BASEBALL⚾

⚾ I performed her first wedding. It lasted a couple of years. She was married to this asshole doctor who was abusive. A few years later she met this great guy, Nick. And married him. I performed that wedding. She died of breast cancer lady year. 

Here is my blog post. 

Baseball is a metaphor on life. It is a game of great strategy. I just bet I'm not the first to echo that. Recently I watched Mariana Rivera, play his last game. He is loved, honored and respected by everybody. Pretty impressive. He said something that really resonated when asked why all fans love him--"they do" he said,  "because I respect the game." 

For my team, the San Francisco Giants, I always think of my friend Sharon who loved baseball. All teams. She knew the names, standings. She could talk baseball. Her Dad and Sharon started going to games early. In those days it was the Orioles, I think, as they lived in PA. 

But, it was all of baseball she loved, the strategy, the comings and goings. In later years, she embraced the Giants and to a slightly less degree the Oakland Athletics. I would love to talk with her about what happened to the Giants this year. She would probably say, "What worked last year didn't work this year. But, it's baseball. Wait to next year." Sharon, like Mariano Riviera, "respected the game."   

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TERROISM

THE KENYA TRAGEDY. Terrorist Gunmen run into a shopping mall and randomly kill innocents and take hostages--many of which, die. They hole up for days, expecting to die. 

Who are they? Terrorists. They have an idiocy ideology which make no sense. When the siege is over, the terrorists have left immeasurable pain. They are sorry ignorant MFers and that is pretty mild. 

These particular terrorists are really stupid, not just stupid but dumb. We are talking that in a twelve story building their elevator goes to about floor three. Simple, they can be told something so out of reason: virgins in heaven waiting for them. They believe. Some times, rare exceptions, some brainwashed idealist may join up. Reportedly some Americans, a female Brit. Nobody knows. 

The bigger question is how do you deal with fanatics. In a sense, impossible. We have to protect ourselves the best we can and go on about our lives. If it were up to me personally, I would figure out a way to apply what I called the "Unforgiven" philosophy. In the movie by the same name, starring Clint Eastwood and I think won an Academy Award for "Best Picture." The story is pretty involved and I can't possibly recount it accurately here but I am out to make a point. Clint comes to town, along with his good friend played by Morgan Freeman, to claim a bounty put up by the town prostitutes because one of the patrons maimed one of the girls. Clint needs the money for his farm. The mission is accomplished. They kill the bad guys and they claim the reward but decide to split up but it goes to hell as the Morgan Freeman character, Ned, is caught and brutally tortured. Clint can't live with it. He goes into town where he confronts the corrupt Sheriff and his henchmen and ends up killing everybody but the director. When he is finished, he gets on his horse and stops in front of Ned's coffin that the bad guys displayed publicly and he says to the townspeople, something like, "You better give Ned  (his friend) a proper burial or I am coming back and kill all of you, then I am going to kill your families and then I am going to hunt down anybody who knows you and kill them." 

Now, this is a little extreme but the philosophy is there. Terrorist have to know up front that an act like the Mall Massacre will cost them more than their lives. 

Mexican Stand-Off

I have heard this term. Not sure what it means and I mean no disrespect to our Hispanic brethren. But, this is what I envision it to be: a standoff between "right wing fundamentalist" (don't confuse me facts, I have my mind made up) on one side and the President on the other. Now that I am thinking about it: zealots is a better concept. The Republicans are a bunch of zealots/bigots--right wing zealots, the worst kind. Add in heartless and selfish who don't "f..kin" care about the country, only their ideology. 

I cannot believe that "Americans who care" (And, I say again, not all Americans do) elect these sorry ass reps. Denying the poor a safety net like food stamps is downright heartless. For once, I would think that there might be one Republican to say something--just ONE, who would say, "I am always going to do what is right. If the voters back home don't want me, so be it but I'll never be a party to something that I believe to be fundamentally wrong." NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN 

Listening to some of these heartless assholes on TV is embarrassing, statements like, "all these people need to do is get a job." The imbecile, most, in fact the vast majority who get food stamps, are the working poor. 

Am I biased? Absolutely, In this instance, I come down on what I believe to be the American Way. Will anybody be influenced by me: f..k NO. At best, I am preaching to the choir. God bless us. 

Mental Problems

The News Media have said that the DC shooter appears to have mental problems. Hello! Hello! The guys shoots some construction workers' tires out. He shoots through the floor ceiling and almost kills a woman. Mental problems? HELLO!!!!!!!😳

SYRIA

SYRIA IS NO WIN. I have personally been disappointed in the president with the idea that somehow we can punish the Syrian tyrants simply because we can. Who knows what the Russian motive is here but they have the "better hand," I believe. It really appears that we are trying to sabotage a compromise. Two things are very baffling to me. Why don't the President and Sec of State and all the others directly involved, "Shut the f..k up!" Nobody wants transparency more than me but this incessant insisting that we must have all these guarantees about chemical weapons or we are going to kick ass, is not moving us toward anything positive and talking about it to any microphone that happens by is bullshit. Come on!!! It is not helpful, this running off at the mouth. 

My good friend said it this way, "I think Putin makes the president look inept. 
Putin is a thug. It is a shame that he will be considered the peacemaker in this  situation."

9-11

On the morning of 9-11, my daughter called and said, "Dad, are you watching TV?" And, like most Americans, my world changed and thus began a marathon, glued to the TV. 

