Communist Manifesto Musings

    I checked it out from the library, and I am finally reading it. I learned quite a bit about Communism and Russia and other countries and its movements as a kid. Back during the Cold War, the 1980s was my time of learning and awakening.

    Ahh, the 1980s! Full of intrigue and nuclear threats! The Iron Curtain was in full effect, until it wasn't.

    But here we are, here I am, halfway through the 2020s, what I used to think was so far away, like science fiction years. A quarter of the way, almost, through the 21st century. Like my dad who is alive and kicking at 87, I still have most of my faculties.

    About time to read this thing. I had learned about it vicariously over the years. Articles, professors, textbooks. Reports and individual interpretations. Movies and characters.

    UltraMega88 from the blogging times of 2006. 

    I am old. Older. Time to get the stuff from the horse's mouths. Marx and Engels. 

    Communists. Atheists. (Ultra would counter that, that crazy, nutty, Phillie Phan.)

    Anyway... I am most of the way through, it is not that long. But it is robust and has its power, its charms. And pre and post analysis. Perhaps forever.

    What was wrong about it, what was right? The eight hour work day, not lessened by France...

    

    Marx and Engels way back in the 1840s. The seeds run deep.

    And thus, I learn. I ponder. I ruminate.

    And write.

    Blog on.

 Do Not Fret

    What scares you most? Can we make some lists? 

    1. Dying a terrible death.

    2. Killing another person by accident or in an awful way

    3. Starving to death

    4. Dying of a hideous illness

    5. Being tortured, or tortured to death

    6. Okay, all kinds of death scenarios are scary, or horrific things.

    7. Outside of death, what else scares us?

    8. Lots of things: sexual circumstances like assault. Or being indiscrete

    9. Running out of money.

    10. Being poor

    11. Being chased by a terrorist, criminal, wild animal

    12. Being bit or stung by a mean or venomous animal

    13. Losing a limb, eyesight, hearing, vital organ or body part

    14. Being taken over by a foreign power

    15. Being terrorized or intimidated by thugs or others with power

    16. Being taunted by those that we have no recourse about

    17. Making a huge mistake that gets people hurt, or lose money, or embarrasses oneself or others that is hard to undo

    18. Getting fired

    19. Being in a car wreck

    20. Being wrong

    21. Being too rude or offensive

    22. Falling from a very big height

    23. Being in a natural catastrophe

    24. There are so many things

    25. Running out of things that are vital

    Okay, that is enough.

    Blog away, and don't be scared. 

    It should be okay.

    Oh, yeah. 

26. Aliens take over the earth. 

Millions and Billions have had it Worse, so We (I) Should Not Complain or Fret

    Lately I can look at a few things negatively, and worse yet, be down on myself. And that is not good. Depression affected my mom, and likely affected other family members, so it makes me wonder some about me. Mental health is not always easy.

    

    I try to be a realist, with correct or accurate interpretations of things. I like to be optimistic, generally, but reality means that I cannot always see or expect everything to be cheery and hopeful. That includes me. I have plenty of things that I need to be better at, and more to the point, there are some things that I will never master nor achieve in this life.

    It is good to keep things in perspective, to know that I do have things in my life and my surroundings so much better than so many others. I have been blessed by so many people and circumstances all my life. No question, no doubt. Blessed, lucky, fortunate, favored. I can cite hundreds if not thousands of cases of millions and billions of people who have not had it as good as me.

    Therefore, I need to keep a stiff upper lip, or maintain and steady resolve, hold to mental resiliency, as I have been coached and trained and exhorted to do.

    I am a Christian, therefore I can rely on faith and the greater good of God that all things will work for my and others' good and favor. 

    Yes, many have had it worse than me. I have had friends and colleagues taking their own lives, thinking that things were not going to get better, as far as I understand.

    We all must hang on, stay strong, and do what we can. Never give up.

    Never. Give. Up.

    And look to the Lord and live. Preach it.

    Blog it.

The Lowest Rated Men's Basketball Teams with Winning Records, Last Week of February '25

    Team Rankings has UMass Lowell at 231 overall, out of 364 programs, with a 13-12 record.

    Next is South Dakota at 230, who are 14-12.

    I will figure out how they figure within their respective conferences.

    Then we have #220 Bucknell at 15-14.

