emergency” responses were for non-emergency matters. Firefighting, i.e. the most dangerous part of the job, was rare; nine times out of ten the FD crew rolled out of the station to respond to a medical issue.

The same goes with policemen. Yes, some aspects of their jobs are dangerous, but (a) they are well-trained and well-paid to take on those risks; and, (2) most police work is routine and boring, to some extent, and rarely life-threatening. My son has worked in the Sheriff’s Department for many years. He had occasion to fire his gun early on in his career. His superior at the time noted to my son that he (the lieutenant) had never had occasion to fire his weapon on duty in his career to that point. Unlike on TV, most cops aren’t regularly involved in gunfights; most of the folks that they deal with are unarmed.

So, if a fireman rescues someone from a burning building, or a cop apprehends a bad guy waving a sword at passersby, is the action “heroic”, or did they just do their job? Put another way, can Batman actually do something heroic? Not really.

I would offer a different example of heroism: someone who is not trained nor paid to risk life and limb…running into a burning building to save someone, or disarming a robber in a liquor store…now, THAT is heroic, that is something truly courageous which should be applauded by all.

“Thank you for your service!” This is a platitude that is becoming trite, usually bestowed on military servicemen, active or retired. For those servicemen who were drafted, as in the Vietnam War…yes, we should thank them for their service, because they were put in harm’s way by our government (not at their volition), to fight an unpopular war. However, for the past four decades, the U.S. military has been stocked with volunteers, so, again, we have young folks  who are well-trained and well-paid to take on dangerous activities. Most of the men and women in the military perform support tasks…they aren’t dodging bullets, much like firemen don’t put out a lot of fires.

Certainly, it is possible for a serviceman to perform an heroic act…like give his life to save others, or recklessly disregard orders to secure an objective against overwhelming odds. They make movies about these incidents, but the reason that they do is because…such incidents are inspiring, but rare.

Maybe “Thank you for your service!” is another way of saying, “Thank you for serving (so that my son or grandson didn’t have to)”.  The truth of the matter is that more and more of the military is being staffed by poor minorities…for them, serving isn’t a desire to do something dangerous, it’s a path to a career that they might never have the opportunity to pursue.

I come from a time (Vietnam War era) where society wasn’t kind to servicemen…as if it was the grunt soldiers’ policymaking that got us mired down in that stupid war. No one was thanking anyone for their service; I know, as I took great pains to camouflage myself in civvies whenever I ventured off base in the U.S. Not a good time.

What a difference a few decades make. To some extent, I think society is trying to make amends for its behavior…going out of the way to thank the young folk who are doing the dirty work on behalf of the government…which, BTW, continues to involve us in stupid conflicts. Some things never change.

The cynic in me is offended by the emergency services establishment which is still raking in credit for the “heroic” 9/11 response. Fire trucks nationwide now have American flags festooning their rigs…a lame effort to piggyback on the “heroism” of the NY police and firemen who died responding to 9/11. Call me an idiot, but those poor souls were just doing their jobs on that fateful day, and rushed into those Twin Towers…not knowing that they were going to collapse. Had the Fire and Police department brass known what was about to occur, they would not have allowed those responders in the building…per policy. It was simply bad luck for the responders…as dedicated as they were. They weren’t heroes; they were victims.

Anyway, on that day, being a fireman or policeman in that locale was a very hazardous occupation. Yet, overall, those jobs are not even close to being the most dangerous. The government keeps statistics on this through OSHA, and it might surprise you what the most dangerous ones are. The countdown, from 15 to number 1 is as follows:

15.  Electrical Power Line Installers

14.  Police and Sheriff’s Patrol Officers

13.  Construction Laborers

12.  First-line Supervisors of Mechanics, Installers and Repairers

11.  Grounds Maintenance Workers

10.  Miscellaneous Agricultural Workers

9.   First-Line Supervisors of Construction Trades and Extraction Workers

8.   Farmers, Ranchers and Agricultural Managers

7.   Truck Drivers

6.   Structural Iron and Steel Workers

5.   Refuse and Recyclable Materials Collectors

4.   Roofers

3.   Aircraft Pilots and Flight Engineers

2.   Fishermen

And, the number one most hazardous occupation of all.

Logging Workers

Who’d have thought?

So, if a policeman dies in the line of duty (even if he crashes his patrol car), he gets a ticker tape parade down Main Street. If a tree falls on a logger, nothing happens except that he dies…it’s just not that heroic.

Wood just doesn’t get any respect, I tell ya’.

 

It’s New Year’s Day (whoopee!) and our fiber optic cable connection is out, so no TV for us. No Rose Parade, football games, no nada. Consequently, we’ve spent the past few days simultaneously (a) trying to rid ourselves of the wretched cold that has infected everyone in So Cal, and (2) removing the holiday decor from our property, inside and out. Both are nasty jobs.

The past twelve months were interesting, to be sure.

Last January, my Mom was living alone in her Vista home and had just passed her behind-the-wheel driving test at the DMV. She was happy and cocky; she’d out live us all. Fast forward twelve months: two broken hips and she’s an almost 90 year-old invalid living in a board-and-care facility, on hospice watch. She’ll be lucky to survive 2018. What a difference a year makes!

