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Morning Update: 11/01/24
November 1, 2024

Senator Patrick [2024]

Welcome to November! There’s no question that this month is going to be history-making, one way or the other. The question now is what are we going to have to do to survive it? The prospects of a peaceful holiday season look bleak. Gatherings of any type are likely to be fraught with danger as different perspectives, misinformation, and outright lies color our conversations, turning them from casual to caustic. I’m not looking forward to the next week, no matter how the election goes. This could be traumatic.

The good news is that Kat is coming home today. She’s still not feeling great, obviously, but she misses the kids and wants to see how things go with the cats. Small things like walking and eating still tax her. We will be taking extreme care to ensure her safety while she is here. We greatly appreciate all the thoughts and support coming from our friends during this challenge.

Both kids had fun yesterday. One of G’s friends gave him $5 for wearing his heels to school. Unfortunately, one heel broke when he stumbled over something. He “fixed” it with a glue stick and went on with his day. Tipper enjoyed going out with her friends, but they had a difficult time finding anything exciting. She was disappointed in the haunted house they went to, and few people were participating in the trick-or-treat tradition in any of the neighborhoods they went to. The amount of candy she came back with was too small to bother poaching.

We are extremely thankful to the friend who sent an electrician to fix our problem. It turns out that the problem was a mix of old wiring and a space heater that was pulling too much power. One of the lead wires in the breaker box was quite literally melting and showed signs of having been in that condition for quite some time. We are back to normal activity, minus the space heater in G’s room. Hopefully, I’ll be able to finish editing all the photos from the past two weeks before anything else distracts us.

There are plenty of other little petty annoyances, of course, but who doesn’t have those in their life? I thought I was buying sugar-free caramels. They weren’t. The cats escaped out the back door. We got them all back. As frustrating as those things can be in the moment, I think they’re part of what colors our existence. They are problems we can generally resolve and even when we can’t, they’re not matters that dramatically impact our lives. We’re entering a period where we could face some dramatic challenges. If we’re to survive, we need to keep the minor things in perspective. Yes, I’m preaching to myself. I’m horrible at this.

You know the world is going nuts when the 2-5 Jets beat the division-leading Texans, 21-13. I watched most of the game. The first half was full of errors, penalties, and blunders. The second half was better with the Jets pulling off some amazing catches. Does this mean the Jets are getting better? Maybe, but I wouldn’t start betting on them just yet. The Texans have a number of key players out due to injury. They had to rely on their third-string left tackle for most of the game, and that inexperience allowed Jets linemen to get into the backfield too easily. A healthy Houston team would have likely run all over their opponents. So, we’ll have to see how the Jets do next week.

More insanity occurred off the basketball court as Charlotte Hornets point guard, LaMelo Ball, knocked the head off an animatronic clown. The clown was slightly hidden as Ball entered the Spectrum Center for practice. The 23-year-old’s reaction has his teammates laughing and poking fun. Yes, there’s video.

The election dominates most of the other headlines. I won’t bother going over all of them, but there are a few things that bother me. One is the degree to which gender has become a critical issue. The felon says that he will “protect women.” Harris shoots back, “Women can think for themselves, thank you.” At the same time, the felon makes anti-trans attacks central to his campaign’s closing argument. The entire GOP has ramped up the anti-trans vitriol. Should Republicans win on any level, the lives of millions of women and transgender people could be in danger.

At the same time, the felon’s fraud claims revive fears he may again seek to overturn election results. This is especially concerning since he has an ally as Speaker of the House. Mike Johnson has been actively campaigning for the felon and he is in a position to prevent the House of Representatives from certifying the election. Johnson could also, in theory, refuse to seat new members of Congress should Democrats make significant gains. So much of what happens after the election is out of the hands of citizens, making protests and lawsuits inevitable.

Yes, this is going to affect your holiday gatherings. There is almost no chance that rhetoric will calm down by Thanksgiving and the winter holidays are at risk. Family gatherings, and conversations around the table, are going to be perilous. One has to think: do I want my children to witness adults behaving worse than toddlers? Maybe this is the year that we diffuse the danger by making our holiday celebrations smaller and more intimate, limiting participation to immediate family members only. Let the arguments, if there are any, be over things like who got the last roll or who spilled the gravy on great-grandma’s tablecloth. We have to begin planning now to create environments that respect boundaries, put differences of opinion aside, and focus on family rather than the snakes in the grass that would tear us apart.

