Curtis Dahlgren
Speaking of speeches, sports, and lawlessness (the flaw in the slaw)
By Curtis Dahlgren
"I have never accepted what many people have kindly said – namely, that I inspired the nation . . It was the nation and the race dwelling all round the globe that had the lion's heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar." – Winston Churchill, on his 80th birthday (1954)
HOW ABOUT THAT STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS? Talk about the heart of a lion! A friend sent me the transcript of the SOTU and I was especially interested in the concluding remark:
"We must keep Freedom alive in our souls. And we must keep Faith in America's Destiny that One Nation, Under God, must be the HOPE and the PROMISE and the LIGHT and the GLORY among all the nations of the world! [God bless and Goodnight]"
"The Light and the Glory" comes from a letter by John Adams to Abigail during some dark days during the war for Independence, and that is the title of a book by Peter Marshall, Jr. and another historian (one of my top 5 most important American books).
Many of our peers don't comprehend what an important speech Trump just gave. No DNC talking points in it except "paid family leave" (i.e., "bonding" with unaborted babies), which set up the females in the audience for his next point – infanticide in New York, Virginia, etc. BONDING? Some mothers can't even COEXIST with their "existential fetus" (Latin for "offspring"). Do we need moms or mummification? And what does abortion have to do with "the right to privacy"? Shut up, kid, and leave me and your step father alone (if he/she survived both the abortion and Governor Whats-his-name's edicts)?
I don't read TIME magazine as a rule, but picked up a free one (1/29/18 issue). The last page was worth reading (Questions for Van Jones). Jones said some interesting things:
"Q: What do Democrats get wrong about Republicans? A: "A strain of elitism has been allowed to fester among progressives so that it's perfectly O.K. to assume that someone who is conservative is either ignorant or bigoted. Nobody challenges that. Some of the smartest people I know, some of the best-intentioned people I know are conservative Republicans . . Both parties have blind spots when it comes to not being for all Americans . . . "
Another question: Are we just talking past each other? Van Jones: "I am a progressive . . I'm also an American. I'm a son of a veteran. Democracies can fail. Frankly, democracies usually fail. If everyone keeps jumping up and down on their own side of their boat, they can break it [or capsize it?] . . I want to see if we can find some way to have a better set of disagreements."
VERY interesting for a guy who was O'Bumma's "green jobs advisor"! I'm reminded of the guy in the local public library. He overheard a friend and me talking about President Trump in a positive manner. He spoke up and said Trump has told '8,000 lies! There's no need for a wall,' etc, etc. I said, "You don't think there are ENOUGH drugs coming across the border?"
All he said was, "Who's buying them?" Not me, I said, but "who's SELLING them?" He said he thought we need more counseling for addicts, not a wall. I said people are coming across ranches and DYING. He didn't say anything. This guy wasn't thinking at all – just repeating talking points like a parrot. More like a parakeet. He had them all down pat. I suppose he couldn't comprehend the Don's State of the Union address either. No DNC talking points. I think he was a school teacher, and it was a cold weather day off. Or maybe he was a "counselor."
BTW, today's weather was "nothing" to write home about (a big zero). The wind made it feel like the early 1980s global cooling/ice age scare. But a good old-fashioned winter is nice, sort of.
But speaking of sports: "It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up." – Muhammad (ALI)
Speaking of pounding sand, Academania's obsession with "toxic masculinity" may be having some effects. Interscholastic athletic associations are advertising on the radio to get kids to go out for high school sports ("Turn off your stupid cell phone"). I think snowflakes are afraid of grass stains. Our feminist professors may be trying to destroy the lion's hearts of Churchill's race (the human race). But seriously "folks," if the NFL ever goes bankrupt, it could be on account of the snowflake phobia about phobias. And the war on boys in the public schools. Frank Gifford said:
"Pro football is like nuclear warfare. There are no winners, only survivors." Sounds like Super Bowl LIII. The punters wuz robbed of the MVP award. But here's a very interesting quotation by George Orwell (not Plimton but Orwell):
"Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words [since 1984], it is war minus the shooting."
Sounds like some parents at a high school basketball game. Today our local radio station was talking to a superintendent who says attitudes have undergone a big change in the last three years (during which there was a presidential election, I might add). He says that due to parental abuse, we are having a hard time recruiting refs anymore, and a local hockey game was called off for lack of officials.
Police departments around the country are having a hard time recruiting new officers too. Wonder why? Because a cop is 18 times more likely to be killed on the job than an "unarmed" teenager getting shot by a cop? The NFL players who protested the national anthem still think Michael Brown got shot in the back in Missouri, although he was rushing the cop and would have taken the cop's gun – as he had already tried to do. They should be "protesting" our trend toward LAWLESSNESS. Red, white, and blue lives matter. Yes, human nature has always been flawed, but the flaw in the slaw is, it's going to extremes lately.
P.S. Sounds like politics, but that's a whole 'nuther column. Like Van Jones, I'd like to see if we can find "some way to have a better set of disagreements."
PPS: I would have gone out for football in high school if I could have doubled my weight (I started high school at 89 pounds, one short of a 90-pound weakling). But I was a farm kid and played touch football at noon with the seniors. There goes that toxic masculinity again. By the way, I did some black face this morning. Got soot on it while stoking the outdoor furnace.
