John Kennedy and
the Seven Football Games


 
[Every few years I remember President Kennedy in my own small way, by republishing]

The concussive violence of football, the long term damage to players, was never in the national consciousness in those days. Back when I was a kid, such thoughts never intruded. We had no idea.

There is something about football crowds. I’m not sure exactly what it is. But if most of us were blindfolded and put into the middle of a crowd at a professional game, we’d be able to tell if it was football or some other sport. The raucousness of the crowd, maybe? The yelling of the vendors? The play-by-play enthusiasm? Hard to say what the rhythm is, exactly, but it is unmistakable.

The Redskins vs Eagles game at Franklin Field in Philadelphia had been billed as a big deal. The stadium itself seemed like the setting for it. It was the oldest stadium in the country. The Eagles had been there only a few years.

By the time the coin was tossed that Sunday, there were over 60,000 fans in the stadium. But, on that Sunday, you would not have recognized the sound as happening during a football event. In fact, there was an eerie silence during the entire game.

A 25 yard pass from Jurgensen to Brown provided some hope for the home team. Yet, even during the breakaway run for the goal, the entire stadium was still. No cheering. No reaction. The vendors selling hotdogs and drinks worked without any of the normal shouting. Money and food were wordlessly exchanged.

The Redskins won the game. The home team lost. Nobody seemed to notice. It was as if 60,000 people had simultaneously lost their voices.

The same strange silence was reported from every stadium in which a professional game was played. There were 7 games in all that Sunday. Each one played out before a silent, sullen crowd. Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, everywhere the same. The Cardinals narrowly beat the Giants in New York. Nobody reacted. The New York crowd seemed more interested in the National Anthem than in the game.

It is hard to give a sense of those days to anyone who did not experience the times in which we lived. That Sunday, two days after the assassination, provides only small anecdotal illustration. It was a choking sort of grief.

In those days of the Cold War, the terror of nuclear conflict combined with fear and loathing toward the Soviet empire. The domino theory of international Communist conquest was considered an established fact, with debate reserved for the dangerously naive. As President Kennedy called for personal vigor, office personnel, secretaries, clerks, and managers, actually worked overtime just to feel they were contributing to the national effort.

Civil Rights was a noble struggle against evil itself, and segregationists were a national embarrassment.

It has been described as a time of innocence, with innocence lost on that bloody Friday in 1963. But it was more than that. It was less an innocence than a sense of national purpose that seems almost childlike from today’s jaded weariness. There is a sadness in many of us at the loss of that purpose, now seen through cynical eyes as something other than what we experienced then.

The carping was as severe as it is now. Pamphlets were distributed in Dallas that day with a photograph of the visiting President and the words: “Wanted For Treason!” The antecedents of Tea Party-ism existed in Birchers. Racism was evident in KKK sympathizers. Violence was met by peaceful demonstration.

A very large proportion of Americans thought that reasonable balance required a stand somewhere “between the two extremes.” Yes, voting rights and safety of black citizens in the south were considered one of the extremes.

John F. Kennedy was on a national wave. But he did more than ride that wave. He seemed to those who wanted to join the effort, as having channeled and directed it into a mighty force for progress. The country was deeply flawed, but America was working, growing, toward national redemption, leading the world on a similar path.

I was very young back then. I remember adults joining children in public sorrow, men and women crying unashamed. I remember a sort of communion of grief. It was as if we were, briefly, an extended family.

I had nightmares through my teenaged years. My imagination tells me I was not alone.

Today, the President we knew back then was not simply a reflection of an innocent country in innocent times. Partly because of his youth, his leadership, the way he spoke the words he gave to us, he, and we, were something more.

Not so much an innocent country in innocent times.
We were an inspired nation in inspired times.


– Podcasts –
 

RittenOff, Biden Builds, Gaetz Gotten, MAGA Trauma, Pence Parked, Posted

One minute of pure talent, 10 seconds of contagious joy.
Can’t not smile.
Ellen Alaverdyan, 9 year old bass player:

  • Yesterday was the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s address at the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania: the Gettysburg Address. In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson contrasts the dedication to a proposition with yesterday’s Republican responses to Biden’s bill to improve American lives and the Rittenhouse acquittal.
     
    Nice celebration, folks.
     
  • Max’s Dad summarizes the Rittenhouse trial containing such incompetence from all sides that it seemed as if nobody wanted to win, and reacts to the verdict.
     
  • About that verdict: Hackwhackers has reactions from a President, a Governor, and parents of a victim that a judge said would not be called a victim.
     
