50 years of Kent State

I realize that the times in this country seem to be crazy, but fifty years ago we also had a divided country and although the division was based around a war rather than the suitability of the President to hold office along with a pandemic, it still was very similar to what we are currently going through as a country.

The Kent State incident is now fifty years old and the students that were there that day are around seventy or older today, but I'm willing to venture a guess that they see many parallels to the current division in the nation to what the competing sides during the Vietnam War.
What is different between the two eras is this- many of the folks that protested the government for its participation are now protesting in favor of the person that has caused such division today.

My grandfather told me something that I never forgot about one's political stance through the years-
"Most people start life on the left and gradually drive right as they age".
My experience has been that he has been generally correct and although how far one drifts will vary, I would say that more people than not move to the right at least somewhat and some move far right.
It would be interesting to see how many people in the "Kent State" demographic that support the President fervently also were involved to a certain degree against the Vietnam War.
My guess is that a large chunk would be in that group and the amount might be as high as a slight majority of the people in the overall number of anti-war protesters.

I've always been interested in the Kent State story, at first because I lived in Northeast/central Ohio at the time, although I don't remember the tragedy as I was two months shy of my second birthday, but I was always intrigued on our visits to Ohio that saw us drive by the Kent State exit and as I learned more and more about what happened, I evolved on the issue.
At first, I was interested in who gave the order for the National Guard to fire on the Kent State students and that moved onto what were the guardsmen thinking when they fired on American citizens and how many of them had regrets and why they would have them.
Now I wonder this- If I were in my early 50s in 1970, where would I have stood on the protests?
It's easy to say that we support the right to protest, it's hard to watch people protesting when you vehemently disagree with their stance.
It is easy to say that people should speak their peace when you are in line with their ideas, it's hard to
to approve of people doing the same when you don't agree with their protests at all.

I think about this all the time when I see people protesting the President with others similarly backing him and usually, I think something like this- How many of these people actually consider how the other side thinks?
How many people think that because you protest a government action means that you don't love your country?
How many people are considered to be sheep and of limited intelligence because you support a particular officeholder or candidate?
Why is it so difficult to realize that because you disagree on politics that one doesn't have to fit into a generality?
I have friends that support the President and I'm fine with that.
I'm generally not a person that feels the need to "turn everyone in my direction", just hear me out, I'll return the favor, and hopefully, we can make each other think a bit.
I'm not trying to win people over, but we can have a civil conversation and move on.
And if the friend in question isn't someone that can accept that, then we don't have to talk about it!
Problem solved.

I wonder if in our times that we aren't sitting in wait for a tragedy.
When you consider the tension of this point in history and with so many on edge, it only takes one loss of temper or one mistake by someone in charge for this to happen again and it might not even come from a military order or National Guard either.
It could be a civilian believing that they are acting on non-existent orders or a mentally disturbed individual to act and think they are doing something good.
I know we all think that we have division among us right now, imagine if a loss of life occurs and it turns out to be started from someone for any of those reasons.
Remember that two of the four people that died at Kent State were not protestors or involved at all, Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder were walking to class before being hit by rifle shots from a football field away.
Just think of the turmoil, if innocent people would get caught up in something similar today.

I've been to the Kent State site twice and I'd like to return one more time to visit the visitors center that was in the building stages on Cherie and I's last visit.
I recently watched a documentary on the rock musician David Crosby and as Crosby visited various places in his life that affected him, one of those places was Kent State's center dedicated to May 4th, 1970 with Crosby's association with the University from the CSNY song based on the tragedy.
Just looking at it as Crosby walked through, it looked quite interesting.

I'm not sure what we've really learned from Kent State in the last fifty years.
We haven't learned to understand what it means to be tolerant of others' beliefs and we certainly haven't learned to be able to disagree politically and still not take it personally.
I suppose some things are just too sad to explain.
I don't have an explanation and with luck, I won't have to find a way to explain it again.

Grouchy Observations

Time for a few grouchy observations,although they might not all be grouchy,I'd bet most will be!

Let's start with today's House of Representatives new health care bill that would make changes to the ACA.
I've never been a fan of the ACA,not because it was federal health care (we do have a thing called Medicare after all),but because it didn't go far enough (I prefer some sort of single payer system that either pays for or mostly pays for services) and I hated the individual mandate that forced you to buy health insurance.
However,other than those two caveats,I'm not thrilled with yesterday's revamp-not because it wasn't needed (it had lots of things that needed tweaked),but because it seemed to fix very few (the mandate was eliminated along with the fine that was levied for not having insurance) of the things wrong with the ACA and the ridiculous high five session on the White House lawn for a bill only halfway passed looked very much like a bunch of guys patting themselves on the back for leading a game at halftime.
All of that said,the Democrats were far from heroic looking with their singing the 1969 Steam hit "Na Na Na Hey,Goodbye" to the Republicans in the Congressional chamber.
Considering the situation for so many losing (or reducing) their health care,that struck me as very immature and not thinking of the big picture at that moment.
No one walked away from that situation looking clean and to me everyone lost...