   At # 218 is Little Rock 16-11. Five over .500 is okay. For over 200th best, this record is decent.

    Give credit to Manhattan at 227 and Eastern Michigan 219, for being 12-12 and 13-13, respectively. 

    Southern Illinois U - Edwardsville is 16-10, rated in RPI at 214.

    Army is 14-12, (but losing tonight?) at #207.

    Cal Baptist is 13-13, #202. Oh, forgot Drexel at 14-14 and 211. We have a handful of .500 squads.

    Youngstown State is 17-11, but only rated #201. I interchange ranked and rated, which are not the same. Some teams are ranked much higher than their RPI ratings, especially BYU who made the top 25 this past week, but Team Rankings has them higher than my slightly resurgent Hoosiers, which they hav the former at 59 and IU at 50. Brigham Young is 18-9 while IU is 16-11. Indiana played a harder pre-conference schedule... Got pummeled by Louisville and Gonzaga. Indiana had more close losses.

    Who else has winning records but not rated highly? SE Louisiana, 16-11 (198), Longwood 14-12 (196), E. Kentucky 15-13 (195), Texas A&M -CC 13-13 (193, .500 for now), Brown 12-11 (190), UC- Santa Barbara 16-10 (188), and there are more. 

    I will work on the others later. Publishing now.

    

    

    

The Hopes and Travails of Us Hoosier Men Basketball Fans - 2025

    Some people care about their careers and are ambitious and successful--they make gobs of money they set themselves up for good lifestyles, retirement, all that good stuff. They may pay little attention to sports teams or such frivolous matters as where and how leather balls bounce across shiny and painted wooden floors.

    There are many people who could give two licks (or many more or less) about how a professional or college (which are now largely paid and professional, very well remunerated in major universities like mine) fair in their seasons and championship goals. There are others of us who care: too much. The hopes of the team, the travails and losses, the blow outs that gut us, the close losses that eviscerate us, the non-calls that contribute to losses that cause to scream and yell while it happens, or does not happen, and another close loss piles up and up, at home and away. In Bloomington where we need more calls, in West Lafayette where we did not get it, in Ann Arbor or wherever that last awful and awfully close failure was. 

    But... BUT! Then we upset Michigan State in East Lansing! The highly picked and highly under-performing and too often losing Hoosiers showed that maybe, maybe they may be worth the hyperbole.

    We lost eight out of ten: two close wins, four close losses, plus a couple blow outs in the wrong direction, to Illinois and Wisconsin. The Illini at home at Assembly Hall, where the faithful yelled to "Fire Mike Woodson", and of course one of the longest losing streaks ever, to the Badgers. Not to mention teams like Northwestern in Evanston where the Hoosiers played okay for 36 minutes and then give up the ghost like puds.

    Man! Where was the team that got clutch wins at Penn State and Rutgers?

    We lose another close one to UCLA. Second half comebacks against the Bruins and Wolverines. And of course, the dreaded, daunting, taunting, Purdue Boilers. Their fans chanted "IU sucks, or some such nonsense, as they barely won on a referee's no call. So, they were making some sense.

    Our IU guys could suck! Suck the life and hopes out of me, the poor sucker who bought the pre-season college basketball magazine that touted the program as a top 15 team, with all the transfers coming in and the returning talent, two of whom are big, both inside and outside, and how the new guards plus on of the nation's best centers will shore up the middle.

    Oumar Ballo. Malik Reneaux. MacKenzie Mgbako. I might have spelled those right.

    But travails came, and came, and man! Not even one close out of those four last possession chances, usually after second half comebacks, usually at home, but two big Mackenzie misses or poor shot choices by Miles Price from Stanford, who in the Purdue game did not get the time out as the coach had wanted.

    Loss after loss! We were 15-11, 6-9 in the Big Ten, heading south.

    We finished the first half poorly, trailing 37-25. One of eleven from three point land.

    Then came THE second half. We killed them. We demolished Purdue. We put them down and out.

    OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

    We are saying that we got a chance!

    We do, Purdue! Hope to see you in the Big Ten tourney, wherever its played. Indy, Chicago, Minneapolis. I don't care.

    We got hopes, Boiler fans. We can outplay your Smiths and Loyers and all those dudes. If we really concentrate and play our game. We have Indiana boys, like you, who can play and play smart. Galloway and Leal are the real deal sometimes, the real McCoys of our Hoosier home.

