Boycotting the NHL, Hating Killers and those that Support Them

    I decided back in the 1980s as a teenager that I could not like or watch hockey that much. I realized I loved some sports so much that I could not afford to like this sport too much.

    I have watched it, here and there. I enjoyed the Washington Capitals back in 2018, or whenever they won the Cup. I have enjoyed some Olympic hockey play. And some World Cup play a few times.

    Right now? Nah. Last year I watched, or observed from afar, sort of, when Alex Ovechkin surpassed the Great One Gretsky as all time leading goal scorer. I thought that was cool.

    But now Alex supports his dictator president Vladimir Putin.

    A killer. A baby killer. A country invader and a terrible despot.

    Sorry, Alex. Not a fan, nor can I stomach your league.

    Some day you may see how wrong you are.

    Good riddance, NHL.

Ditka. Rest in Peace. Shouting Out

    He was a great Tight End before my time. He changed how the position was used. He caught passes and rushed after receptions. Then he coached: Da. Bears.

    The 1985 team was one of the best of all time. Walter Payton. Willie Gault. Jim McMahon. The Fridge, Perry. Mike Singletary. Defensive dominance.

    He tried with the Saints. Almost got the best of it there, not quite.

    May his legacy be prosperous and happy.

    Thanks for being that guy. Wish my teams could could have had you more.

Ach, Nein! Edward de Vere or Christopher Marlowe? The Truth is Out There

    So, I have filled my sup with the words of Rodney Bolt. He put something queer in his afterward, alluding to obliquely or ambiguously to what I suspected: his footnotes were all bogus? False?

    I am still not sure. His writing is incredibly --what-- sturgid? Stultifying, as a college instructor told me about my writing once?

    I read a book, then also watched two documentaries about Edward de Vere.

    Perhaps the son of the glover William Shak-spear was never the Bard, just an associate.

    Oy ve.

    Bolt makes arguments, but I am not sure if all his sourcing was true.

    To thine own self be true.

    Hamlet. -- Marlowe. de Vere. Shakespeare.

    

Italians, Paintings, and Art: Are They and We Manic? Hopelessly Romantic, or Driven, Possessed

    The peninsula and boot of Italia, Italy, inherited the vestiges of Rome. The once and forever empire. The one that the Hapsburgs tried to recreate, or later on der Fuhrer of Germany, or perhaps Vladimir Putin of today? An American, to try the same, in the line of Washington and Lincoln? Never! Balderdash. We Americans have all types of czars, but no real Caesars. Correct, U.S. Constitution.

    The Italians grew from the ashes and grape vineyards of the Romans, but they fancied fancies much too much. Paintings, sculptures, all kids of aesthetic qualities that possessed the eyes and the minds of those that fancied them.

    Confused? Sure, we could use more words. Figure them out. Fie upon them! Hamlet quoth.

    Italians valued art. Visual, emotional, spirtitual, all of it.

    Places like Mantua, I come to find out. Places in Italy, even more than Venice, Venezia, that inspired and informed the real Bard.

    My smarty pants professor from England at UCLA liked Italy, maybe above all places. Like Shakespeare, or perhaps more realistically Christopher Marlowe, the real Bard, according to Rodney Bolt in 2004. Italy, Italy, Italy. Was it the source? Is it still?

    The Italians. Later to be crime bosses in Siciliy or New York, or maybe New Jersey and Florida.

    They loved and valued art, perhaps more than most.

    The Spaniards came these ways, maybe the painters of Iberia, eventually modern men like Pablo Picasso. Today Spain has many film artists.

    Now my sister has a dog named Pablo. In Paris. Not the one you were thinking of.

    Different lights, different city.

    So, yes, the Italians brought more to light, to the fore.

    Viva italia.

    Forza italia.

    Long live all the manias.

    Let them not kill us, or drive us as mad as Hamlet. Manias and manic persons. Even dogs and rabblerousers

    Or the couple that lost their young son Hamnet. Likely related stories and romantic, albeit tragic, losses. Popularized in a 2020 book (the year of our recent plague, or pandemic), now made into an award-winning film.

    May we live forever and achieve the hightest artistic values. Love, as preached from the pulpit yesterday by the oldest man in the ward.

    Church.

    Some are pro, some are anti. Can we be at all neutral? Chaotic, likely.

