Pity, and Wallow, and Shame

 Lâstima, y tristeza, y vergüenza

I was thinking of these things

Feeling these things

Remembering

Reflecting

Talking, or texting with my friend who is in far worse shape

I communicate with him

Drawing away from my own islands of sorrow

Smaller in comparison

Count up the good

My favorite Players per NBA Team, 2026

    I will start with my number one player favorite in the NBA. It is now in 2026, but he may become my all-time favorite. He went to my school in Provo, Utah, brought glory and good vibes to it, and I will love him forever for what he did for the school and what he said about my Church and the Book of Mormon. As far as I know, he is quality as a person from beginning to end. His confidence is not hubristic. He is well grounded, kind, nice, and a winner.

    AJ Dybantsa (1). I may get a jersey of his, which I have never done for any player in the NBA, NFL, and only once in the MLB. (Tim Raines). I am almost 56 years old. Big NBA fan since 1986.

    Go Wizards! You are likely my new favorite team. Go Wiz.

    Who would be next?

    Pacers? 

    Tyrese Halliburton (2). He brought a lot of joy, entertainment, excitement, hope, and admiration to the home-based Indiana Pacers. Took them to the finals, unexpectedly. Wishing you the best! You are a bit like Reggie Miller. Here's hoping.

Who comes in third? An underdog... Utah Jazz. 

    I will go with the L.A. Clippers next, fourth. 

    Okay, da Jazz: (I have to check): I guess I go with Lauri Markannen, because he is Finnish, not because he attended the University of Arizona. While I loved the Wildcats in 1997 for beating the vaunted Kentucky Wildcats, I am not so much a fan since. Better them, however, than Duke, UNC, Kansas, UConn, or Florida. Or UCLA, when lording it over my Indiana Hoosiers. Or BYU Cougars. Or even the Boilermakers or Utes!

    Clippers. I had to think of the state I lived in a while and which team I would derive the most pleasure from winning. Not the Lakers! Not the Warriors. Go Clips. Or even Kings.

    Rui Hachimura (4). Always impressed, I liked him with the Wizards. I like his Japanese-Beninese heritage. Go Rui!

    Next up... Hmmmm. Kings. No, I lied. Suns.

    Phoenix (5). I'll go with Collin Gillespie. I like his moxie.

    Now Kings (6). Damontas Sabonis. His dad is a legend, he is a dog. Is that two Gonzaga dudes now? Ichhh... They cannot help it. AJ will surpass them all! Go Brigham Young!

    Next,uhh... Cleveland? (7).  Sam Merrill. Represents the Church of Jesus Christ, Utah State. Second place, Thomas Bryant. Indiana Hoosier forever.

    Maybe I go...alphabetically... Nah, Atlanta. (8) Kingston Flemings. This guy is a killer, I think. Fun to watch, so forceful.

    Ok, to the order of the site. Boston. (9) Paul George. Brought some love to the Pacers. I pull for him.

    Brooklyn. (10) Egor Demin. Picked BYU for his one and done. Not his fault that his Russian murderer president Vlad the Impaler is a bad, evil, leader. Unlike Alex Ovechkin, he does not support Putin. If he does, I will drop Demin like a rock. Go Ukraine. Stay free and safe. Vladimir? Many will see you in hell.

    New York. The champs (11) OG Ananoby. Love the guy. Hoosiers.

    Philly Sixers (29) Taco Fall. The name alone. And the height. He be entertaining. (Finding my mistakes listing all 30.)

     Toronto. (12) Trayce Jackson-Davis. Four years with the Hoosiers! Thanks for trying. Seriously.

    Chicago. (13) Matas Buzelis. I like his background. I think I dislike the schools of most of the others.

    Kevin Huerter. Detroit. (14) Impressed me at Maryland. I like his style and his unconventional red hair. If that is not an under dog, I do not know what is. Bill Walton, anyone? 

    Milwaukee Bucks (15) Kel' el Ware. Hoosiers!

    Denver (16). DeMar DeRozan. De Old dog, wid the De Old School Mid De Range.