       

    Maybe see you TWICE more in March? Bring it.

    Nittany Lions, then the West Coast, then Ohio State at home. Go IU.

    We can, IU fans!

    Yes, we can. Barry Obama.

    We can do this.

The Only Good Southern Writer is a Dead Southern Writer

    What?

    What was that?

    What could that mean? The only good "Southern writer..."

    Precisely. 

    Some of us might think we know what that statement means. But it requires more context.

    Because it is in English, and the pronouncer of the statement is likely American, or a U.S. citizen, many people might presume or assume that the southern writer is referring to someone from the U.S. South, like North Carolina or Georgia or Alabama, or even Texas.

    Of course, there could be some playful sarcasm or irony in the phrase, like implying that one is only appreciated the most after their death, and that while living it is very hard for a working artist or writer to be valued and esteemed for what they produce, craft, and write.

    Perhaps this is not applicable to the U.S. South at all, but it means southern "India" or the south of England, or France, or Italy?

    Russia. Southern Russian writers are probably not as distinguishable a trait as Moscow versus St. Petersburg versus all the other non-big city writers.

    Most of us do not know enough authors from all the cultures to characterize the south of all the places. Perhaps by "south" it is meant to be the global south, which is less developed and poorer than the more prosperous and wealthier "north". That would imply that richer people are better than those with less money, maybe.

    Perhaps it does not have any real meaning and was simply thought abstractly, and put to paper (so to speak) in order to fill out the thought, or at least provoke more thoughts. Suggested simply to empty it and then perhaps refute it. Or analyze. Scrutinize why someone would think it, let alone write it out for one to see or for the amusement of others.

    Humor. Shock. Provocation. 

    Maybe so, maybe so.

    Perhaps it means I have a healthy disdain for William Faulkner. He is dead. Does that mean he is good? Not necessarily. Maybe even Southern-based writers who are dead are not good, either.

    Of course, generalizing in all such platitudes and assessments are likely a false premise in the first place.

    Yeah, that is the ticket.

    We can only make individual evaluations, and even then we have to distinguish between the works of each author and artist. Some Mark Twain is very good and classic, some of ole Samuel Clemens is clap and tripe.

    Right, that is it.

    And that, certainly, is what we mean by speaking about good and bad and living and dead writers.

    Which, at the end of the day, cannot be too objective but is almost entirely subjective from the get go.

    Yes.

    Blog away.

 I am Not Sure how many Arabs Donald Trump has Dealt With

    People are people, many people say. There are type A personalities, who often times become leaders. Some of them are bullies, and lord it over others with some cruelty. History is replete with these folks. Name a decade or century and we can give you plenty. Every age. Our not excluded.

    There are likely a few hundred thugs and wolves down in the heart of Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, causing all kinds of mayhem and carnage. Raping, pillaging, murdering, stealing. It would be helpful if we had some names to latch on to in order to know how to approach, address, potentially deal with (if we cared enough, which we do not) the awful terrorists between Congo and Rwanda. But, they are not Muslim, which can lead us to care less. And no oil reserves, to boot.

    Back to the Arabs, speaking of oil.

    Before there was big oil from Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf Nations, including Iraq and Iran, one of our earliest presidents used some force against some North African Arabs, the Barbary pirates. That was Thomas Jefferson. He was fighting for the open seas and free commerce, for a new nation that believes that business and free movement, or secure transport, were key our nation's hopes and successes.

    Free enterprise and commerce, while a large portion if the U.S. population was in forced servitude, and others like the American Indians were being forced out of their native lands. Some hypocrisy? Sure. TJ himself was a slave owner and loved a slave girl cum woman Sarah Cummins. Sad to say, we have to consider our first slave owners-- I mean founding fathers and presidents, as which ones were better human slave masters than others. Benevolent racists, is much of where we stand after all these years.

    Yeah. My professor at UCLA, an economics wiz, if you will, claimed that the Arab world was a slave society. I got to see and live among some Arabs, and I kind of see what he means. There are socio-economic classes that are fixed, you might say. There are Arabs, like Kuwaitis, in the 2020s that have house maids from the Philippines or Bangladesh, that some owners or bosses feel it all right to strike in violence. Yes, even now.

