Today’s news is bloody with black ink covering tax chicanery (as if anyone is surprised) and tectonic changes at the Supreme Court (you never really know, but people can surprise you in the end, or at least we must hope).

Not to diminish the gravity of such things, but in other, more appealing news, the “official” baseball season has ended. Truncated of necessity to 60 games, it was too short to devotees but less mind-numbing to the casual fan than the annual siege of Troy usually endured, if not enjoyed.

Tampa, Minnesota and Oakland each took their Division in the AL, with the despised Yankees and now Astros remaining alive among the Wild Card teams. Atlanta, Chicago and LA stand atop the NL with a host still hanging on and in. With the world and baseball somehow surviving these times precariously to date, the playoffs will have plenty of drama this season, and we must all hope that the game holds it together long enough to make it to the Arlington, Texas bubble for the World Series.

To the keepers of baseball history this day is notable as a red letter day for a few reasons, two sad and one unequalled. On this day in 1920, eight Black Sox players were indicted for throwing the 1919 World Series, a story too sacrilegious for true fans to comprehend. In 1930, Lou Gehrig’s 885 errorless game streak ended, since surpassed by some stellar fielders, but still among Gehrig’s many achievements.

Arguably the second greatest baseball achievement took place today, when Ted Williams ended the 1941 season with a 406 batting average, never since accomplished and unlikely, in the modern era of relief pitchers, ever to be outdone. He was a proud man, too proud to be loved by the fans, but the results of his work ethic gave him every reason to be. He could have sat out the double-header on that last day of the season with a .3995 batting average, which would have rounded up to .400. In the first game, he went 4 for 5, upping his average to .404. He played the second as well and went 2 for 3, for his .406 mark.

Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente were sports heroes, whose deeds made them true heroes and there are others who have earned that title. There is a fellow named Fauci, who will be a footnote in baseball history for an opening pitch as bad as the worst from Nuke LaLoosh, but he defines what a hero is for me, and his season belongs in the Hall of Fame.

There are two words of hope worth hearing in this year of so little, “Play Ball.”

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In a reversal of the infamous Lassie trope, an 18 year old boy discovered the now famous Lascaux cave paintings when his dog fell into a cave eighty years ago yesterday near Montignac, France. The proper term today is actually “rediscovered,” which recognizes that many Western European discoveries are of things taken for granted by those from an area not then appreciated by the rest of the world.

Cave paintings, we have learned, existed around the world and have been dated as tens of thousands of years old. Some are “primitive” and others deemed artistic to modern tastes. I find it interesting that we find such artists’ talent, insight and self-awareness surprising today, as if we deem only our modern minds capable of such lasting forms of communication and the “discovery” of their creations so shocking.

The humans who painted these works of art, whatever historical species we ascribe to the persons, were apparently capable of expressing thought and communication in ways as complex and meaningful as we do today. They didn’t speak our languages, but it is fair to conclude that they could communicate in their ways much as we do today with our Tik Tok and other “advanced” media. How advanced can we actually be if the most commonly used languages today have only two characters: 1 and 0?

Looking at these and other “prehistoric” paintings makes me wonder if other species, perhaps dolphin, whales, elephants, horses have some form of sentience and self-awareness hidden from us largely because we don’t have a way to communicate across the species divide. They probably would warn us of our self-destructiveness, as if we don’t have the sense to know ourselves, which perhaps we don’t.

As it is, my dog has come to remind me it is time for her breakfast, which must have the perfect proportion of leftovers and dog food to meet her exacting standards. Perhaps I’ll ask her what she thinks.

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Today marks the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting the universal right to vote for women throughout the US. The Seneca Falls Convention of women (Frederick Douglas attended one day, as may have some other men) is credited with the beginning of the movement, though voting was not its primary purpose.

The Reconstruction Amendments, which in addition to abolishing slavery gave the right to vote to Black men at least in theory, promoted a resurgence among many women to advocate for the right to vote. Women had gained the right to vote in a number of states admitted to the Union, which also served to highlight the lack of the right in most states.

The story of the 19th Amendment is well documented in Wikipedia, and also in a very nice editorial and article in the New York Times. My grandmother, who was born in 1899, turned 21 in 1920 and gained the right to vote 100 years ago. She was a tall, strong woman from Texas who first homesteaded in California’s Central Valley, where she taught in a one-room schoolhouse. She had a college degree in a time when that was rare, even for men. The thought that she grew up not believing she would be able to vote is as abhorrent to me as is the efforts still made today to prevent minorities from voting.