    Minnesota (17). Donte DiVincenzo. But I am curious about this new guy Rocco Zikarsky. What a name! What is in a name? With a name like that, some of us have to be fans.

    Oklahoma (18). Bennett Stirtz. Iowa guy. Hopefully a good influence to many.

    Portland (19). Deni Avdija. Israeli. Cool to see compete. What is that name? Yang Hansen has me intrigued. Chinese? Norwegian? 

    Lakers. I have hated them, historically. Too much success. (20) Sandro Mamukelashvili. May he flounder with the Lakers and bring glory to his home country. Georgia, anyone?

    Charlotte. (21) Hannes Steinbach. Studly and cool in college. He is going to eat some people up in the pros.

    Miami. (22) Tim Hardaway, Jr. I liked his dad. This guy passed up pops by 9 inches.

    Orlando (23) Franz Wagner. We like some Germans. Keeps the game honest.

    Dallas. (24) Kyrie irving. Never helped Duke much and he got handles, yo.

    Houston (25) Bogdan Bogdanovic. Love the Balkans. Shout out to the Doncic, too. Entertaining.

    Memphis (26) Richie Saunders. BYU man. Not signed yet? Get a clue, Memphis.

    New Orleans. (27) Bennedict Mathurin. He got game. I believe.

    San Antonio (28). Dylan Harper. I like his dunks.

    Whoops. I miscounted. There should be 30 total. 

    Good enough for now...

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

        

 All - Time Indiana Hoosier Team

    Walt Bellamy, center.

    Alan Henderson, power forward.

    Calbert Cheaney, small forward.

    Steve Alford, shooting guard.

    

    Isaih Thomas, point guard.

    It would be fun to see these guys run at their primes. The guards are undersized, but I think that they would offset any defensive liabilities with their amazing offensive prowess.

    Go IU.

    Fight, fight, fight!

    Trying to get a favorite Hoosier for this season. Last season? Maybe the best scorer... but he was one and done. Typically he needs to be there longer.

    Go, my guys. Hope they can break into the Big Dance, 2027. It has been too long...

Happy Birthday, and Thank You!

    Dearest Mother-In-Law,

    This is a belated birthday wish and a letter of appreciation, as it were.

    When I think of you, many impressive things come to mind. You are a super good person for many reasons. I will explain a few of them. But know that I love you; you are beloved by hundreds if not thousands of people, living and dead, and of course God and His son and all the saints and angels. You are on the right side of righteousness, which is the best place to be. You are quite special and choice.

    Before you became a mother of eight outstanding human beings, raising them and making them the best people that I know, who all incredibly have supported and sustained me for over 26 years in my associations, marriage, and child rearing with your fourth child and our five of your multitudinous grandchildren, you were the daughter of two humble parents in Pasadena. You and your sister and three brothers grew and became pillar parts of your communities and groups, professions and associations throughout all your lives. I got to know each of them to various degrees. They, like you, are loving, supporting, and conscientious, devoted, and kind. We love all of you.

    You set yourself up for success, going to college, marrying and being committed to your family and God, your fellow members of society and your neighborhood.

    When I first met you you were working as a dutiful middle school teacher, and maybe you were teaching part time at the local junior college. I enjoyed learning about your art work and your teaching experiences, and your service to others and random acts of kindness, sometimes with little prompting. Spontaneously righteous or Christlike.

    

    Always exemplary.

    You always were welcoming in your house while I dated your daugter. Later, after I graduated from a a master's program without a job lined up in my hopeful position in the State Department, you let me, your daughter, (my wife), our first daughter and later our second daughter stay in your house for two years! It enabled us to earn and save money and pay off the graduate loans that we had accrued, live abroad and then move to the East Coast.

    You always communicated with us, sending us nice cards and birthday money and wishes. You visited us once we moved out to the East Coast, you traveled with us to Chile, you always welcomed us in your home in California.

    You have been a tremendous boon to me and my family's life. Your stalwort faith and dedication has been noteworthy, to people of all stations. President Dale Poulson, my mentor when Branch President of the Spanish Sixth Branch, always noted that you were a saint and a force of good. I concur. 

    You are a great person, teacher, artist, mother, wife, member of the faith of our people, grandmother, great grandmother, and a boon to the country and its citizenry.