  • North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz says that Kyle Rittenhouse may have escaped justice, but followers of this troubled young man have convincingly testified against themselves.
     
  • Matt Gaetz offers to hire young Rittenhouse. Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson reacts:
     


    I have a slightly different take:

  • CalicoJack in The Psy of Life looks closely at MAGA folk and sees similarities with survivors of trauma.
     
  • Green Eagle explores developing evidence of a trip by then Vice President Mike Pence to a parking garage, why it is significant, and how the national press misses the point.
     
  • I already knew that our image has improved since our national leadership went from Trump to Biden. But Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger dives into the numbers and oh WOW!
     
  • As far as we know, Donald Trump had nothing in particular against the Post Office. But he wanted to win, and he hated the idea that Democrats might vote in 2020. Trump had been instructing Republicans that COVID-19 was a hoax. Democrats, by and large, didn’t believe him, so they were more likely in 2020 to vote by mail. So he came up with a plan.
     
    Louis DeJoy did have something against the US Postal Service. As a subcontractor, he had investigated by postal authorities for cheating taxpayers by overbilling.
     
    So Trump and DeJoy: It was a match made in Heaven.
     
    Trump didn’t appoint DeJoy. Only the Post Office Board of Governors could do that. But Trump had, by June 2020, appointed every member of that board. They did as Trump ordered, and THAT’S how DeJoy was hired as Postmaster General.
     
    DeJoy promptly fired senior officials like crazy and slowed down mail delivery. Slowed WAY down. With luck, enough of those Democratic ballots would get delivered too late to count and Trump would win the election.
     
    Luck ran out. Ballots counted after all. President Trump became bad loser Trump.
     
    But Dejoy is still Postmaster General and still hates the Post Office. The damage continues, and only the Board of Governors can fire the guy.
     
    But with time, terms run out. Members of the board are slowly being replaced with uncorrupted patriots.
     
    tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors says President Biden just appointed a couple more members and might have enough to kick DeJoy down the highway.
     
    And tengrain notices something odd and a little sad and somewhat revolting about news coverage.
     
  • Andy Borowitz reports on Steve Bannon’s indictment for Contempt of Soap.
     
  • Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit draws a lesson from the legal travails of Alex Jones. He is now officially guilty of inflicting pain on innocent parents of murdered children. The amount of damages is still in the hands of a jury.
     
  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged cannot think about the Alex Jones verdict without contemplating the nightmare of having a child murdered while sitting in a classroom, then getting calls from Jones devotees accusing you and your child of faking it.
     
  • Representative Paul Gosar(R-Hell) doesn’t like AOC so he posts a video showing himself assassinating her. Nice.
     
    He gets censured by the House of Representatives. Censured basically means he gets officially scolded and removed from committees.
     
    driftglass doesn’t like Gosar so he posts something. Tit-for-tat, I suppose, except this is a non-threatening, non-video, in which nobody gets hurt.
     
  • At The Onion, the House votes to remove Gosar from the Anime and Manga Committee.
     
  • Republican leader Kevin McCarthy holds the floor for hour after dreary hour, for a full 8 hours. Tommy Christopher watches as White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki entertainingly summarizes the whole grim talkietime then demolishes McCarthy, leaving him soaking into the carpet.
     
  • Frances Langum has the courage and stamina to watch the everlasting speech by McCarthy (Okay, I know. Only 8½ hours). McCarthy insists that No One Elected Joe Biden To Be FDR, then doesn’t know how to respond to a 2 word interruption.
     
  • At The Moderate Voice social media has lots of fun with McCarthy’s long, long ramble.

Continue reading “RittenOff, Biden Builds, Gaetz Gotten, MAGA Trauma, Pence Parked, Posted”

Thank Veterans, Bannon Bumped, Kyle Cries, Fox Edits, BBB, Give Cruz the Bird

Thank you

Continue reading “Thank Veterans, Bannon Bumped, Kyle Cries, Fox Edits, BBB, Give Cruz the Bird”

Combat Hero in a Library

[Written and published in 2008. It seems fitting today.]

Last evening he reacted with amazement. “You gotta be kidding me!” I had just mentioned I was writing about him. I thought for a moment he might object. As it is, I hope he forgives me for the details I may have gotten wrong.

It was one of several encounters I had happened upon with this impressive, self-deprecating man. I often stop by the local library, and that’s where we kept bumping into each other. The first time, he was trying to recover a lost file on a library computer. I tried to help him, unsuccessfully as it turned out. We talked about the coming election. He was for McCain, I for Obama.

