Friday, July 22, 2022

Drip by Drip: Trump's Reputation Is Melting

 The highlight of last night’s Congressional Jan.6th committee hearing on CSPAN was the juxtaposition of Sen Josh Hawley, Republican of Nebraska, inciting rioters with a raised fist before they breached the Capitol, and later fleeing in fear for his life from the same crowd.

Those images symbolized the hypocrisy and the cowardice of the Trump-led GOP that brought this country to the brink of destruction.

The main point of the hearing was to focus on Trump’s role as he sat in his dining room and watched the riot on TV for three hours and seven minutes, doing nothing to stop it, despite multiple pleas from his staff to do so.

There were no new startling revelations, just a confirmation of what we already knew. Trump was never truly Commander-in-Chief, but rather a demagogue who exploited the alienation of millions of people to rise to power. Once he got there, he did little of substance, like most Presidents, but uniquely in our history, when it came time to leave he refused to.

I don’t think the hearings are changing many people’s minds about these things, but what everyone who still cares about this country and its viability as a democracy has to hope is that support for Trump is slowly eroding among the GOP base to the point he never will be able to hold public office again.

Meanwhile, it truly is encouraging that a bipartisan group of Senators are trying to reform and tighten up the electoral vote counting process to avoid the gray areas that Trump tried to exploit in 2020.

We came way too close to disaster. Even some Republican leaders realize that now.

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Thursday, July 21, 2022

The Champ!


All Star Oliver Tiglao in 9 games batted .652 with four doubles and 15 RBI, an on-base percentage of .680 and a slugging percentage of .826. He also was a defensive standout with several great plays in the outfield, including an assist on a dramatic throw from left field to nail a runner at second base for an inning-ending double play.





 



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Wednesday, July 20, 2022

Love & Other Pastimes

“I believe there is nobody for anyone.” — Frank in ‘Destination Wedding’

Being a man of few possessions, especially clothes, I struggled to find T-shirts that were not in the opposing team’s colors during my frequent visits to the sidelines for my grandson Oliver’s baseball games this summer.

I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was rooting for the other side.

But Wednesday I found the perfect option — a white T-shirt that proclaimed the wearer to be “The World’s GREATEST Grandpa.”

Modest soul that I am, I’ve rarely ever worn this particular shirt and certainly not out in public. But I thought this might just be the right time to do that.

Oliver’s all-star team was down to their last chance to win the sectional title and move on to the state championship tournament. Their opponent was worthy; in two previous meetings the teams had traded wins by a one-run margin each time.

If you’d asked, say, the world’s greatest Grandpa, what he thought, he would have said that that made all the kids on both teams champions. In the end, Oliver’s team came up short this third time around so now the other team moves on and his season is over. Somebody had to win and somebody else had to lose — that’s how the game is played.

In our culture, we have cliches to cover these types of situations. The most pertinent one is “It’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game.”

It was a game well-played. And that’s the end of the story.

Until next year.

***

Netflix occasionally delivers a romantic/comedic option to me and that happened recently with “Destination Wedding,” a 2018 film starring Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves as two miserable and unpleasant wedding guests who develop a mutual affection despite themselves.

The script is remarkable in that Lindsay and Frank are the only characters who speak during the entire film. There are some off-screen sounds from a TV, but otherwise it’s just the two of them, alone and miserable in this cold, cold world. Make that, this hot, hot world.

One particularly sweet exchange:

Lindsay: I’m not wearing anything under my pajamas.

Frank: Why would you? … Superman couldn’t see through those pajamas.

Lindsay: So you tried.

There are a lot of good lines and what’s supposed to be funny actually is funny in this film. 

When it comes to real love in the real world, we have many, many cliches in our culture to help people cope. “Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” — for some reason, that one comes to mind.

Same with fiction. Better to have seen this film than to not have — I said that.

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One Hot Story

The main news story around the world this summer is climate change, which of course is not new at all. Scientists have been warning us about it since at least since 1974, when the “hole in the ozone” theory was announced and 1985, when it was confirmed.

But many writers foresaw the problem in non-fiction and science fiction as early as the 1950s and no doubt even earlier than that. The role played by human beings in provoking it is no longer politically controversial, though it is past the time when we might have done something to avoid the worst consequences.

This particular summer, 2022, will be remembered as the one that hit Europe so forcefully that the issue could no longer be avoided. That may be a good thing.

There are still climate deniers of course. There are also people who think the world is flat, that Elvis is alive and that Trump won the 2020 election. Go figure.

What’s left to those of us not in psychotic denial is mitigation, our best hope until the time comes for forced migration. Much of the land currently populated will apparently no longer be habitable. So humans will have to move to higher ground, as nomadic groups already do in desert lands like Afghanistan.

That will without doubt produce new wars, again much like has occurred in the hills and valleys of Afghanistan. I fear we can glimpse our common future there, not in the wealthy suburbs of America, where all still seems well, at least until the next mass shooter shows up. But in a very real sense, the way forward may be backward for everyone on this planet as it melts beneath us.

But I, naively perhaps, think we still have time to prepare for all of this.

One story. One world. Whether you think our species will get through this is the ultimate test of whether you’re an optimist or pessimist. Despite all I have read and written, I think we will. This isn’t a matter of logic for me but of hope.

But it will take an effort that would make Hercules proud.

***

Update: Grandson Oliver’s little leagues team lost in extra innings, 3-2, last night, ending a six-game win streak. But their season is not over yet, as it is double elimination at this level, so the two teams will play a rematch tonight. The winner of that game moves on to the state tournament.

Stay tuned…

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Tuesday, July 19, 2022

Dance of the Narratives

In the old days, writers worked with photographers at newspapers and magazines to produce stories. Some editors seemed to expect the photographers to simply illustrate the stories told by the writers. But the better ones saw a different process with a richer outcome.