 

    Many of the Middle East are oil or petro-rich, but most are still struggling to get by. However, the oil wealthy nations have attracted many millions of poorer laborers who work in the desert lands, providing a huge portion of the hard, or menial, or hands on work.

    Our presidents in the United States went most the rest of the 1800s, our first century, without having to deal too much with the Arabs. In World War I under Woodrow Wilson we pushed more into Europe than what the British were doing in the Arab lands to fight back against the Ottomans of Asia Minor. Lawrence of Arabia. The Brits were quite a thing in the Middle East, plus the French.

    World War II brought in Ike and the troops to Morocco, then Algeria, and ultimately Tunisia. He left the British and the Australians and Indian or Nepalese Gurkhas to handle things in Libya and Egypt. And a bit of Sudan. The French and British Empires carved up the Near East and Levant a la Sikes-Picot. 

    We know.

    Truman watched the creation of the modern Israel in the remnants of the Hashemites, between the Syrians, Lebanese, now known as the Jordanians. Every U.S. president since has had to deal with the spectra and other phantoms, real and imagined, of the Arab Middle East. Oil became a giant elephant, or at least at least a gargantuan water ox that lumbered its way and pushed its economic throughout most of the entire earth, especially when organizing into OPEC with its chosen, gifted, fossil fuel enriched neighbors worldwide.

    Dwight D. Eisenhower had to deal with the Suez Canal crisis of the 1950s, which was a loggerhead with the British and French. A delicate balance, for sure. Worth further review and analysis, I would say. Egypt inserted itself into the global conversation and dialog. Along with Syria and the other neighbors of Israel. Saddam has not arrived in Iraq, yet.

__________________________________

    Started a few days ago. Break.

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    Kennedy and Johnson, then Nixon took over in the succeeding years, concerned with pushing defenses into Turkey, keeping missiles out of Cuba, then the Communist threat in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. The Pan-Arab movement generated traction, and the Egyptians, Jordanians, and Syrians invaded the young but robust Israel in 1967, and again in 1973. Israel prevailed, as they are wont to do. But, the Arabs were marshalling their troops, discussing their unification and alliances, their common bonds. Which are not that great, much of the time, but can create a larger power when leveraged well. 

    Ford and Carter dealt with the OPEC gas (oil) embargos and severe fuel crises. This is not the America or capitalist world that we wish to live in. The Soviets and the Iranians changed things up for Arabs and Muslims by the end of Jimmy Carter's presidency. While he cut a deal of peace between Egypt and Israel, no small feat, but with extremist jihadi consequences. Anwar Sadat was brutally massacred in a national cavalcade.

    The Lebanese Civil War had been going on since the Ford administration, through the Carter years into Ronald Reagan. He implanted Marines into Beirut with other NATO powers as peace keepers, and suicide bombers left their mark, despite our superior naval and air power from the sea and above.

    Arabs are not to be trifled with. Lebanon and the Iranian shia sects felt like they defended their ground effectively. Despite the differences in languages and cultures, the Irani shia are still brethren with their cohorts across the Arab world. To include the Turks and the Pakistanis. Even the Albanians. Which goes into Yugoslavia of those days, more than a half dozen nations today in the 21st century.

    Arabs spread their money into all these places.

    Mostly based on oil and gas production. 

    Reagan handled the terrorist Gaddafi of Libya in the late 1980s. They had caused some havoc on planes and boats. Killing innocent passengers. Suicide bombings became a tool and tactic, at times very effective. Taking hostages also was an effective method to make waves against the super or superior powers, as the Ayatollah of Iran and its revolution proved, transitioning into the Reagan era. We funded Arabs like Osama in the war against the Reds in their central Asian border area.

    The intifada and Yassir Arafat arose in the late 1980s, as the Republicans pushed their vice president against weaker Democratic candidate.

    The first Bush then dealt with Saddam Hussein. This definitely opened up and amplified the United States presence in the Arab lands of the Middle East. Desert Shield and Desert Storm entrenched us not only in little oil rich Kuwait, but in the land of Mecca, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. That was the next domino to fall to Iraq had we not gotten involved.

    Algeria, a huge gas producer, had a bloody civil war in the early 1990s, but we stayed out of it. We did not stay out of Somalia, while not as Arab as the other Near East countries, certainly a land with Arab and Muslim affinities. We took it hard as Bush tried to assert some presence with the UN, but like the Pakistani blue helmets, our troops also faced terrible deaths at the hands of tribal warlords, perhaps more motivated by power than jihadi extreme ideologies.