    Thanks for being you and for all you are and have been.

    

    You are awesome and sweet.

    Love you forever, 

    Your 26 plus year son-in-law.

    

Demography is One of my Favorite Subjects

    But, perhaps my math was too klunky or slow.

    Too klunky or slow.

    Oh, Eduardo! How could you mistake the DeCameron for the Canterbury Tales!

    Yes, colour me guilty, as charged.

    Not tightly wound enough, not polished, but more generally vast and even vapid.

    My daughter works on the social sciences of demography now. It brings me back to my time at UCLA.

    Times of thought and promise.

    Church growth, but of little matter. The science, including math and formulas, and greater data, was not focused and concentrated enough.

    Statistics and regressions.

    Too ... widely spread, the knowledge and lack of discipline.

    Leading to perceptions and failures across the board.

    Distracted and meandering, accussing of OC, or ADHD, and all the other acronyms of sickness and lack of mental acuity, or acerbic capacities.

    All those negatives.

    Speaking of distracted, I wish to re-read the book about the Rock of Jerusalem and the books by famous authors in and around Fortaleza, Brazil.

    yes. yeah. Yay.

    

Sports are Easier, Simpler. Better Clarified, Less Messy

    Maybe that is why. Heiristics to help some avoid the harder problem sets.

    Distractions with flashy colors and personalities to pull us away, in a perhaps indulging escapism, moving us away from harder, or even better and more useful informations and knowledges.

    

    Easier to talk about the New York Knicks and the Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers than the crime rates of Baltimore or the violence perpetually wrought in Yemen or other parts of the world.

    Science and economics, topics that make our lives better, yet they are harder to grasp, to get our heads around, to entertain and amuse.

    Yeah.

    What about those Lakers this year? Too many white guys to succeed, Stephen A. Smith?

 The Man of Disappointments

    There once was a man, who did not always succeed,

    He ran into obstacles, he disappointed his seed.

    Or his spouse.

    Some times it was bosses, who found him quite lacking

    His confidence sent packing

    From day to day or year to year.

    Not achieving the overarching hopes or dreams.

    His time needs or productive outputs.

    Welcome to failure, welcome to this world.

    Mediocrity. Rejection.

    Disappointment.

    

    Perhaps too long he failed to push the right ways.

    Settling for less then, not trying hard enough.

    Not going far or fast enough...

    But he has hopes, beyond Jesus, his country,

    The dreams of all.

    He maintained those hopes.

    He himself recognized some wont of greatness within him

    Perhaps he gave up years ago

    With time and some efforts

    That he could not 

As My Stomach Turns - World Political Turmoil and Us

As My Stomach Turns - World Political Turmoil and Us. And Me.

    Things are not perfect in the world. They rarely are. Many of us are not too affected by higher prices, higher fuel costs and food, or awful credit or mortgage rates that are untenable...

    No perfections found, really. As would-be economists we need to manuever the dismal sciences of efficiencies and demands. Let's make do.

    Figure things out individually, collectively. Let the best minds decide and make choices. For the better. The betterment of all.

        Where to start? Where it ends in the Bible? In the Holy Land? Israel and Palestine. The never ending battles, debates, human rights abuses and hatreds. Unending.

    How to end it? We need a smart, dedicated, confident group of acerbic Americans or other leaders and people of sound judgment to settle the awful siituations there.

    C'mon, world.

    1. Russia versus Ukraine.

    2. Iran versus the world. To include confederate Shia proxies in Iraq, Yemen.

    3. Fighting in Congo, Rwanda, Burundi. Many people fighting over some rotten apples. (Perhaps not accurate or too simplistic.