Then he told me a little of himself. He is a war hero from the Vietnam era. That’s my description not his. He seems hesitant as he talks about it, and he talks about it sparingly. “I just went a little crazy,” he says. His “craziness” saved others who were in mortal danger, pinned down and taking enemy fire. He was later awarded the Bronze Star for bravery. That medal is awarded for any of several acts, but when earned for bravery in combat, it is the fourth highest possible military citation given by the U.S. Armed Forces.

For years, modesty and uncertainty of how it might be regarded prompted him to keep the award stored out of view. He would not expose this symbol to derision. It was his father who changed his mind. His dad had served in the Air Force in World War Two, flying over the Empire of Japan with General Curtis Lemay. He confessed to his son that he felt just a little envious. The younger veteran was incredulous and so his father explained, it was that hidden Bronze Star. The son objected. The old man was a hero many times over. He pointed to the many ribbons, medals, and awards the elder hero had on his own wall. “But I never earned a Bronze Star,” the father stated simply.

They are everywhere, these heroes who have our lasting thanks and admiration, earned in far off lands. They are lucky to have made it back, and we are blessed in having them back. A choir director, members at church, workmates, and casual acquaintances are among them. There are many more unknowingly met in bank lines and pharmacies, the routine encounters that are part of everyday life. I have a letter from a onetime coworker, recently assigned to Afghanistan. He has my prayers until the moment he returns.

My friend in the library had a special relationship with his dad. They each shared an admiration of the other, quiet and well deserved. The last act of that regard came as the son gazed into an open casket. He placed next to his father the Bronze Star that had been awarded for an act of desperation decades ago in a land far away.

The father had chosen his son well.

Women Attracted to Strength
Because Dinosaurs

found on Twitter by Burr

 
Sean Parnell(R-PA), Candidate for Congress
 

Yes, he said these words, on the record:

  • “From an evolutionary standpoint, it used to be women were attracted to your strength because you could defend them from dinosaurs.”
     
  • “The idea that a woman doesn’t need a man to be successful, the idea that a woman doesn’t need a man to have a baby, the idea that a woman can live a happy and fulfilling life without a man, I think it’s all nonsense.”
     

Returns Return, Jan 6, QTips, Dune, Haw Haw Hawley, Manchin, Economy

Continue reading “Returns Return, Jan 6, QTips, Dune, Haw Haw Hawley, Manchin, Economy”

FB Zucks, Willard, Small Members, Fauci’s Blasphemy, Groove w/Grover

How can anyone NOT love this lady?!!

  • So Facebook will become Meta? Well, just the corporation itself, right? Facebook will still be Facebook?
     
    Andy Borowitz provides the under reported rest of the story. Mark Zuckerberg’s image also needs a restart. He will be changing his own name to Mother Teresa.
     
  • Mark Z says the new/old company/platform will be dedicated to the metaverse. There is some debate among the elites about just what that means, since the metaverse is supposed to transcend mere social platforms, and kinda sorta make them impossible.
     
    Sarah Cooper has her own reaction:
     

  • Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson reads about the big renaming. Color him skeptical:
     

  • The innocent bunch of tourists falsely blamed for their peaceful attempt to visit the nation’s Capitol building on January 6 was a narrative that didn’t last for a New York minute. So the story metastasized into the innocent rally that turned into an impromptu march and accidentally became a spontaneous riot, stunning the rally sponsors.
     
    Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged explores the exploding evidence from the Willard Hotel that Trump’s allies, including members of Congress, were coordinating the whole thing and getting their minute by minute instructions directly from the Trump White House.
     
    So… some of our worst conspiracy theories are suddenly passing the solid evidence test, complete with documentation.
    Yikes.
     
  • News Corpse examines Tucker Carlson’s latest effort to paint the Jan 6 insurrection as a false flag operation, with the FBI orchestrating the violence and blaming it on Trump.
     
    Well, it is different, I suppose. Most wingnuts I come in contact with on the internet, those thinking Trumpers weren’t really responsible, blame left wing infiltrators. Makes me wonder about anti-Trump antifa types dressing up like Trump supporters and storming the Capitol, trying to lynch legislators in order to overturn the election that Trump had just lost.
     
    But seeing the FBI now transformed into a leftist organization strikes me as even less likely.
     
    Freedom of speech did not apply to the lynch mob that succeeded in killing a few police officers and sending more to the hospital.
    It does apply to Tuck.
     