    Clinton kept Hussein in check with the no-fly zone, and marched forward with Arafat of Palestine and whichever Israeli prime minister, the ill-fated Rabin killed by his own in 1995, and eventually Ehud Barak being refused by the Fatah leadership by the end of Bill's run of eight years. We had kept the troops in Kuwait and Saudi Arabi, being bombed at the Khobar Towers, and increasingly drawing the ire of our former proxy fighter Osama Bin Laden, who while exiled from his native Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, found safer havens in Sudan and eventually Afghanistan, a place run by mainly thuggish and oppressive Muslim Taliban leaders and warriors.

    Which brings us to the fateful September of 2001, when the younger Bush had acceded the throne of the White House. The Arabs were now more than ever a priority to the security and peace of the biggest power in the world, the United States of America.

    U.S. troops and its coalition allies filled into Afghanistan first, then Iraq and Kuwait (and perhaps five other Arab countries) next. This is the world in the 21st century post vicious and unforgettable acts committed by Arab extremists on American soil: we are implanted in the Middle East, and even though we left Afghanistan precipitously in 2021 and parts of Syria under Trump during his first term, we are still well placed across the width and breadth of the Arab Near East.

    While the fight and rebuild of Iraq was widely criticized, now after twenty years the country is relatively peaceful with democratic voting that occurs regularly. It is not perfect. Many mistakes were made there, huge ones by the United States and others. We received a lot of complaints and accusations legitimately.

    George W. Bush (41) lead to eight years of Barach Obama, then Donald J. Trump, and next Joseph Biden followed by Trump again. 

    He is currently proclaiming moves and actions with the Gaza Strip, concerning some two million survivors of the raids and bombings, and in my opinion inhumane treatment that has transpired there the last year and a half.

    He has some ideas, but as I stated in the title of this post, I am not sure how many Arabs the President has dealt with. His ideas and words influence people, but I am not sure how much his thoughts are pushing the actions and policies of our people and other global citizens towards a lasting peace.

    He claims to want the best peace for all, but I am left wondering.

    He, like Joe Biden, wanted to remove our troops from Afghanistan. This happened in a poor and ineffective way in 2021. I did not think that our air support had to or should have been removed. We needed to keep the former Afghan democratic government in power, under control over the Taliban.

    Both presidents allowed the policies and will do to this. Not Bush, not Obama, and not would-be president and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

    The Afghans are not Arabs, but they are close.

    Will the Palestinian let themselves be divested of their homeland?

    Not likely.

    Let's solve our domestic problems as we can, and even try to end the Ukraine war.

    Great. If we can bring further peace and prosperity to the Arabs of the Middle East, even more wonderful.

    I am questioning how effective the current president will be with these Arabs in the Arab lands.

   Will it be the same as others? Are they a different breed and culture, much more foreign than others in other regions and language groups. Of course, we cannot lump them all together. Jordan is not Iraq is not Qatar is not KSA nor Sudan.

    It is more complex than we can really fathom.

 

    In the end, we shall see how the present president does, how the dialogs and initiatives will go. All sides will learn. Hopefully for the best.

    We hope the best for all.

    Calling this thought post for now.

    Peace.

    

    

Elon Musk - A Human Profligatory, Solvent and Soluble

    Making I am just making up words. Today at church I said "soluble" when I meant to say "solvent." Then I learned more about their relationship to each other, which is good to know.

    How to describe this Elon Musk, who is impacting so many American, and by default, millions of lives around the world so far, this past month? 

    Most of us are not in the top 1 percent of the world's wealthiest people. I believe that Elon is number one. Over 450 billion? We live in an age of new wealth, for sure. There is the cryptocurrencies, making some people wealthier than never before. And other innovative technologies, including all our social media, telecommunications, rare earth elements necessitated by new machines and devices, green movements to save our environments and planet, and on. Art and artistic clothes and boujee foods and other esoterica create their own economies. Skin care and other health items. Aphrodisiacs. Other enhancers. Not to mention illicit drugs. 

    Back to Musk. Worth, perhaps, 419 to 459 billion dollars. I did some calculations of the Americans in every net worth bracket, bottom twenty percent to the top ten. By the math I calculated, just Elon's amount of accrued wealth in 2025 is worth between 15-25 million Americans' collective wealth, which means approximately the bottom U.S. 10 to 15 percent of the population.