Who would’ve guessed that Charlie and I would have three (3!) Boston Terriers? The heavy rains of last Winter had just begun when grandson Craig and I drove six hours one-way up the San Joaquin Valley to pick up the ten-week old puppy. What possessed us to do such thing? I still haven’t figured that out, and the intervening eleven months have been a roller coaster ride. Lots of barf, pee, and poo, a few munched-on baseboards and furniture, and a couple of annoyed brother and sister Bostons…there you have it…puppyhood, for better or worse. Now that we’ve all weathered the storm, the little tyke (“Baby”) is fitting in like a glove around here, and has grown into quite an unusual character. She’s a sweetheart…I think we’ll keep her.

Speaking of the dogs, JayJay had a tough year, almost going blind before his best friends stepped up to the plate and paid big $$ to have the cataracts in both eyes removed (lens replacement surgery). He is one big, happy boy now, and he can “look forward” to many more years with all of us.

The experts said it couldn’t be done, but this was the year that the family finally convinced Charlie to divest her business and move toward actual retirement. It took an intervention of her kids (she wouldn’t listen to me), but she finally saw the light, and has make strides in the past six months to move most of the grunt work of her business into our son Jonathan’s capable hands. Charlie is still going to do taxes, and she will be tutoring and advising Jonathan for the next two years, but we can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel. Charlie’s clients know what’s happening, they seem to like Jonathan, and the transition is going pretty smoothly. Fingers are crossed.

One year ago, many Americans held their breath as Donald Trump took office as President of the United States. That a man who seemed so unqualified for the office, lacking the moral character, temperament and experience, would be leading the Nation (and, the world) was a scary thought. We all hoped that there was more substance to the man than he had exhibited in the past.

Unfortunately, Mr. Trump turned out to be exactly as advertised: a bully, a narcissist, thin-skinned, vindictive, vulgar, a compulsive liar, and a guy who is a total tool of his super rich friends.

Don’t believe me on this; his GOP brethren don’t think too highly of him, either.

His Presidency has been a disaster in terms of moral leadership. He is setting the bar awful low for our children and grandchildren.

Heaven knows how much damage this idiot will do to our country before he’s through.

On a more positive note, the dumbass politicians who have been running the Bear Creek Master Home Owners’ Association (where we’ve lived for the past thirty years) were deposed in a recall election. It is rare for an entire Board of Directors to be recalled, but these dimwits deserved it. They must have been shocked when the “Recall” posters popped up in virtually every one’s front yard, and mortified when the vote to recall went 10-to-1 against them. Hooray for democracy!

The groundwork was laid in 2017 for another recall effort in 2018…at the national political level. The “Tea Party” conservative Congressmen who campaigned for election in 2016, promising to end deficit spending, but, instead, voted to approve the GOP’s tax reform plan, will have to explain themselves.

If “tax and spend” is a horrible thing (i.e. usually applied by the GOP to liberal Democrats), then how horrible is “no-tax and spend”? In other words, making no effort to balance revenue with expenditures…just spend like a drunken sailor in port. This is, in effect, what the GOP has come up with, despite many years of loathing such a budget. Presumably, the lying GOP Congressmen will have some annoyed constituents in 2018.

Lying, itself, became a national pastime in 2017. It seems that there are no bounds anymore…particularly in politics. Donald Trump, who would lie when the truth would serve him better, led the Nation in whoppers, fabricating events, dismissing factual evidence as “fake”, re-tweeting obviously erroneous stories, and passing along phony propaganda from Fox Corporation as “real” news.

One of several news services that maintains a continuous “Fact Check” column has determined that President Trump told almost 2,000 blatant lies…publicly…in his first year in office. That’s approximately 6 baldface lies per day to the American public.  One wonders if America will ever hold him accountable for his lying, or if the public has just thrown in the towel regarding Trump…it is who he is, so…let’s move on. How he gets a free pass for such behavior is THE question of 2017. Why?

Guys who didn’t get a free pass in 2017 were the many celebrities (curiously excluding the President) who were brought down for decades of sexual harassment and predatory behavior towards women. It is as if a floodgate was opened…the bad news just keeps coming. As the saying goes, “Power corrupts…”, and it appears that many powerful men have grossly abused their privileged station in life. It’s surprising that the lid has been on this story for so long.

One of the guys who is the poster boy for this type of abuse is ex-Prez, Bill Clinton. He almost got thrown out of office for his exploits in the Oval Office, and has lived a life of shame ever since. The hoopla in 2017 over this issue has resurrected the memory of Mr. Clinton, to the embarrassment and shame of his wife and children, I’m sure.

Speaking of the Clintons, it’s been a year now since Donald Trump prevailed over Mrs. Clinton, and, yet, a day doesn’t go by that the President fails to badmouth the woman that he defeated. One wonders what that is about? Of course, even though he has been The Boss now for a whole year, Trump also feels obliged to trash talk ex-President Obama. Someone needs to tell the guy that he WON, and that he needs to look ahead (because he’s responsible) rather than focusing on the REAR VIEW MIRROR.

I was wondering if the President would shift gears in 2018, cease the 2016 Presidential campaign, and get to work on current issues. But, alas, on January 2nd, Trump tweeted his belief that former Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin should be prosecuted for sloppy handling of emails…when she worked for Mrs. Clinton three or four years ago. One wonders what goes on in this man’s mind, hour by hour. Does he ever focus on work?

Well, according to the President, he’s working very hard for us. Just this week, statistics were published which indicated that 2017 was the safest year for commercial aviation in history. Not surprisingly, Donald Trump publicly claimed credit for this achievement.

In 2018, I fully expect the man to claim credit for inventing the wheel, fire, the hot dog, and the Internet.