As I said at the beginning, what happens this month will be historical regardless of the outcome. Nothing about this month is business as usual. We’ve selected people to run for office who have no business even managing a small fast-food outlet in the middle of the desert. While I do find VP Harris dramatically preferable over the felon, it is ridiculous to think that her administration wouldn’t be filled with gaffes, mistakes, and errors in judgment. To create real change we need to take over local political parties, replacing power brokers who push incompetent people onto the ballot. From there, we can move up the ladder, replacing party leaders at both the state and federal levels. Only then will there be any genuine change.

Perhaps, if we focus on pumpkin pie recipes and creative ways of working with leftover stuffing, we can avoid letting politics ruin what should be happy moments over the rest of the year. Shut the door on nonsense that you can’t control. Give the system a chance to work, and if it fails, address those matters after the first of the year. They’ll still be there, waiting to ruin people’s lives.

For now, go grab a cup of coffee. Make sure the garbage is out by the curb. Don’t forget to let people know that you love them. Make your weekend pleasurable.

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Current Issues  /  Morning Update  /  Personal  /  pop culture
Morning Update: 10/21/24
October 21, 2024

Twenty Years Ago [2004]

Did anyone really want to wake up early this morning? I might be tempted to call you a liar if you say you did. Another Monday starts another dry week. Temps today are warmer than usual—plenty of sunshine. There’s rain to our west, but there is little chance of it surviving long enough to even give us a sprinkle. Leaves on trees are about as colorful as they’re going to get this year. And you still have to work.

On the positive side of things, G made it back to Indiana last night. We’ll see him after school and I’m looking forward to his chatter, assuming he’s not completely exhausted. The animals will be happy to greet him, too. His absence has made quite a difference in how everyone behaves.

Kat’s car started throwing codes at her over the weekend and one of them is potentially bad news: The battery pack is dying. She’ll have to take it to a dealership to find out if they can replace single cells in the battery pack or if the whole thing is dead. She was planning to buy another vehicle in January. Having to do so now would be a tremendous hit to finances.

At least yesterday had some interesting football. We’re at that point in the season where injuries are causing good teams to struggle. The Colts managed to beat the hapless Dolphins, 16-10. It wasn’t a terrific game for either team and for a moment in the fourth quarter, it looked as though Miami might mount a comeback. Chiefs beat the 49ers, 28-18 in a Super Bowl rematch that, if we’re honest, was totally disappointing. Statistically, Mahomes is having his worst year ever. San Francisco is struggling to field a healthy team. That the Chiefs are now 6-0 speaks to how good the team is and how lousy the league is at the same time. A late field goal allowed the Lions to give the Vikings their first loss of the season, 31-29. Both teams are playing surprisingly well for the first time in decades. They’re going to make the playoffs interesting. After so many tight games yesterday, can tonight’s games be anything but disappointing? Ravens play the Bucs in Tampa and the Chargers travel to Arizona to take on the Cardinals. Baltimore and LA are the favorites, but this could be a real snooze fest.

The exciting news comes from the WNBA where the New York Liberty won their first title over the Lynx, 67-62 in overtime. Of course, it’s the WNBA so the officiating is being blamed for affecting the outcome of the game. Still, it was one of the most exciting basketball games we’re likely to see this year. The men will have to actually work hard for once if they want to be as entertaining.

And, because we’re in that time of the year, there’s baseball news worth mentioning. It will be the Yankees versus the Dodgers in the World Series. Again. This is the 12th time the two teams have met in the World Series, going back to 1941. The rivalry is almost as old as the leagues. Jet lag plays a strong role in how the visiting teams play. If you can stand to watch baseball on television (I can’t), this could be a decent series.

The rest of this morning’s news is boring by comparison. Here are a few headlines.

I’d list more, but you might fall asleep reading them.

Sunrise is sneaking up on us. I suppose it’s time to start looking around for something that resembles motivation. Maybe I’ll find it under the covers.

Or in another cup of coffee.

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Current Issues  /  News & Comment  /  Social Commentary
Cancel The Outrage
April 3, 2024

Spring Fields [2009 original photo with AI background]

People love to bitch. If there’s one thing the Internet has done, it’s brought out the false outrage factor in a lot of people over things that are often insignificant. We get upset over the tiniest little things that, in the grand scheme of things, make absolutely no difference… until they do. False outrage can result in the passage of ridiculous laws attempting to fix a problem that never actually existed. We’ve seen several states do just this in regard to a non-existent problem regarding immigrant violence. Now, Louisiana’s governor seems ready to do the same thing over a fucking basketball game.