    4. Somalia. Terrorism. Al-Shabab.

    5. Nigeria. Boko Haram.

    6. Ethiopia. Tigray tensions.

    7. What have I forgot? There are other bad issues roiling places of the world.

    8. Eco-terrorists? People who fight to save the planet, one tree or climate change prevention at a time.

    9. Fossil fuel fights. Space development and exploration.

    10. Artificial Intelligence battles.

    11. Cyber shenanigans.

    12. Electronic warfare? Not sure of the overlaps.

    13. China mapping out over Taiwan and the western Pacific.

    14. Drug cartels. 

    15. Over nationalistic causes in the sub-continent.

    16. The ice areas melting. Temperatures rising. See eco-terrorists. The cost of being greener.

    17. Did my dumb, faulty computer erase my last ones?

    18. North Korea.

    19. Mad economic schemes.

    20. Inflation and exhorbitant prices.

    21. Not replacing population.

    22. Cutting off medicine and the proliferation of HIV and malaria.

    23. Poverty.

    24. High priced education.

    25. Increased marijuana THC levels, inducing psychosis and violence.

    26. Pollution.

    27. Cheaper, greener energy. Wind, solar, geothermal. What else? Hydroelectric.

    28. Drying up of aquifers and rivers. Ice melting. Seas rise, islands and coasts inundated.

    29. Religious competition, persecuion.

    30. Radical movements. Violent or persecutory ideologies.

    31. Pornagraphy and sexual exploitation.

    32. Greed.

    33. Mental illnesses.

    34. Traffic safety and death.

    35. Cancer and other deadly and impairing diseases.

    36. Ivy league elite smugness.

    37. Pride.

    38. Unfaithfulness.

    39. Apathy.

    Ok, who cares about forty things. 

    You? Me. We should.

    Blog it.

 Who is Left Undefeated? Not many. Georgia Screwed Up. Texas Has Lost Twice!

    My Cougars are left, as is UCLA. We eliminated Notre Dame in Provo, as Miami stayed unscathed in the rain against a pesky Florida State who could not do enough in double overtime to stamp out the Canes.

    Who is left?

    Miami, BYU, UCLA. Texas Tech? Anyone else? Buehler? BUEHLER? (That means crickets. That means silence. That means nothing. No one. No one else with not blemishes in the loss column...

    Am I right?

    Four teams?

    Mine is one? Of four? Only four?

    Can this be? Third weekend of October?

    Scanning the map... 

    Many really good teams have two losses. Hmmmm... Ole Miss. Has lost. All of them.

    And then there were four.

    Perfection is not easy.

    Oh, yeah. I keep forgetting Utah.

    FIVE. 

    This season will continue to remain interesting.

    Play on.

    Blog on.

    Blog it.

    Or, does anyone truly care about college football at the national Division 1 level?

    There is one more team undefeated, less heralded. There has to be. Lemme check.

    Oh, yes. James Madison. 7-0. Number 29 but moving up. Who else do they have left?

    I can check my magazines...

    There six lossless left.

    Amazing. Meanwhile, I have accrued personal losses in increasing volumes...

Four Point Games! October 17, 2026. Historic College Football Games

    What a day, what a Saturday. Both my schools, undefeated, played two other top-ranked schools.

    College football, packed houses in my home town of Bloomington, and the other home of Provo. I lived a total of 22 years in one and five in the other. Been back to both numerous times since.

    Indiana had the killer Buckeyes, that we had not beat in 30 regular season games! Yikes. At least the national champion Hoosiers beat them last year in the Big Ten championship.

    I came into the game reticent, hesitant, not sure. About the greatness of IU. Indiana had a last play to miraculously win it, but Nick Marsh used the wrong foot, was out, and we lost.

    By four. It's okay. Indiana still has the whole season ahead of it, and can make the CFP. Playoffs. We just need to roll Michigan and play right. It should be good under Cignetti, I say.

    The boys will be all right. Becker was great. The defense was good enough. Radocic, the kicker, may have cost IU. Because, his missed field goal let Ohio State off the hook for an easier final score.

    Right?

    Am I mixing up the BYU game now?

    Four points.

    Late night Cougars downed the Irish!

    It was a thing of mostly beauty the first half. Cougars 21, Notre Dame 10. But the second half got too tight. A bad call, in my and others' opinion, on an offensive interference call on Kasper stopped a big go ahead touch down. Would have been a lead of 18. But, drive negated, the Cougs started to self destruct.