My view  then and now are that 9-11 changed all "Mericans"--and anybody who had anything to do with us. Since then, I think we've gone way overboard in just about everything. 9-11 became the excuse for outfits like the NSA, FBI, etc. to be where we are today. The flip side of the coin is that we are doing about as well as we can. We are not going to stop terrorism. Think Boston Marathon. And, in a sense, we have to say, "what the hell" and do the best we can. God bless "Merica." ( this is the NASCAR pronunciation). Is anything in "Merica more Merica than NASCAR. I don't think so. 

I also salute my older friend, Victoria, who took a final PCS (permanent change of station) about three years ago. Tomorrow is her birthday, 9-11. Victoria was a WAC (Woman's Army Corp) in WW ll, her dad was in WW l, her brother Fred was a pilot and killed in the War. Victoria was the personification of patriotism. God bless Victoria's Memory and God bless "Merica."

JD SALINGER

When I was a young writer, a friend encouraged me to send my Vietnam novel to a friend of his at WW Norton publishers. They rejected it almost by return mail. Some in-house reader had written on it, "I expected something like War and Peace and all I got was a war story." I laughed out loud. Guess I should have been like JD Salinger that I strongly suspect lied about his heroic military service or at least somebody lied for him. 

I've always stood in awe of JD Salinger. I think most writers or even us "would be," have. I remember reading "Catcher in the Rye" in High School. My teacher Ms Dixon said, "this book will change your life." She mostly thought that about everything, but it did make an impact. And, over the years I've kind of made Salinger a hero. 

Well, a recent book, Salinger, just plied away sainthood. Before ordering, I read a review in "Time Mag." They were way too kind. Salinger is a realization that God gave all this talent to an "asshole," kind of like Steve Jobs. I don't get it. Why He wouldn't throw a little talent my way is a mystery. 

Here is another angle on Salinger. When it comes to sex, we are like in the dark ages and in my opinion even the great, JD Salinger (From the book). The patron saint of literature meets this young girl when she is fourteen. For years he writes to her. Obviously with great feeling. Several years later he f..ks her. The next day, he hardly acknowledges she is alive. What happened? He had an orgasm, got off, couldn't get it up, what! 

What kind of a person would do this? In his writing, Salinger can be who he wants, even the good person. Maybe the "real" person just couldn't measure up in real life. 

WE JUST FELL OFF THE TURNIP TRUCK

On "Face The Nation," Bob Schieffer had, as his guest, the Republican Chair of some committee. He says that it isn't about the President. Bullshit!

  The Republicans will support or do anything as long as it opposes the President or they think will hurt him. Mostly racism. It is like these people think that those Americans who care just fell off the turnip truck.   

That being said. I oppose anything with Syria. Those who want to "go" have their own stuff. It sounds almost like a facsimile of Iraq, regardless of how you paint it. I have always thought: since 9-11, we have to give up the bullshit of regime change by staying the fuck out of other countries' business. If they come after us, we will annilate them. 

SYRIA. A Plan

If this was't so tragic, it would be funny. Let's have a war and telegraph to the enemy exactly what we are going to do. The element of surprise is a key component in war. Forget that, we are debating it. 

That aside, there are all kind of issues  with this: f..k/damn! Sorry but there are no aspects of the English language that spell out my sense of outrage and helplessness like cursing. Sorry Mom. 
What good will supposedly punishing Syria do?  What can we do? 

What about old sins? Remember Iraq. Have we forgotten-- this is pretty much the same crew that made George W  infamous. Colin Powell pretty much did his rep in with their faulty Intell---essentially nobody who thinks believes him now that he says he was misled. He lied and Iraq turned the Neocons into a household word. The MFers! 

What amazes mean in this whole exercise is that the last time I looked, this was a democracy. Although I don't like polls, it is a tool. The latest one says somethning like 43% to 23% of Americans say, "stay the f..k out of Syria." 

Remember LBJ saying something like "We ain't going to take anything off this little pipsqueak country called, Vietnam." Well, that little pipsqueak  
country drove him from office and we inherited that sorry ass Nixon who lied from the beginning--going to get us out of Vietnam. At that point we had about 7000 or so dead Americans. By the time we made it out, it was 58,000 plus. 

What is a democracy if their elected officials are not going to pay attention to their constituents. Moral issue: bullshit, name the greatest moral issue? Take your pick, the entire Middle East is clothed in moral ambiguity. 

And, a final thing thing, how in the f..k can we not say that the greater issue is the refugee problem. With what we are going to spend to "punish" a tyrant, we could handle the entire refugee population: feed, house, educate and above all, protect them. We will spend billions of dollars showing off our moral outrage that is more politics in my view than anything--keeping one F16 in the air could just about solve the entire refugee issue. Yet, we are going to be stupid about Syria, no doubt. I am personally disappointed and saddened. 

SYRIA

To Americans who care and not all do; and, to use the president's oft repeated phrase, "let's make this perfectly clear." We are conflicted but not confused. Life is full of ambiguities and let's fully understand them. However, as bad as it is and we deplore what has happened, the only box we will put ourselves in is making a military strike at the tyrant. Did Iraq teach us nothing? We were first hailed and then the very people who praised us turned against our good intentions. And what will happen with Assad: he will line all the bodies up and say, innocent civilians--killed by the Americans. There is no right or wrong answer. There is, in fact, "no answer" and we have to realize that we cannot win, not even a draw, only blame for everything.