Here’s what happened: Monday night, prior to the LSU/Iowa game in the NCAA women’s basketball tournament, LSU coach Kate Mulkey guided her team back to the locker room following their warm-up period, per normal. While they were there, the national anthem was played in the arena. They weren’t there. They didn’t even hear it playing. This is normal.

However, the bitch force that already didn’t like LSU, primarily for extremely racist reasons, decided to get upset about the Louisiana team not being on the court and standing up. They complained. Loudly. So much so that Louisiana’s sorry excuse for a governor, Jeff Landry, decided that the state needs a law that would cause any athlete in the state to lose their scholarship if they missed the playing of the national anthem. Is it just me or is that extremely stupid? Talk about a knee-jerk reaction!

Coach Mulkey said later, “Honestly, I don’t even know when the anthem was played. We kind of have a routine [for leaving the court at a certain time].”

Cody Worsham, the school’s associate athletic director, added, “Our basketball programs have not been on the court for the anthem for the last several seasons. Usually, the anthem is played 12 minutes before the game when the team is in the locker room doing final preparations.”

Furthermore, in the other women’s game that night, neither UConn nor USC were on the floor for the national anthem. BEING PRESENT FOR THE NATIONAL ANTHEM IS NOT A REQUIREMENT ANYWHERE! Teams warm up and then return to the locker room until it’s time to start the game. They need the time to concentrate and make sure they’re all on the same page.

CAN THE FUCKING OUTRAGE

This is not an issue of nationalistic pride. This is not a matter of protest, though they have every right to do so. This is a matter of doing what is best for the outcome of the game. It’s been going on for years and to get upset about it now is fucking delusional.

But while we’re on the topic, let’s remind ourselves why, if they wanted to, the players (or anyone else) might want to protest the US national anthem.

  1. The third verse of the anthem includes references to slaves who fought for the British during the War of 1812. This has led to criticism for glorifying the oppression of African Americans.
  2. The anthem does not even come close to fully representing the diversity of the American population, a diversity that the GOP would love to completely ignore if given the chance.
  3. The language and complexity of the anthem create a barrier for anyone for whom English, particularly 18th-century English, isn’t their first language.
  4. Performances of the anthem vary so widely as to make its performance irrelevant and without a shade of meaning.
  5. The whole damn thing needs to be replaced.

There are plenty of legitimate issues to be upset about around the world. Whether or not a basketball team is on the floor for the national anthem is not one of those issues.

Take your false outrage and shove it up your ass.

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Current Issues  /  News & Comment
Flagrant Foul
March 23, 2017

Mistakes are inevitable but intentional harm is inexcusable

 

charles i. letbetter - flagrant foul

The Short Version

Flagrant fouls are part of college basketball and a game can turn on a last-minute call. Sometimes it’s good strategy but it comes with risks. Acts of terrorism, political malfeasance, and the whims of the universe can also come with flagrant fouls of their own. Perhaps, like basketball, we should get a free throw when those happen. Something good to counter the bad.

More To The Story

[dropcap]One of the things that make the month of March endurable is the NCAA basketball tournament. I like basketball up through the college level. The players work hard, develop their skills, and learn to work as a team. Anything can happen on any given night during this tournament. South Carolina can take down a perennial powerhouse like Duke. Wisconsin can eliminate top-seeded Villanova. The excitement is palpable.[/dropcap]

Games can turn around, though, when someone does something questionable and intentionally fouls a player from the opposite team. Strategically, this can be a smart move at the end of a very close game. Intentionally fouling a weak player puts them on the free throw line instead of allowing them to pass the ball to a strong player who might make a three-point shot. Putting a weak player on the line holds the possibility of getting the ball back without giving up any points. Depending on the team and the player fouled, the strategy can give an edge to a team that’s only losing by one point.

A flagrant foul at the wrong time, however, can kill a victory. We saw that happen a couple of times last week in close games. A flagrant foul call against a Seton Hall player in their match against Arkansas almost certainly cost them the game. There has been a lot of debate, especially by Seton Hall fans, over whether the call was justified. Did young Desi Rodriguez really intend to commit the foul or did momentum make the contact inevitable? Referees at the game said the action violated the rules against pushing from behind (NCAA men’s basketball Rule 4; Section 15; Article 2.c.2). The action caused Arkansas’ Jaylen Barford to fall forward, losing his balance. Fortunately, Mr. Barford was not hurt, but the potential was certainly there.

Flagrant fouls in sports are part of the game. We expect them at certain points and there are times it can be a good strategy despite being a clear violation of the rules. However, we too frequently see the same strategy of flagrant fouling outside of basketball and when that occurs, the results are not nearly so entertaining and someone almost always gets hurt.