The Times added an interesting article today, the day the 19th Amendment was certified and became official. Politics being the scummy thing it too often is, the article covers some of the underhanded steps taken to thwart final approval of the women’s right to vote.

I’ve pondered this topic and the biases behind it in the weeks leading up to this anniversary. That topic and a biblical story came together in my mind and prompted this poem that seems fitting in a way to share.

 Nameless

Perhaps it was best not to have a name

other than “the wife of Shem”

given all we of the last and first again 

of women have endured

but I do have a story for you

that may bring a knowing smile but which

you must keep among we of the red tent

I do admit the old man was wise – 

in his six-hundred year-old way – 

to heed his God but as men often do

he would not stop for directions

when we mentioned that 

an old and small man’s cubit

might make for a crowded home

That he built that house of his

shaped as a ship of sorts

seemed eccentric it’s true

but it kept him busy and

mostly out of the vineyard

though the neighbors were sure

he’d been into the goatskins again

And not to seem ungrateful

but any woman would know

that only one window and door

was no way to build a home that

would reek of pitch and gophers’ wood

and so we humored him for his sons –

whose names you do know

The rains the old man promised

did come though softly at first

but shelter of any kind was welcome

so I demurely held my tongue 

as we women were taught to do

when he decided he should

bring the flocks in as well

But things turned for the worse

when he felt pity in the gathering storm

on lions and tigers and bears

and all manner of creeping things

though the birds I’ll say were a nice touch

but for all of our sake if not for God’s

it was I who said no to the lizard giants

Now my daughter’s daughter’s daughters

you are blessed in your way not to know 

how God-awfully long it rained

or to remember the cries of those without

who the old man piously claimed

his God had deemed wicked and corrupt 

though one may wonder – if but to herself

In the course of time some man will surely write 

of this tale as an epic of a great man and his God 

at the end of one world and the beginning of another

but know this from one whose name time will soon forget 

there was more to this story we women must pass on 

to our daughters and on to theirs ever and anon

and if there is a lesson at all in this it is 

There have always been and will ever be

some good and far too many evil among men

there has always been a rainbow above 

for all who had insight simply to see 

and much more for we who look with open eyes

discern with wisdom and sense with open hearts 

though we will soon be forgotten

We will forever abide and raise sons in eternal hope 

they may someday learn all we know so true and well

and we will bear daughters such as you

to offer promise for the tomorrows to come

when we shall be known and praised

in our time in names deserved to be known 

for ever having saved mankind from itself

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I read this week that half of the US population is now under forty. Having long passed that age, it is tempting to say to the new majority in mock flippancy that the world is your problem now. Of course, the truth is that it will take all of us to try and set things right, and we have to believe that is possible. Still, with so much devastation and proudly intentional denial in the air, it is increasingly hard to keep life in perspective, or to retain hope for the future.

So when a kindness occurs, as it did to me this week, it stands out. I received a request from a website to publish a poem of mine containing a few lessons I’ve learned in life. Reading it again after the passage of time, its message offers some hope for these times.

I might have shared it here, but the website, https://www.familyfriendpoems.com, contains much more worth your visit. After you have looked around the site, you can find Life Lines there. Making your own list of lessons may be a good way to start healing our world.

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John Lewis died yesterday at the age of 80 after several months of treatment for pancreatic cancer. He was as great man unlike most any other, at least in our time, and not just because he championed using nonviolence as a force to cause change.

As the media will remind today, John Lewis was a member of Martin Luther King’s inner circle. His skull was cracked by police in Selma at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965. He quietly continued the “fight” for racial equality after King’s death and was ultimately elected to represent a portion of the Atlanta area in Congress in 1986. He represented me and did so with patience, dignity and the honor he richly deserved.

I didn’t know Mr. Lewis, but I voted for him and happened to see him once on a flight from Washington to Atlanta. Unlike some other politicians, he flew coach, and I noticed from my seat how quietly respectful he was of the crew. I had a brief urge to speak to him and thank him for his life of service, but resisted out of respect for his privacy.

John Lewis lived as a symbol of the Civil Rights Movement and as a reminder that even now there is much work to be done. He taught others in Congress from across the country about things they only saw in the history books that were honest enough to include the ugliness of the opposition to equal rights for blacks. He took them to Selma and walked with them across that bridge, not to lecture but to shared talk about the experience. If you want to learn more, there is a documentary about him, John Lewis: Good Trouble currently on Prime Video.