They saw that the visual and editorial narratives worked together more like interlocking vines, snaking in and out into a product much greater than the sum of the parts.

When we got the mixture right, there was an interactive chain that moved, much like how musical notes fit with the words in a song.

Think about this. Can you hear a song by looking at the lyrics alone? Can you read the sound of the music?

Artists can.

And that goes for great story-telling in any form. 

This process becomes slightly more complex when you move from the world of print story-telling into multimedia — radio, TV, and the movies. Now, the actual or mediated voices and images of people, their faces, their gestures all enter the media space between you and your audience.

It’s easy to overdue it. The story becomes preachy, a lecture or melodramatic like in a soap opera. So in serious media, this is where editors come in. We know that in most cases, less is more. Just let the sounds and the pictures tell the story. Silences become magnified, which is useful on many levels.

In a great story, what the teller leaves out, the listener fills in.

The reason I’ve gone so deeply into this is that today, in our world, every individual can be his or her own story-teller, simply by virtue of the powerful computer in our pockets we still call a “cellphone,” though it is so very much more than that. All of the world’s knowledge throughout the whole of human history is accessible via that tiny device.

You can research, you can write, you can shoot photos or “videos” and you can record sound, and even animate the product any way you wish. And fact-check it. One simple conversation can become a work of art, perhaps a highly valued NFT, catalogued and authenticated by the blockchain, exchanged via crypto, and enshrined digitally somewhere for what we might currently believe to be eternity.

Or not. And that’s only one of your infinite choices…

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Monday, July 18, 2022

The Old Man

 My lifestyle the past few years has meant that I am almost constantly surrounded by kids, aged one to fifteen. Primarily they are the five boys and three girls who are my grandchildren but they have friends so I often find myself interacting with multiple toddlers, pre-teens and teens at any one time.

Covid has intensified the whole experience, because they either are all being artificially restrained from doing what they want to do — or suddenly free to do so once again. We’ve kept lurching around, courtesy of a virus that knows it’s a battle of wills that will ultimately decide the issue.

When they are free, and these youngsters race around unrestrained in the environments we share, one consequence is that I much more acutely feel my age. I can’t move about anywhere as fluidly as they do, which is seemingly without any effort whatsoever.

Not so me. 

Their world is fast; mine is slow. But as a result, and in somewhat of a contradiction, I often find myself seeing the world through their eyes more than through my own.

Children, especially younger ones, regularly fly from one emotional extreme to another within the space of seconds. They laugh and cry, shout and whisper, embrace and withdraw much more frequently than I would ever allow myself to do.

Life must feel out of control to them, whereas my life follows mostly predictable rhythms with few surprises or unpredictable events. I’m not sure that I even like surprises any longer, or that I ever did.

They have frequent conflicts — over toys, space, rules or simply what to do with each other. There are also frequent bursts of pure joy. Extended periods of steadiness, of stability don’t really seem all that natural to most of them.

Meanwhile, somewhat depleted just by witnessing their displays, I often retreat to my room, where all is quiet, reserved, steady and predictable. Occasionally, one of the miniature folks around me will visit, temporarily bringing a bit of their delightful chaos into my den of solitude. For this I am grateful.

But mostly it’s just me, alone with my keyboard, the window with a hummingbird outside, the vast silence and a world of thoughts struggling to take shape into somethings I can share.

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TODAY’s LYRICS:

“What You Give Away”

Song by Vince Gill

Songwriters: Alan Gordon Anderson / Vince Gill

You read the business page, see how you did today
Life's just spent some by
You live up on the hill, you've got a view that kills
And never wonder why

After you've counted everything you've saved
Do you ever hit your knees and pray?
You know there's gonna be a judgment day
So what will you say?

No matter what you make
All that you can take
Is what you give away
What you give away

There's people on the street, ain't got enough to eat
And you just shake your head
The measure of a man is one who lends a hand
That's what my father said

After you've counted everything you've saved
Do you ever hit your knees and pray?
You know there's gonna be a judgment day
So what will you say?

No matter what you make
All that you can take
Is what you give away
It's what you give away

After you've counted everything you've saved
Do you ever hit your knees and pray?
You know there's gonna be a judgment day
So what will you say?

No matter what you make
All that you can take
Is what you give away
You know it's not too late
It's all for Heaven's sake
What you give away

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Sunday, July 17, 2022

The Gamer



On a fine Saturday in their semi-final little league baseball game, it turned into a blowout for my ten-year-old grandson Oliver and his teammates. They defeated their opponents, 15-0. At this level of little league, the mercy rule ended the contest after the third inning.

Ollie continued his hot hitting streak with two more singles and an RBI. He also scored twice.

Now the team proceeds to the sectional championship game Tuesday night. Should they win that one, they’ll advance to the state-level tournament next weekend. 

So the main thrill, of course, is at the team level. They are on a six-game winning streak and everyone is playing well — on offense, defense and pitching. No one player wins a baseball game on his own. That’s the beauty of team sports.

But for Oliver personally, this has been a breakout stretch. He has 13 hits (4 doubles) in 17 at bats with 15 RBI. That translates into a BA of .765, and SP of 1.000, and an OBP of .789.

Kids can play team sports for many years and never get on a run like this one, so it’s special while it lasts, both for him and his team.

And for me, just to be witnessing it. We talk ’ball before and after his games, and review his game performances. and his stats. For a ten-year-old, he has a very high baseball IQ.

He studies the game, works hard at practice, spend lots of extra time in the batting cages, and listens to his coaches. Sometimes he even goes to games where he can watch teams he will face in the future — just to get ideas about how to play against them.

It all pays off. He’s a gamer.

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