Terrorism would be a good example. What happened yesterday (22 March) in London was unquestionably a flagrant foul. One person’s deliberate and planned actions cost the lives of five people and injured some 20 others.  The act was not only an offense to the people of London and the UK, but to the entire world. Civilized society does not tolerate the deliberate targeting of innocent people. Foul. Take the responsible persons out of the game.

Flagrant fouls happen in politics all the time. Again, there are times when a deliberate breaking of the rules can be a good strategy, such as when Congressman John Lewis led a sit-in on the floor of the House of Representatives last Spring. He brought attention to a critical issue that Congress was attempting to ignore. At other times, however, such actions can be devastating for justice, the rule of law, and the American people.

One of the most recent examples would be Rep. Devin Nunes assertions late yesterday that communications between the president-elect and his staff might have been “inadvertently” caught up in intelligence officials’ monitoring of other targets. Such a statement from the chair of the house intelligence committee was a foul in a couple of different ways. First, the chair was speaking to the press about information the full intelligence committee had not yet seen or discussed, a clear violation of House rules. Second, there is every possibility that the information the Congressman gave to the press was, in part, classified. A direct violation of law.

Who loses in a situation such as this? Justice. The American people. The statements by the Congressman undermine TWO ongoing Congressional investigation, one of which has severe implications regarding the interference of Russians in the US elections last fall. Such deliberate and calculated carelessness underscores the need for an independent, non-partisan investigation into both matters. Congressman Nunes needs to be removed from the intelligence game for such a flagrant foul.

Another flagrant foul would be the threats the administration and Congressional leadership have put on Members of Congress to pass the health care law scheduled for a vote today. GOP leaders and the president have been heavy-handed in their threats to members who have voiced opposition to the bill. The implication of those threats is that the party and/or the administration will “punish” those who vote against the bill. What this administration and party leadership seem to forget is that neither of them owns or control the votes of any member of Congress. Representatives are there to express the voice of their constituents. Failure on the part of a Congressperson to do so is a severe dereliction of duty. The foul is a strategical move by a losing team grasping at straws.

The strategy may well end up going against the administration and result in losing the vote. As of this morning, the Freedom Caucus, which is composed of extreme-right GOP members of Congress, still opposes the health bill. Should they, as a bloc, vote against the bill, it would not pass. The extreme right are not the only ones opposed to the bill, though. Consider the opinion of Senator Lindsey Graham:

There is a caveat here that Congressional votes such as this often come down to the wire as deals are made with individual members of Congress. Yet, getting back on point, the flagrant foul of attempting to overtly threaten Members of Congress is still wrong and, hopefully, contributes to the defeat of the bill.

I could continue to list other flagrant fouls on the part of the administration, but there is a point here at which such accusations feel redundant and fail to serve the point. I suppose, bringing the story back around to our original example, in some ways the administration’s propensity toward misbehavior is like Duke’s Grayson Allen intentionally tripping other players at the beginning of the season. The situation became so bad that Duke had to suspend Allen for several games and the ACC officially reprimanded him for his behavior. The difference is that we can’t just suspend the president for a few weeks. Even if Congress were to grow some balls and reprimand the president for his behavior, it would almost certainly have no effect.

Life throws flagrant fouls at us as well. Repeated trips to the doctor over the past two weeks have tripled the number of medicine bottles on my shelf. With so much medicine comes a wave of side effects and those are the flagrant fouls that leave me unable to stay focused, dealing with increased levels of pain and confusion. The effects are supposed to be temporary, according to the doctor, but the results, for now, are frustrating and debilitating to a large degree. Add to that forced changes in what I eat and how I live and I most certainly think the universe deserves to be whistled for the foul.

I know many of you have felt the same.

In basketball, when one is fouled, one gets a free shot. With a flagrant foul, you not only get the free throws, you get to retain possession of the ball. I think the universe needs to institute such a penalty. For everything bad that happens, for every terrorist incident or every political misappropriation of power, something of equal or potentially greater good has to happen. The two children of Ayshe Frade, whose mother was killed in yesterday’s Westminster attack, deserve for the rest of their lives to be blissful in exchange for the horrendously flagrant foul committed against them. The American people deserve an all-inclusive single-payer healthcare system that cannot be tampered with by Congress.

And me? I just want to be able to take pictures without worrying about forgetting the appointment or becoming ill in the middle of a shoot or having pain affect the quality of my pictures. I’ll take those free throws, thank you.

And against the odds, we’re pulling for Butler against North Carolina tomorrow night. This is what makes March so mad.