    I figured this on the median net worth of the poorest bracket of Americans in 2022, which was about 14,000 dollars. That means the person in the middle of the lowest twenty percent is only worth 14,000 bucks. They would be dependents on the state, invalids, homeless, perhaps extremely old or young people. The median came out to about 30 million citizens possessing as much wealth as Musk, but that means that half had more money, so I rounded down. 30 million would be almost the population of Texas. 15 million would be more like an overpopulated Illinois. Either way, 15 or 30 million poor Americans, that is a lot of people. Elon has as much purchasing power, perhaps as many as 15 million of our poorest.

    Some say: tax him more and help the poorest. Things do not always work so smoothly that way, but our governments are set up to provide aid and structure for the poorest, and even a lot of us in the middle and the top benefit hugely from all the contributions, of even the "little people". Protection, services, infrastructure, entertainment. Labor. Expertise. Innovation. Billionaires and millionaires need the masses to buy up their products. Be it the newspapers that bought up the Zip2 that originally made Musk and his partners successful, because the papers were bought and used by the rest of us, the millions, even the street urchins who used those paper rags to warm themselves in the alleys and deserted beaches of the nation, from sea to shining sea.

    The American dream and manifest destiny are alive well in 2025, and Elon is becoming, maybe, the man of the year again.

    While he is leading to the firing and early dismissal of thousands of government workers. Some were cashing in their life goals on these jobs and careers.

    How many Luigi Mangiones might be gunning for Sir Musk now? I am not threatening him, but I am saying that many people, more so than Mark Zuckerburg, who is pretty wimpy anyway, or nothing to him, would be willing to go some boxing or MMA rounds with this South African-Canadian-naturalized American multi-mega billionaire, father of thirteen (we think) and husband of at least five women, and counting.

    SpaceEx, Tesla, all these futuristic ventures and feats, the future of the world and the present with cutting out "unnecessary workers and divisions", that he is positive that are redundant or wasteful. Education, will be subsumed into the Department of Interior, no State. Energy jobs in the nuclear sector will be tracked by some else. USAID helping the foreigners? Let the Chinese and Russians, and maybe Iran Hizballah pick up the slack there. Those unwashed billions of people, who needs them? Cambodia? Let it be a Chinese colony and proxy.

    Hopefully my sarcasm and conjecture is not all that true. Perhaps Musk has all the silver and golden bullets?

    Maybe. He did a number on X, former Twitter, that seemed to sock it.

    I don't know.

    Blog it on.

 Shooting - Skills and Proficiencies

    Some of us are required to shoot rifles and handguns in order to earn our monthly checks. This includes law enforcement and military. Most of us have to hit so many targets, to be a certain level of accurate and maintain qualifications to be considered standard for the job in which we are employed. Others shoot rifles or other guns for fun, at ranges or in the wild. Some gain some good meat from the hunt in their rifle usage, while others are trainers and teachers who are paid to be gun experts.

    How many U.S. citizens shoot weapons regularly, either for professional reasons or sport? Out of 340 million inhabitants, maybe 50 million? Maybe more.

    I have to shoot some weapons proficiently, which scores can and do affect my job promotions. Self-esteem, bragging rights. Historically I am that great at it. Most of the time I am not very interested in shooting weapons. Some people love it. Not so much me. But I usually pass, and move on.

    Then there is what much of my life I have enjoyed shooting. A basketball.

    How many people shoot basketballs regularly? I used to do it much more, just for practice. Now I play pick-up games more; I play for points and wins and losses more than I practice shooting. But sometimes picking up a ball and shooting from different spots on the court hits the spot. 

    Here in the United States there must be at least a million of us who shoot basketballs. It is a popular sport and hobby. Some do it for official teams, and the best make some good or great money doing it. Shooting a basketball. Competitively.

    Within the sport of basketball, some players are more known for their shooting prowess. They are simply called shooters, which implies that they are good or great at shooting from long range: 20, 25, 30 feet away from the bucket. The other types of skilled players that do not necessarily shoot well are the big men who rebound, bang, and block shots, and the speed demons who dribble, pass, and play harrowing defense with their quickness and tenacity. However, notably, some of those guys, both big and small. But, of course, basketball is built to have shooters. The more the merrier, or better.