The thing that impressed me most about John Lewis over the years is how rarely he used the word “I”. He referenced “Martin” and sometimes said “we”, but he seemed genuinely humble in the way of one who lives and leads by example. Perhaps I should say lived and led, but his memory and that example remains. In these sometimes brutal days of open backlash by some, we need that and him as much as ever.

Monuments to flawed and even terrible people are in the news presently, as we rightfully reassess history and reconsider values we have taken for granted. I think the conversation and process is a healthy one, even if it can be painful. In that way, it is somewhat like 1965 again. We need John Lewis now. It may be time to raise a monument to him, though I believe he’d want it to live in our hearts.

I will never forget and forever thank him. The tribute Joe Biden offered today rings true, “We are made in the image of God, and then there is John Lewis.”

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I imagine that pieces like this are sometimes written purely for the excuse of publishing a title that catches the eye, and while there is truth to that here, there is also a bit of history to remember.

If I read my history correctly, Hernando Cortes died five hundred years ago today when his troops tried to escape from Tenochtitlan, the island capital of the Aztec Empire which is now the site of Mexico City. Cortes had been welcomed by the emperor, Montezuma II, some months before, perhaps in keeping with the maxim attributed to SunTzu, “…keep your enemies closer.”

Relations between the Aztecs and Cortes’ forces soured after close to eight months as guests in Teonochtitlan. Cortes took Montezuma hostage in the palace, but the tactic failed resulting in locals throwing stones at the Spaniards and at Montezuma. Possibly as a result of the stoning Montezuma died and, on this date Cortes and his company tried to escape across an unguarded causeway from the island capitol. Cortes was killed in the retreat, but others escaped to territory of others hostile to the Aztecs. The date is now known as La Noche Triste.

Montezuma’s reign was the height of the Aztec Empire, which rivaled that of others around the world at the time. It was the home of planned cities, enormous wealth, and a calendar they set up to run until our year 2012. Some modern doomsday wags assumed the Aztecs had predicted the end of the world in that year. I suppose if they had been right, we would have been spared 2020.

In ten years or so from Cortes death, the Aztec Empire faded into history, the result of poor leaders after Montezuma, rebellion and perhaps most of all smallpox, which the Spaniards had brought to the land.

All this is to say (with more than a taste of tongue in my cheek) that perhaps my title above might have a ring of truth. You might say that Montezuma had his revenge eight years after his calendar ended and we experienced the apocalypse we know as 2020.

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At times, I stop in awe to consider the legion of plagues that have come to define 2020. Apart from the coronavirus, which is biblical enough in scope and deserving of all the concern the pandemic warrants, there have been enough disastrous events to wonder if God, having sworn off worldwide flood, has decided to let loose most of the rest of his arsenal on us simultaneously. And yes, the year is not quite half done yet.

There were the Australian wildfires in January. A close call followed from an asteroid a mile wide, destined to pass even closer in 2079. Earthquakes in New Zealand and Mexico took their place in the litany of events. We have seen economic devastation that only the stock market has failed to take more than passing note of. Locusts in Africa and the arrival of murder hornets ensued. Presently we are seeing a cloud of Saharan dust envelope our land.

All these are sure to take their toll, but the long overdue racial reckoning we are experiencing has risen to the point we may at last face our nation’s past and seek meaningful change, if not as one, then at least among enough to matter.

I am an old white man, and anything I can say about how we got to this moment or what to do about the viral plague or our unreckoned moral one will seem shallow, hollow and simpleminded. Still, I can see we are living in an historic time. I hope and pray and try to do all I can in the hope that when all is said and done, we will all be better and better to each other.

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I ended a long-standing personal debate yesterday and quit Facebook, certainly for now and probably for good. The final straw that broke this camel’s back was the decision of Facebook’s owner not to block incendiary posts from one particular user. As I wrote in leaving, it has been the standard in this country for 101 years that you can’t shout “fire” in a crowded theater. What the unnamed, but well known, user posted incited violence, which by any standard is far worse and deserving, even warranting, censorship.

In all likelihood, that same user is likely to seek government-sanctioned censorship of a book to be published by John Bolton said to be critical of him, a double standard by any standard, but this brief post is meant to be about my own incongruity in continuing to post on Facebook for so long.

Facebook has long welcomed all comers, except in countries where it abides by a government’s own censorship. The only true consistency in its motive seems to have be what yields the most revenue. One could largely block offensive rhetoric in one’s own feed, but you knew, at the same time, that the site continued to amplify ignorance, hate, and lies under the guise of promoting free speech.