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Current Issues  /  pop culture
Doing That March Sports Thingy
March 14, 2016
charles i. letbetter - march sports thing

Sports do not build character. They reveal it. —Heywood Broun

 

charles i. letbetter march sports thingy

I have NO pictures of anything related to basketball, so here are three beautiful blonds instead

I am nothing even close to being a sports fan. I appreciate sports. I enjoy watching sports on occasion. I understand the basic philosophy behind most sports. But do I have a team to which I’m loyal? No. Is there a sport about which I’m passionate? No. Do I keep stats in my head for anyone? You’ve got to be kidding. I try to be reasonably conversant in the big three: baseball, basketball, football. Those three sports help me prevent those awkward silences when in a social situation. Other than that, I’ve very little interest.

This time of year, however, this mid-March hair that gets stuck and gums up the whole works, I feel pressure. My television should be on. A basketball jersey should be hanging on my wall. I ought to be full of the madness that is the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Why? Because it’s never ending sports and I’m male and that’s what we’re supposed to do because it has something or the other to do with being a great lover. Allegedly. Your results may vary.

The biggest pressure is to complete a tournament bracket. For those of you who are blissfully naive, please allow me to suck you into this sports vortex. The NCAA men’s basketball tournament is huge. They start with 64 teams, selected in part by who won specific conferences, but mostly based on the decisions of a committee based at the NCAA headquarters here in Indianapolis. This committee not only decides who gets to play, they also decide how those 64 teams are ranked. How a team is ranked is HUGE because that determines who plays whom in the first round. Officials want to ensure really good games as the tournament goes along, so top ranked teams play against the lowest ranked teams in the first round with the assumption that the lowest ranked teams will loose.

All these games are divided into four regions. Each region is seeded separately and the whole thing is revealed during a televised program on CBS. Except, this year, that’s not exactly what happened. While NBA legend  Charles Barkley was standing there trying to figure out how to work a touch screen, someone leaked the full bracket online via Twitter. Understand, this leak had absolutely ZERO effect over any of the games; it merely spoiled the sense of surprise when television cameras dropped in on smaller schools such as Gonzaga (no, I don’t know what a Gonzaga is) or Northern Iowa (poor kids up there never get picked for anything, so this is really big for them).

Once the initial bracket is released, the challenge is to try and guess how the tournament is going to go down. This is such a stupid and ridiculous pastime. If anyone ever gets a bracket completely right, it’s more by luck, rather like picking the winning lotto numbers. Sure, people like to pretend they know what they’re doing, but there’s no way to overcome the fact that on any night, in any game, one team can have a better-than-usual night while their opponents are totally off their feed and play lousy. Every year there are upsets: lower ranked teams beating higher ranked teams. In the best years, there’s a Cinderella: a low-ranked team from a small school that beats several higher ranked teams and makes it to the Final Four, which is rather like basketball heaven. Indianapolis’ Butler University has been that Cinderella before, making it all the way to the final game before losing.

So, every year I fill out my bracket. Every year, it’s worthless after the first round. I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. My choices are made solely on emotion, hearsay, and blatant favoritism. This year, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) made it to the tournament. That’s exciting. I know people who teach there. Chattanooga is where two of my boys live. I would very much like for them to win at least the first round. Unfortunately, they’re up against Indiana, a fifth-seeded team that plays good ball but has a history, over the past several years at least, of choking in the really big games. Neither team is likely to make it past the second round when the winner from the first round is probably stuck getting whipped by Kentucky. As much as I like Chattanooga and think they might pull off an upset, I’m going with Indiana in the first round because an Indiana/Kentucky game would be hot.

A lot of people are picking Kentucky to win it all because they beat North Carolina earlier in the season. I say that’s hogwash. Coach Dean Smith doesn’t let anyone beat his team twice in the same season, especially not this season when his team is quite strong. Kentucky got lucky the first time around. Don’t expect that to happen again.

I ultimately have Kansas going up against Oklahoma and UNC taking on Purdue (a purely emotional choice) in the Final Four with UNC taking home the trophy. What do I know, though? Chances are actually very high that none of those four teams make it to the Final Four. There’s a lot of basketball to play between here and there and, because I’m a guy and don’t want to lose any more testosterone points, I’ll watch some if it. Just don’t expect me to get anything right.

I tried embedding my bracket here because it’s too large for a screenshot. That failed, though, which may be a good thing. This way I can conceal my embarrassment when I lose. Sports and I are the kind of friends who wave at each other from opposite sides of the street. Those of you who are true fans, good luck. We’ll see you when the tournament is done.

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