ESPN "laid off" several of their on-air and writing employees and it seems like they are shrinking coverage (on air) of baseball especially,but a little on college sports and football,while increasing their programming on the NBA.
I'm not sure how that plan is going to work out,but there are a few of the employees that got the axe that I'll miss especially.
Jayson Stark has always been one of my favorite baseball writers,Dana O'Neill and Andy Katz did a great job covering college basketball,I liked Jaymee Sire when she was doing Giants pregame before ESPN,maybe she'll be able to return there,Dr.Jerry Punch,Ed Werder and Len Elmore seemed like they had been with ESPN since they installed the first satellite in their respective roles.Dottie Pepper was a great golf analyst and I'll miss Danny Kanell too as the major anti-SEC voice on the network.
My issue is losing Sire (and Sara Walsh some as well) and yet keeping Jonathan Coachman and Neil Everett (personal preference not a fan of either of those two) around.
There were a few names cut that I won't miss-particularly Ohio State troll Mark May,PBC host MarySol Castro,Britt McHenry (she of the "Don't you know who I am" rant in a garage a year or two ago and failed multiple time MLB general manager Jim Bowden,but for the most part I wonder about paying people not to produce content when you could pay them to actually work...

One final observation on Star Wars/Kent State on May 4th.
I find it hard to believe that far more people spent time on social media talking about Star Wars than an anniversary of an incident such as Kent State in 1970.
This is especially questionable considering the times that we live in,the President that we have and the amount of protests that are occurring all around the country about so many various issues.
I'm certainly not making a claim against fun,look at the vast majority of things that we write about here,but I did find a little of the Star Wars hype tiresome and I would think that some time could have been spent looking back at a pivotal event that showed just how important the right to protest is and how easily one can lose that right..

Back later tonight with the boxing challenge and if I have time perhaps the promised new entry for the Forgotten Superstars series...

Cleaning out the Inbox-Non-Sports Edition

Time to clean the inbox again and this time,I've piled up enough to do a non-sports edition....

Lots of old school television and to a lesser extent films were thought to be lost,but as we've seen often in the age of YouTube,it only takes one person to uncover what was presumed lost.

A case of this happening was the release of two episodes of Mister Rogers Neighborhood not seen since their original showing in 1983.
The Cold War episodes storyline had the neighboring towns in the land of make believe going through a military buildup and was used to teach children about how to avoid conflict.
Those episodes never hit syndication because they were dated,but the Daily Beast article wonders if there was more behind the release than just rare old television tapes.
Their take offers an explanation that someone perhaps wanted to make people think about the current situation between the United States and Russia.
No matter the answer,the videos (they were on the page of the articles) have apparently been taken down....

More news as the Bay City Rollers have apparently ended their reunion with a near fistfight during a live television interview.
The group will finish their remaining tour dates and then they appear to be finished.
Long time readers might remember me writing a small post that Rollers fans moved to one of the higher hit articles that we had to that point....

13th Dimension.com writes about the end of the Batman 66 comic book series.
The series (which if I was buying new comics,I would have been all over) told stories with the art of the Batman TV series with the goofy villains,many of which were never in the comics before or after the show.
The run lasted thirty issues with some other mini-series with other shows from the 1960's.
As campy as it could have been,a Wild Wild West-Batman 66 would have been a mini-run that I would have been very interested in and I still wouldn't mind getting the issue with the first ever comic appearance of "Shame",who was played by Cliff Robertson in the TV show.

Ever try to duplicate sauces that are served in restaurants at home?
Some attempts are better than others and more and more chains are getting their sauces into stores.
Doug Hopkins helps me get Quaker Steak and Lube's Golden Garlic and Arizona Ranch as one example of these,but McDonald's had yet to try to get their sauces to the masses.
Until now as the fast food king is selling their Big Mac,McChicken and Fish sauces currently in stores-the kicker is that it is not here in the United States!
McDonald's is selling them in Canada as the Comeback writes .
No word on an eventual turnout in the States,but if they sell-bet on it...

A group called PTScientists are planning on landing on the moon in 2018.
It won't be them landing,but the plan is for the team to land two rovers on the moon and hit the surface roughly two miles away from the rover used for Apollo 17,which never left the lunar surface.
There are groups that are working towards next year as well as the race to be the first private entity to land on the moon continues.

We wrap with the Washingtonian's look at CNN"s conservative commentator,Mary Katherine Ham.
The article looks at Ham's rise through the last decade as pundit,but also discusses her life as a single mother with two children after the death of her husband in 2015 in a bicycle accident.
It's an honest and open look at Ham and was pretty non-partisan in its writing.