    Inside jokes in a dialogue from some co-workers. One of Greek (mostly) origin. It has become of my intra-dialogue, whether he knows it, admits it, or not. People affect us. So do countries, languages, art.

    Yes. Si. I do not know a ton of fluent Italian, but I have learned a few songs.

    E similar. Sao similares. O seja, sao similareis.

    

 Pedantry

    What does that word mean? Define it. I read some books and magazines as a child growing into adulthood. I also would refer to and imbibe of encyclopedia articles and some essays, through academic pursuits and my own means. Sometimes church activity would bring more literature and knowldge. Shows, films, all kinds of gobbledygook and at times rot would besot my brain.

    I could not remember it all, but there were clear vestiges of the remains of the words, the phrases, the storylines, the meanings. The plots and the plans. Stories, adventures, deeper significances.

    What did math teach me? To think? Great. Thanks for all the logic and the quantifying. Let's take that further, braniacs. Not me. I need to get lost in the word sauce. The salsas of other minds.

    Words and stories beguile us. They have beguiled me. Always. Never stopping, oft times erring.

    Like to my bore of a professor, a man named Bell, at UCLA. Auspicious university, where I found some of my way. I erred with him, saying republic instead of federation. He thought less of me. I should have dressed better, for one. Less sports t-shirts. Impressions mean stuff to people. But then again, he was a blow hard.

    All these years later, the battles rage on. Or the battle rages on. 

    And what is pedantry. What is it? My mind hearkens back to little Mulchen, in the very off radar southern Chile.  1990. A man called my missionary companion and I "pedantes". Which my trainer took affront to, but was this visitor to our fair town right?

    Some would agree with him, that unknown accuser, possibly or probably a communist, or at least a socialist. Even a close one to me that pinged me by telephone this very minute.

    We are pedantic Christian or Latter-Day Saint or Mormon missionaries. Stool pigeons of an ideology or a nationalist cause, or sheer Adam Smith capitalism.

    We are caught up in pedantry, accoring to some.

    Are we? 

    Am I? Am I a pedant. I am pedantic? Sometimes, yes, I admit it.

    What is pedantry?

        I am well into my sixth decade. Is the math right? My birth month, closer to the higher ages of seniorhood. 

    What words have we learned? What phrases have we eexperiences and earned?

    Am I pedantic. Is it all wrong and ill-founded.

    Perhaps not.

    Perhaps we need and are more befit of more pedantry.

    Learn what the words mean.

    And not trivialize them.

Another Hopeful Season of Indiana Basketball; We Await in the Throes of Fickle Wizardry

    Yet again I am exposed to the hopes, travails, and in many cases wasted time hacks of watching and rooting for the boys of candy-striped pants and ever-optimistic hardwood Hoosiers. Most of the players have come from other states and countries, outside of the Indiana heartland. Sisley and Burton are the only natives of the beloved homeland, our fair state. The former from Santa Claus (yes, verily), and the latter from Mishawaka. Some of the best names of the south and north.

    Burton may be the answer as the man who moves the ball, and even shoots after deft passing options. Sisley? Showed some promise last year, but not enough. Not like the Hoosier Mullins of UConn.

    

    ASIDE:

    

    UConn. Connecticut Huskies. They are current giants. They win rings, moving beyond the 1980s peak of my Indiana guys. Alas. Bob Knight brought us glory, which has been mostly a fire sale of a backwash since. Practically 40 years of futility. Moses and his wife, and some million other Israelites understand our woes and crushed dreams. Four decades of not entering the Promised Land. We peered into back in the spring of 2002. Mike Davis seemed to be the one to truly inherit the mantle of master chess piece manipulator. But no. Recruiting went sideways and upside down. Sampson cheated, the fool. Not all his fault with new technologies later forgiven. Crean recruited a few good ones, and gave us some aspiring motives, but no, no, no... Miller next? Woodson, Hoosier legend but not a championship winner? Enter DeVries. Rhymes with please. PLEASE. Let us win.

    To be an Indiana basketball fan. Men's basketball. The women garnered our attention and entertainment for a few seasons. Theirs is not the real passion, the real verves, the real or true and false fanatacism.

    Knight only enhanced it, after the 1940s and 1950s brought the university and state greatness and aplomb.