© Curtis Dahlgren
February 11, 2019
"I have never accepted what many people have kindly said – namely, that I inspired the nation . . It was the nation and the race dwelling all round the globe that had the lion's heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar." – Winston Churchill, on his 80th birthday (1954)
HOW ABOUT THAT STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS? Talk about the heart of a lion! A friend sent me the transcript of the SOTU and I was especially interested in the concluding remark:
"We must keep Freedom alive in our souls. And we must keep Faith in America's Destiny that One Nation, Under God, must be the HOPE and the PROMISE and the LIGHT and the GLORY among all the nations of the world! [God bless and Goodnight]"
"The Light and the Glory" comes from a letter by John Adams to Abigail during some dark days during the war for Independence, and that is the title of a book by Peter Marshall, Jr. and another historian (one of my top 5 most important American books).
Many of our peers don't comprehend what an important speech Trump just gave. No DNC talking points in it except "paid family leave" (i.e., "bonding" with unaborted babies), which set up the females in the audience for his next point – infanticide in New York, Virginia, etc. BONDING? Some mothers can't even COEXIST with their "existential fetus" (Latin for "offspring"). Do we need moms or mummification? And what does abortion have to do with "the right to privacy"? Shut up, kid, and leave me and your step father alone (if he/she survived both the abortion and Governor Whats-his-name's edicts)?
I don't read TIME magazine as a rule, but picked up a free one (1/29/18 issue). The last page was worth reading (Questions for Van Jones). Jones said some interesting things:
"Q: What do Democrats get wrong about Republicans? A: "A strain of elitism has been allowed to fester among progressives so that it's perfectly O.K. to assume that someone who is conservative is either ignorant or bigoted. Nobody challenges that. Some of the smartest people I know, some of the best-intentioned people I know are conservative Republicans . . Both parties have blind spots when it comes to not being for all Americans . . . "
Another question: Are we just talking past each other? Van Jones: "I am a progressive . . I'm also an American. I'm a son of a veteran. Democracies can fail. Frankly, democracies usually fail. If everyone keeps jumping up and down on their own side of their boat, they can break it [or capsize it?] . . I want to see if we can find some way to have a better set of disagreements."
VERY interesting for a guy who was O'Bumma's "green jobs advisor"! I'm reminded of the guy in the local public library. He overheard a friend and me talking about President Trump in a positive manner. He spoke up and said Trump has told '8,000 lies! There's no need for a wall,' etc, etc. I said, "You don't think there are ENOUGH drugs coming across the border?"
All he said was, "Who's buying them?" Not me, I said, but "who's SELLING them?" He said he thought we need more counseling for addicts, not a wall. I said people are coming across ranches and DYING. He didn't say anything. This guy wasn't thinking at all – just repeating talking points like a parrot. More like a parakeet. He had them all down pat. I suppose he couldn't comprehend the Don's State of the Union address either. No DNC talking points. I think he was a school teacher, and it was a cold weather day off. Or maybe he was a "counselor."
BTW, today's weather was "nothing" to write home about (a big zero). The wind made it feel like the early 1980s global cooling/ice age scare. But a good old-fashioned winter is nice, sort of.
But speaking of sports: "It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up." – Muhammad (ALI)
Speaking of pounding sand, Academania's obsession with "toxic masculinity" may be having some effects. Interscholastic athletic associations are advertising on the radio to get kids to go out for high school sports ("Turn off your stupid cell phone"). I think snowflakes are afraid of grass stains. Our feminist professors may be trying to destroy the lion's hearts of Churchill's race (the human race). But seriously "folks," if the NFL ever goes bankrupt, it could be on account of the snowflake phobia about phobias. And the war on boys in the public schools. Frank Gifford said:
"Pro football is like nuclear warfare. There are no winners, only survivors." Sounds like Super Bowl LIII. The punters wuz robbed of the MVP award. But here's a very interesting quotation by George Orwell (not Plimton but Orwell):
"Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words [since 1984], it is war minus the shooting."
Sounds like some parents at a high school basketball game. Today our local radio station was talking to a superintendent who says attitudes have undergone a big change in the last three years (during which there was a presidential election, I might add). He says that due to parental abuse, we are having a hard time recruiting refs anymore, and a local hockey game was called off for lack of officials.
Police departments around the country are having a hard time recruiting new officers too. Wonder why? Because a cop is 18 times more likely to be killed on the job than an "unarmed" teenager getting shot by a cop? The NFL players who protested the national anthem still think Michael Brown got shot in the back in Missouri, although he was rushing the cop and would have taken the cop's gun – as he had already tried to do. They should be "protesting" our trend toward LAWLESSNESS. Red, white, and blue lives matter. Yes, human nature has always been flawed, but the flaw in the slaw is, it's going to extremes lately.
P.S. Sounds like politics, but that's a whole 'nuther column. Like Van Jones, I'd like to see if we can find "some way to have a better set of disagreements."
PPS: I would have gone out for football in high school if I could have doubled my weight (I started high school at 89 pounds, one short of a 90-pound weakling). But I was a farm kid and played touch football at noon with the seniors. There goes that toxic masculinity again. By the way, I did some black face this morning. Got soot on it while stoking the outdoor furnace.
© Curtis Dahlgren
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