    A team with five or ten guys who can shoot the lights out, AND rebound, AND pass, AND dribble, and block shots and steal cookies (the ball), will almost always be the best one at the end.

    Shooting is huge. The best players that most of us acknowledge as the greatest of all time were great shooters. Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Lebron James Steph Curry, Larry Bird, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson. Granted, some names are missing from this list, that were more about their inside presence, or passing, and not necessarily for their pure shooting. Wilt Chamberlain, Shaquille O'Neal, Magic Johnson. It takes all kinds to be great in the sport, to make a team, and shooting is one aspect that is generally valued the most.

    So, there we have it.

    We now have great shooters from all over the world. They come from all corners of Europe, they are coming more and more from Asia, Africa, South America.

    Shooters. 

    Who do value the most?

    Guns using bullets, or hands plying a leather sphere hurled toward a rim with a nylon net?

    Ahh, shooting.

 Personal Black History - Explanation

    Every one of us have a personal Black history, no matter if we are Black or not. Some people are more part of it than others. A white person in Minnesota living in 1947 may not have lived miles from an African-American, may have not known any personally, but because he or she was a baseball fan, they became aware of the new guy on the block, Jackie Robinson. He, a figure  of American Black History, touched the lives of millions of U.S. citizens, of all hues and creeds. People who paid attention to baseball, or even some who did not, were a part of Black history.

    Maybe that same white family, again, who may not know any African-Americans personally, observed Jesse Owens amaze the world at the 1936 Berlin Games. Perhaps such a person in our shared history and national and international community inspired that family, hundreds of miles from those who are Black, to be a track athlete?

    

    No matter how Black, white, brown, or whatever racial background, genetics, or cultural influences you may have, all of us are a part of Black History. They are we, we are they, their history is our history, world history, national history, church history, community history.

    Personal history. 

    I see the world through many sports lenses, but we can also conduct our analysis through economics (which captures most of human studies, including the following:), the arts, government, the sciences, on and on.

    We call out and laud the first Black man to do this, or woman to do this. That's fair. We celebrate the firsts in many things, perhaps everything. The first in family to attend college, the first Guyanese in space, the first woman to pass Rangers school. 

    Each of us do and accomplish our firsts in life.

    A very famous case: Barach Obama. The first Black president. He is half white, and raised by his white mother and grandparents. So, in totality, not as Black as some might wish or hope. In the end, it does not matter how Black he is, but to some it does.

    He explains in his autobiography how he came to know Black culture better because of a close high school friend. In the United States, mainland, first Los Angeles and later the East Coast, he grew and evolved in his Black identity. In marrying Michelle in Chicago, he truly entered into the "Black Community". 

    Perhaps it is sad that in this day and age, in 2025, that we, or many of us, choose to or feel compelled to define how "Black" or how "white" or how "Asian" or how "whatever" it is. Take your pick: Jewish, Catholic, Irish, ghetto, rich/Buji. Buji? We say it a lot, meaning rich or elegant, or opulent. High class, or expensive.

    Anyway, this is Black History month; I am trying to analyze and honor it. That is what writers and thinkers do. Plus, this is my first day off work in twelve days. What else should I do?

    Some, including family that I am close to, have gotten mad when I try to identify further who and what people are. They can get righteously indignant, with "who cares"? "What does it matter?'

    This happened when I returned from a study abroad in Israel and the Holy Land, Palestine. We studied history, religion, identities, like Jewish, Muslims, Christians, and others.

    Some of us dig deeper and try to solve things, or at least understand things better.

    How Black are you? It is not all ethnicity and skin color. Also, Black and white do not always apply, as people are just people, very often. A worker, a mother, a student, a conscientious citizen.

    That is what we should be, in the end. Thoughtful and meaningful. Careful and notestaking.

    Yes. We are not a certain percentage of one race, culturally, or another. But we have tendencies that are generalized within different contexts.

    

    Right. Blog it.

    Shout out to Amarea and Gregory. Two Black people that I admired. We lost them too soon. 

    One last year, March 2024. The other the first month or so of the pandemic, 2020.

    God bless us all, of all shades and colors.

    

Trump and Vance are Not Very Good Republicans

    But from my point of view, not many Republicans are very good, either.