  • Hackwhackers doesn’t really need to make the case that Steve Bannon is tied to the violence of the Jan 6 lynch mob insurrection. Just quote Bannon’s own words.
     
  • Scotties Toy Box relates a sad saga through a series of Tweets as a Canadian Neo-Nazi plots with those of similar outlook in the US to hunt for minority victims to kill in the hopes of starting a race war.
     
    At sentencing, the would be race-based mass murderer tells the judge he had simply fallen in with the wrong crowd.
     
    Peer pressure. It’s a killer.
     
  • CalicoJack in The Psy of Life suggests that the divisiveness of zero-sum Trumpism has turned political debate into a series of win-or-lose sporting events. You don’t seek solutions or even a mutually beneficial compromise in a gladiator death-match.
     
  • driftglass gives us the last few years as a wild interpretive movie script. Entertaining.
     
  • Green Eagle might be trolling rightists if it weren’t just on his own blog. He highlights the most widely circulated of wingnut messages, along with his pithy responses.
     
    Green Eagle is a VERY patient individual.
     
  • Tommy Christopher watches British television as a conservative host badgers an environmentalist who is also a carpenter for hypocritically using lumber that comes from trees. Okay, so trees can be grown but, says the host, so can concrete. Then dumps the guest, seemingly for his astonishment.
     
    Imagine, anyone thinking concrete can’t be harvested from concrete trees.
     
    Next time I need a new car, I’ll be out looking for a good automobile orchard.

Continue reading “FB Zucks, Willard, Small Members, Fauci’s Blasphemy, Groove w/Grover”

Colin Powell, COVID, Press & Protest, Truth Trumped, McCabe Trumps, Porn

@musclesandnursing

##duet with @andrejhepburn

♬ she knows – favsoundds

  • In the perpetual negotiation of the Joes: Green Eagle has an idea for Joe Biden on how to deal with Joe Manchin.
     
  • Glenn Geist, residing in MadMikesAmerica, is irate about the blithe misinformation, and lapses in logic, about COVID that have resulted in 700,000 deaths. He focuses on one self-proclaimed expert who is leading an unknown number into long stays in ICU units, forever damaged health and, for some, a final trip to the morgue.
     
  • A Million Parent March? Well… No, actually.
    Thousands protest? Nope.
    Hundreds turn out to oppose? Not that either.
     
    In a jurisdiction covering nearly 10 million residents, M. Bouffant at Web of Evil is irritated at news coverage about an anti-school vaccination mandate protest that numbers literally in the dozens.
     
  • The Propaganda Professor takes a look at the strange anti-vax narrative that conflates of vaccines with 1940s fascism.
     
    It is true that my high school education has faded, having been overrun with life experiences stretching out more than half a century.
     
    I confess I just don’t remember Nazi officials who had followed orders from Hitler or Mussolini having later been convicted of pounding on doors and begging inhabitants to accept safeguards from horrible death.
     
  • Scotties Toy Box contains news that Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has turned back a challenge to Maine’s vaccine mandate for healthcare workers. The unsuccessful challenge was based on religious grounds. Seems vaccines are tested on human embryonic cells.
     
    Scottie helpfully lists of lots and lots of medications similarly tested. So the same religious objectors will want to avoid aspirin, Trump recommended hydroxychloroquine, and ivermectin (even for parasites in livestock).
     
  • At The Onion, Florida’s educational system is going full speed to stay up‑to‑date, revising guidelines to reflect the very latest misinformation.
     
  • Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara says vaccine mandates work and vaccine mandates save lives. He goes on to say that vaccine mandates are wrong.
     
    Well, fair enough. Lots of things that work can be opposed on moral, rather than practical, grounds.
     
    He then quotes the Libertarian Gospel according to Ayn Rand. He thinks she supports his view. She doesn’t.
     
    Confronted with earlier epidemics, she opposed forced inoculation in which government agents might hold subjects down, if necessary, while administering involuntary vaccination. Mr. LaFerrara may be surprised to learn that nobody currently advocates that.
     
    He quotes her as supporting forced quarantines in order…
    to protect those people who are not ill … to prevent the people who are ill from passing on their illness to others.
    He seems unaware that today her logic is the precise rationale, not for forced quarantines, but for requiring mandates by major employers.

Continue reading “Colin Powell, COVID, Press & Protest, Truth Trumped, McCabe Trumps, Porn”

Colin Powell

My thought