    DeVries muffed a punt, Irish got 3 from a field goal. 21-13. BYU muffed a punt, Notre Dame pulled to 21-16. Defense was stout for BYU. But then number two played like number 2 in the nation. They scored a touchdown, going ahead.

    Then BYU played like #2, as they hope to be this week.

    And finally, the defense held on to stop AJ Carr, the very good QB, in the BYU endzone.

    Cougs by four.

    Celebrations in or at Lavell Edwards Field. Including family. My daughter got in!

    BYU should be #2 in the land. Utah is good, but likely not as good as Notre Dame.

    Things are all right for Indiana and Brigham Young.

    Both top ten, heading for the College Football Playoffs in December.

    For now.

    Love it.

    

    

 Mental Illness, Mass Shootings, Marijuana

   A sixteen-year old shoots 3 minors and a teacher to death. Bend, Oregon.

My first question: how much did the teen smoke marijuana?

Mental illness has no easy fix.

Guns and proliferation of them can be very wrong, problematic.

THC levels in cannabis consumed exacerbates all of the above.

People are slow to learn and understand.

God bless us to be wise, stay safe.

 The Planet of Souls

    My favorite singer Sting sings songs from his album "The Soul Cages". He sings about the "Island of Souls". About people, us, earthlings, humans. Men, women, a few kids, perhaps a few cats, dogs, and turtles.

    Nah. About just us humans as primates. We are human, even though many animals and some plants exhibit intelligent behavior and instincts, reasoning or crazy acts.

    We are between the best and the worst. We are found in the middle.

    Us souls in the middle. We do things routinely, but some things we do randomly. 

    Many of us mow lawns. In the United States the lawns that we mow, or cut with tractors and all those machines that chop down and hew the grass. The grasses of the United States, that most of us see everywhere, adds up to the size of Iowa. We collectively mow the territory of Iowa, some of us weekly. I try to push it to 9, 10, 11 days. No one pays me do provide this service. I only did the backyard, which has some steep slopage.

    I used some old sneakers, which maybe I bought in California, if so, over two decades ago. I had used those sneakers here in Virginia, and I liked them. But the souls of the sneakers were loose and coming off, and sure enough as I mowed as the sun was setting and it got darker on this hot, 90 degree day of mid-October. Post southern hurricane Isaias.

    Cuece and cose are different verbs in Spanish, despite what my co-worker said that the campesinos mispeak, los "no educativos". Maybe she did not say it that way, but she was saying that the uneducated rubes in El Salvador get it wrong.

    Con lo mismo que se cuece. Las habanas, etcetera.

    The souls of my shoes, the souls inhabiting the planet. We all intermix and mow the grass, sometimes falling off and being left by the wayside.

    But we find ourselves, and we collect our souls, and we maybe tape them up, and perhaps we will use them for another day.

    Another mow. Another lawn cut. Other grasses sheaved or torn, cut and collected.

    Iowa, Iowa, Iowa.

    Calling all Iowans. Like Sam, with whom I worked a few months this year.

    Calling all souls. On the feet, the ones that we wear that support us. The souls of the dead, or the unborn, or the ones that we all posssess here and throughout the universe.

    Soul music, soul food; it's not all just a black thing, Black thing.

    Our souls all come together and we mow, cut, collect, sweat, breathe, observing the light fade out.

    Fade out. Like some of the souls of today, slide into the netherworlds of the past.

    And off our world, away from the planet. Perhaps the molecules of the dead are planted under grasses in cementeries, or the ashes of the cremated, and they convert into dirt and other things... Compounds or elements of helium, hydrogen, carbon and all those miniscule particles.

    But, the soul remains. The soul cages. The soul rages. Our souls: we prevail.

    Like Israel. Like God. Like goodness. Like all the similes of all existence.

    Prose and poetry, you have it all here and there.

    Poetry elides into prose.

    Words and sounds and thoughts and ideas.

    Ideals and precepts, marching onward forever.

    You, me, and God makes three.

    But there are more, however. However, there is more than just us, but.

    You know. You cut the grass with me, and saw the sneakers fall apart.

    My souls fell to the wayside; they were collected, gathered, recovered, restored.

    From sea to shining sea.

    Like my daughter's future celebrations.