    We look back to the halcyon days of yore. Where have they gone. I am like Hamlet, seeing the ghost of my murdered father (the General, aforementioned Knight, aptly named), and the wanton mother, be it Duke or Florida or the Hoosier-sucking Carolina Tar Heels. That dastardly Uncle, Kentucky, who killed Knight some years, or the next door Louisville Cardinals. They steal your home state bird, and your rings that were yours for plucking. Like the Virginia Cavaliers, Wahoos as it were, you exploited your own Mister Basketball! 

    There is not an end to the suffering. Ophelia righly drowns herself in that beautiful Danish stream. Might have well as been the Wabash, and its banks, far away. Thank you, Hoagy Carmichael. We are delusional in our leather hoop ord stardust memories and reveries.

    But I wax besides myself.

    Who else can bring IU the fame and glory, the buckets and rebounds? Harris, from Duke. He played at Saint Paul the Sixth, of northern Virginia. Many Hoosiers are from the DMV, we shall see. Harris, a guard from Herndon, Fairfax County. We have others from Baltimore and District Heights, closer to Andrews Air Force Base. Clearly a capitol city area of our great nation.

    We have a big Turk, named Samet. A long German, with a Russian name. A seven footer transferring from Alabama, who is of Detroit origins.

    Who knows? Indiana in championship years had players from neighboring states, namely Illinois and Ohio. What of 1940 and 1953? It had to be Indiana itself then. Times change.

    Knight tried a seven foot center in 1984, when we upset Michael Jordan and Sam Perkins. We had some hopes until the taller, better, more skilled Ralph Sampson. Virginia.

    Which reminds me Purdue, and Edey, and the other number one seed historically upset in the first round of the dance. We also had New Castle's Steve Alford.

    Have I listed them all? There is one called Moody. And perhaps Alexis will be the key to grit, hustle, and winning acclaim. Perhaps?

    Go Hoosiers. Butler hung tough, but we must go harder, faster, first.

    Florida, Duke, UConn, Purdue, and perhaps Illonois or Michigan await.

    Michigan. Three rings won since Indiana's Alford? Maybe only two. Either way, much more than the real purveyors of college basketball.

    Indiana needs, wants, craves more.

    You can sense that.

    Blog on.

 The Curious Case of a Dozen or More Running Backs - Modern Day Warriors, Bruisers

    Most countries do not have them, because most countries of 2026 do not have American football. They wear helmets, and sport large pads for the shoulder and body parts. Having worn these protective gears briefly in my life, I know that I was surprised how much of the body was not covered very well.

    Football delivers bruises, welts, contusions, scrapes, scratches, tears, concussions, and worse. Broken bones, messed up spines, torn muscles and tendons. It is a sport of blood, a sport for non-wimps.

    Perhaps the running back must be the toughest. He, of all the chess pieces of the grid iron, must bear the brunt of pounding and hounding. Run, catch, or block, the tailback or halfback or fullback must withstand adverse force and punishment.

    Some become famous, others made themselves infamous. I can name a few. You will know a few, while others barely ever were known more than fifty miles from my house.

    Let us see:

    1. Start with OJ? No, he deserves less acclaim. I will start with men, or young men, of more honour.

    Bobby Howard. He was tough, he was strong, he was Black. He was a workhouse of the Indiana Hoosiers. They as a team were not good, not competitive enough to go to bowls in the early 1980s, but Bobby was a fighter. I liked him. Perhaps I saw him in person or on TV as a young middle schooler, when my dreams of playing the sport myself were still extant? I cannot remember. I do rememember listening to his calls of runs and catches on the radio. In my room, maybe from a car or my dad's van radio. The ubiquitous IU radio man calling the plays...*

    I loved that guy. Those long suffering Hoosiers. Bobby went on the pros, did not do much there at the higher level. But he was an early hero running back of mine.

    2. Lynn Churchill. More on him later. Purple Panther.

    3. Randy Perine. Also a Panther.

    3. Whats-his-name. Deems. Charles? I will get to it, in my year books.

    4. Anthony Thompson. Wow. Amazing runner. Bruiser. My guy.

    5. Emmitt Smith.

    6. Barry Sanders.

    7. Ernest Lukes. A high school guy.

    8. Vai Sikahema.

    9. Lakei Heimuli.

    10. Jamal Willis.

    11. Luke Staley.

    12. Who to stop with? The killer? The brazen murderer? Yes, none other than Orenthal James, the Juice and airport luggage hurdler: Simpson. RIP his two unfortunate victims.

    Most running backs in the NFL, and college, and high school, do not wind up felons.

    Some do.

    More later.

    Blog it.