Most of you know that I'm pretty moderate politically and I'm not afraid to side with either party depending on the issue.
I like people of both sides that are able to accept mistakes by their party and are honest about shortcomings-we don't have enough of those types of media members right now.
CNN has a few shining stars that are able to do that in Ham,Margaret Hoover,John Avlon and John Berman,but all too often,those reasonable people are overshadowed by the agenda-driven folks such
Chris Cuomo (who's really bad because he's supposed to be a host,not an analyst) and Bakari Sellers on the left with Kayleigh McEnany (By FAR the worst offender of this) and Jeffrey Lord on the right.
Cherie and I have always wished that C-SPAN would jump into the news business with a nightly newscast-of a Joe Fridayesque "Just the Facts,Ma'am"...

The sports inbox is filling up,so I'll dump that soon-assuming Verizon allows that.
Listen to me on Fightheads,if you are interested-I have plenty to say..

Post-Election Blues

Damn, I was wrong.
I've kept believing that the Donald Trump phenomenon was going to be a comet that burnt itself out.
I was wrong-Donald Trump-the man that destroyed the USFL is about to become the President of the United States.

Let's face it-I'm not a fan of Mr.Trump and didn't even ponder voting for him.
I lost many things on my opinions of Trump,his qualifications and my lack of understanding of how people could even consider this-most notably a good friend.
I think this could (Could means maybe folks- not a definite) be a disaster and we may about to find out that when you vote an outsider in with zero experience,what you usually get is even more of what we have had for years-gridlock.
You have to be able to work with people and the experience inside the political machine is like everything else-it comes at a cost.
Can Trump put ego and personal gain aside to do what needs to be done?
Can he avoid any personal entanglements (eventually a tax release,his business put in a blind trust or not or any further issues from his past with women) to be able to govern?
Can he manage to deal with a system that despite him being the leader does not have to jump when he beckons?
Intriguing to think about and interesting to see how this plays out.

If Donald Trump is a successful President,then he has re-written how we look at Presidencies,candidates and how one runs campaigns.
If not-then this could be a disaster that takes years to recover from.
We'll see.I'm not in the business of not supporting my country because the President isn't my guy.
I've seen one side of the bench behave that way towards Barack Obama and that wasn't right and I bet I'll now watch the other side act in that manner towards Donald Trump-Neither side will be right.

I've been wrong before,I didn't think that Trump would get anywhere near the White House,so what do I know-but I do know this-I'll be rooting for him.
Because I root for my country first.

On the Democratic side,this might be a wakeup call.
Hillary Clinton was a disliked candidate that was shoved down voters throat like a child is forced to eat a hated food and in this regard,the Democratic party got just what they deserved.
It has traditionally been the GOP that ran the candidate that was "their turn" and this time it was the Democrats turn to make this mistake.
I think Joe Biden would have won this going away and dare I say it-Bernie Sanders would have made a better candidate than Hillary Clinton because he would have fired up the left wing base that was never going to accept Hillary Clinton as representing their hopes.
In hindsight,the revealing of the DNC emails that the party was working against Bernie Sanders looks awful large for the base that didn't appear at the ballot box.
To me,it appeared that the Democratic base rebelled against the chosen candidate and therefore didn't have the motivation to turn out for her.
Only themselves to blame for losing to the least (well,maybe second least since he won) liked President candidate since these things were measured.

And now to you-the reader.
I used to write about politics a lot and I even mentioned it on the podcast.
I've tried to avoid that anymore,especially after my feelings on Donald Trump and what that cost me on a personal level.
I still have the desire to write about these things,but for the most part,I feel like it just isn't worth the effort despite the creative part of me that comes out during those times.
I consider myself pretty middle of the road.reasonably liberal socially (being that what you are and do personally is none of my business) and pretty conservative fiscally,but I'm not sure that is where most are anymore.
Our country has been cleaved into such dividing halves that people only want to watch,read and listen to that will cater to their personal beliefs and I'm not in that place anymore.
It's one thing for me to write on sports and have people disagree-sports are supposed to be our vacation from the day to day struggles and the fun is the discussion and conversation.
However,Politics is personal-often intensely so and people take it that way,as if their beliefs are being attacked,when actually it's opinion.
I wonder why we cannot converse as civilly on Clinton vs Trump as we do Indians vs Cubs.
I think we'd be better off for it,but those are the reasons that I have faded away from writing as much about the political game..

Few things are worth losing friends and relationships over-especially opinion,whether they agree or not.
Between the issues,the candidates and opinions both mine and others-It just isn't worth it.
Thanks for reading.....

Podcast-Iowa Caucus,College Basketball problems,2016 trips and Kovalev

We talk Iowa Caucus,Sergey Kovalev,2016 baseball trips and college basketball problems.

Podcast-One Hour of Frustration!

One hour of me on: Drew Brees,the Browns loss and issues,Kovalev vs Ward,Ronda Rousey and why I want her to lose,the GOP debate and the Debacle in Durham...