I was taught growing up to abide by what we called, “Thumper’s Rule,” which came from a line in the film Bambi, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” I have a friend who will tell you I still (mostly) live by that rule, but I know that life is not as simple as that adage. There are moments, I think, when one must speak one’s mind, though with enough humility, intelligence, and thoughtfulness to be understood through whatever anger and hate may color a hearer’s perspective.

Perhaps I should have given up on Facebook’s electronic soapbox long ago. Looking back, I suspect so now. I stayed as long as I did because I wanted to share a smile with old and new friends at times when I felt they might need one, often knowing that I certainly did. I thought I added enough value to be heard over others’ who shouted, less to be heard as to drown out others’ voices. Sometimes though, you have to stand for something, and it felt like it was time to leave; that is, to “say nothing at all.”

This little blog has no followers, as best as I can tell, and perhaps that is for the best. I can be my own small voice crying in the vast wilderness of some virtual cloud, and unlike the voice referenced by Isaiah, I have little to say and less that others care to hear.

As I alluded to above, it’s hard to know when enough is enough, but sometimes you know it is. I wrote a little poem to say something about this some time ago, and I’ll leave you with it.

Enough Is Enough

                  “He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.”

                  Lao Tzu

We often say to leave well enough alone

but then we rarely know it when we see it

We may well say enough 

when we’ve had too much

But in search of well enough

we forget that perfect is its truest enemy

You may know its brothers – good and fair – 

and its sisters – just and barely 

But by any name enough is indeed enough

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The Cable News Network, CNN, began broadcasting forty years ago today. Originally, and still technically, based in Atlanta, CNN was the idea of the city’s famous Ted Turner, who had turned a local UHF television station into a national cable channel. CNN aired footage of its first day today and published this article as well.

At the time, the FCC required all television broadcasters to air a minimum amount of news time each day. Rather than use entertainment programming time for news, he developed the audacious idea of a 24 hour news channel, expecting, correctly, that the FCC would change its requirement.

Many critics questioned whether there was enough news to fill 24 hours and how one could be hosted from anywhere other than New York or Washington. Of course, the naysayers were not only wrong but wrong many times over, as Fox News (if you call what they air news), CNBC, MNBC, CNN Headline News, CNN International and many others have proven. In fact, there was an audience for a channel devoted to weather, and another where you can watch paint dry (HGTV).

CNN has become as respected in broadcasting as the New York Times is in print, among all but those that prefer to be pandered to. Sure, it could do better at times, but when you are live 24 hour a day and have to report as fairly as possible on someone as unhinged, erratic and other less kind terms, as whom Garrison Keillor calls the “present occupant” you might occasionally fall short of your best.

In an odd turn of events, CNN ended up now being owned by AT&T, as part of its move into video programming. When radio was in its infancy and it became clear that the medium would primarily be a vehicle for entertainment and not communication, the company started its own programming. The reason you don’t know about that adventure is because it was an utter and abysmal failure.

For the sake of CNN and legitimate reporting, I hope AT&T will honor its promise of CNN’s editorial independence.

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An American hero died yesterday. Her last name may be familiar, as that of the first American to orbit the Earth and the first astronaut turned Senator, but she was known as Annie Glenn.

As the wife of the other hero, she lived in the spotlight, with media always nearby in search of a story, but hers was hard to tell. If you don’t know, Annie Glenn stuttered.

Her story is briefly told in today’s New York Times. A life-long stammerer, she plumbed the depths of the mind with her will and learned to excel in an era before handicaps were at least nominally accepted. Her accomplishments and contributions are many, but overcoming her handicap ranks, to me, with those of her husband, John.

It’s hard to fully comprehend what some must overcome to live in a world we take for granted without walking at least a few steps in their shoes. With that in mind, I wrote this piece some time ago. This is in Annie’s honor, whose name belong among those mentioned.

Making Light

Beethoven put joy to music though we know he was

deaf to that symphony we hold in awe

Monet painted his lilies from memory

in the dying of the light with his own sight fading

Da Vinci wrote in reverse because he was dyslectic

a word I can’t spell in either direction

Milton wrote Paradise Lost while blind and penniless 

selling it for five pounds and left to explain why it did not rhyme

Yogi was wise beyond simplicity

a philosopher with pith in the subtlest of games

Edison first great invention was the phonograph

though I doubt you knew he was near deaf since childhood

James Earl Jones – the voice of God himself – and

Marilyn Monroe – Helen incarnate – both stuttered

Albert Einstein too was dyslectic and

Then there was Stephen Hawking 

The list is as endless

as their achievements humbling

No one it seems is perfect

but my the beauty of that spark within

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