    And to be fair, I am writing about this instead of remarking on how my Hoosiers have lost yet another close one in Assembly Hall. This time to plucky UCLA. Every guy on their team stepped up to get the first win for them on the East Coast. Eastern or Central time. But anyway, this is about Republicans.

    Donald Trump is too extreme, and he is unmeasured. Maybe Vance is just the former. He is young. Forty years-old. Europe and NATO can do better, but not to sell out the Ukrainians. Is that what the current administration is doing? Are we letting Russia get away with murder, robbery, pillaging, and the disturbance of international and decency of the rule of law?

    This needs further review, I admit. But this might be a permittance of thuggery and mobocracy.

    Then we have a guy worth almost a half-trillion dollars to help decide to fire and cut hundreds and thousands of government employees, without much deliberation or due process. Sounds more like a Fascist or Communist purge than any efficiency move.

    Stupid. Republicans should not be stupid and unmeasured, but they are.

    Kick out hard working immigrants? No, does not make a lot of sense. Criminals who committed misdemeanors and felonies, sure.

    Republicans should not be extremists. Extremism ends up hurting us and the opponents, all of us, in the long run.

    I guess the policy debates by me need more fleshing out, more scrutiny and analysis than just issuing these blanket statements.

    I have personal issues with the president. Mostly about the military. Questions and concerns.

    I am not a Democrat, or a Libertarian. Or other parties. 

    I have been a Republican since 1996 or so. Bill Clinton convinced me. I am 25 years younger than Donald Trump, but he only has two more years registered as a Republican.

    What gives? 

    Other questions. More about integrity. Accusations and claims that are false. Lies.

    So, are we a party of hyperbole and false accusations now?

    I guess so. Not my kind of Republicans.

Bottom Feeder Thursday Night - College Basketball No Names

    Tonight I looked at the college basketball schedule, the games to be played, and it was mostly full of small schools and unheard of conferences filling the slate. Okay, I may have checked that yesterday night or so. I always try to be aware when Indiana or BYU are playing. Last Tuesday night was special, it got me fired up and more interested as to how things will play out.

    My Hoosiers and Cougars both won on the road, and have given them some chances, just maybe both, to be dancing in March. 

    One good game planned was Maryland at Nebraska. I tracked it some on my phone, then I observed the last 6 or so minutes. The Terrapins are good, they won it. Nebraska is not bad, but maybe not good enough. They are 6-8 now in the Big Ten Conference, tied with IU. One of them could or should get into the NCAA tournament, as some predicted the Cornhuskers a ten seed (our of 16), but as it stands I think the Hoosiers might be able to swap places. 

    UCLA tomorrow night will indicate a lot. And, the Big Ten Tourney could decides some things. For sure.

    Who were the nobodies tonight? Queens College? Queens University? Likely in Queens, New York. Monmouth? The Hawks? Quite a few teams with poor records. Like Oral Roberts on the tube right now. Losing in overtime to North Dakota State. 

    

    Memphis played tonight, they are ranked. Two teams with good records were: UNC-Wilmington against another program with a good amount of wins.

    UC San Diego is 20-4, beating up on 10-15 Cal St. Bakersfield.  Liberty wins, they are 19-5. Not bad.

    Oregon State is 17-8 in the New Pac 12. 

    Ooh, the Dons of San Francisco are playing the Gonzaga Bulldogs. That is a good match up, 20-6 versus 18-7. The Dons might make me eat some crazy crow. I thought that they were not that good, but they are good enough to beat quite a few, I think.

    Nobody teams, bottom feeders.

    346 Division 1 teams? How many conferences? Thirty?

    Binghamton. Campbell. NJIT. Who else? I forget. Forgettable. That is what they are.

    Small, (not South Florida, but poor record), isolated, barely heard of.

    But, and however, kids, young men, and young women, are attending schools, going to classes, learning about social atmospheres and sciences of all sorts, making their way through life, much of it because they can bounce, pass, shoot, rebound.

    The roundball. The courts. One part of our existence, one part of our exercises and recreation, competition, that leads to the successes and failures that all of us face, sooner or later.

    Indiana is 15-10. We need many more wins. Brigham Young is 16-8. Right? Both teams can play well, they have a lot of talent. And depth.

    They have names, and NIL money. Not all do. But we are all in the same game, going to the same goal.

    Participate, play, and win. Known name or not.