Big Men Define the Era, Represent the Time

    For those of us who love and follow basketball, a big man can help (greatly) make a team what it wants to be: strong, fast, dominant, victorious. There are many cases where this not work out, but we remember fondly, as the fans of such winning teams, when it does. When the tallest or biggest man on the court is the pivot and the center of success, when the team with that player is remembered and 

    Bill Garrett, a pioneering Black center for the Indiana Hoosiers, did not win the championship himself in 1953, but perhaps he helped set the stage for the Hoosiers later, not long after he left, to win their second NCAA championship. IU broke the racial separation segregation barrier in 1948, not long after Jackie Robinson came into the majors in baseball.

    But by 1976, it was certainly large man Kent Benson who was part of the championship (and undefeated) formula. In 1981, it was Landon Turner. In 1987, Dean Garrett. 

    There is a big man hope this coming season in 2024-25. Oumar Ballo. He reminds me of Shaquille O'Neal, physically. Could it happen? Kel'el Ware wasn't enough last year, although it had to do more with the smaller players around him that held IU back. The pivot was one of the strong points of the Hoosier squad.

    Before him we had four years of pretty dominant Trayvon Jackson-Davis, although arguably he was more a power forward, a four, not a five. 

    In the NBA today there are some great centers. Wembayama is projected to be an all-time great. Joel Embiid is amazing and competitive. There are a few others. Rookie centers like Victor of France are rather few and far between. The ones who won Rookie of the Year. David Robinson, Shaq, Hakeem Olajuwon, Kareem Abdul Jabbar in 1970.

    Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain in their era. George Mikan, they say, was the first to really establish the presence of the big man.

    Could IU have the big man and the rest of what it takes, like UConn the last two years? Klingan has left, thankfully.

    We can still hope for the once and ever big man.

    Oumar, we pray for you, and the smaller guys around you.

 Thoughts and Positions on Anti-Israeli Protestors

    I have many.

    1). Letting children or any people get sick, suffer, and die of starvation is always wrong. No exceptions. Some Israeli leaders should have very heavy consciences and shame and horror on their heads. I understand why people wish to display their outrage and disproval through open protest. We do not let other humans DIE and starve. Unless we are monsters. We feed the most needy and desperate.

    2). Some Gazan, West Bank, and Hamas leaders share a lot of the blame for the current fiasco, for the suffering and deaths of their own and many Israelis.

    3). U.S. protestors, most of whom are present on college campuses, are not all performative, as a person told me recently (I did not exactly accept nor correct their statement), but many of these people are informed and understand the injustices occurring in Palestine and Israel.

    4). In calls for divestment from Israel and its military, I personally believe that this is not necessary, but what needs to changed is the method and tactics that the Israeli Defense Forces are wiping out too many innocent Gazans and Palestinians. It is too heavy handed. Too cruel. I do not care how depraved the October 7, 2023 attack was, the retaliation should not kill, maim, and STARVE out anyone.

    5). Being anti-Zionist is not being antisemitic. We can discuss those differences, but not right now.

    6). The settlements of Israel and Zionists (not always the same) in Palestinian territories should stop, but unfortunately this process has been going on for decades, and has no signs of stopping. This ongoing appropriation of Palestinian Arab land is fomenting the hatred, animosity, and in the end violence between the peoples and the would-be states.

    7). There should be two states, as has been attempted over the years. We should not let the extremists on either side win. Moderation and sharing the Holy Land is the answer. Both sides deserve the right to live in peace and prosperity.

    8). Some U.S. Bible believers, millions of Christians, point to interpretations in the Bible as to what is happening, and that it is a fait accompli that such dire happenings are resulting and will continue to occur. I disagree. Many of us could change the scripts and the narratives of the current and future disasters there.

    9). The U.S. State Department and military, our represented officials, have failed these peoples a lot over time, and should do better. I wanted to be part of this process over the decades, but their hiring system shut me out. I tried a bit in my ways, but other people and processes have excluded me.

    10). The whole world can do better, including the United Nations. Muslims, Christians, Jewish, and others can do so much better. Praying, writing, and advocating for that day.

 Immersing Oneself in Another Culture

    I have lived in another culture quite immersed a few times (three), but each time I maintained my own cultural bubbles, and in the end I was not fully, fully immersed, or engrossed, or chilenized.

    For me it was Chile. We grow up in our respective places, be it India or China, Russia or Brazil, the U.S. or U.K, and we grow accustomed to those places and cultures.

    How much are we invested?

    Some can be some place for weeks, months, years, and only be invested or immersed like 10 or twenty percent.

    Some go deeper. I don't think it is possible to go one hundred percent enmeshed in another culture after so much time from another, but some can come close.

 Blogito, Ergo Sum, Blogitamamus

    Some of us can spend most of a week in front of a computer, the 

screens and screens, and then we resort to this laptop.

    Yep.

    Here I am, as described. 

    In my excuse, or as a caveat, I have been without my personal laptop for over a month because of technical difficulties. I retrieved it yesterday after spending some pretty pennies.

    First, the SSD or some nonsense, perfunctory, not far away, for 150 dollars. No fix. That, in April.

    I followed up with the Lenovo folks in Herndon, and got a warranty to save money, which pushed me to yesterday, because of a month's wait. For said warranty. I paid for a year. That should be enough, yes, with another 12 months after all those fixes, by a man from Persia and another from Central Asia?

    Makes sense.

    We live in great country, where I watch old movies with Paul Newman and before him Joan Crawford and Clark Gable and Robert Young, of Father Knows Best.

    Father Knows Best. Going back to over ten years, as a series, when my father became a father. In the time of President Eisenhower, who my mom's family is related to.

    Do we see the connections?

    Shak is half Uzbek, half Tajik, and understands a lot of Turkish.

    It all comes together!

    Things to do, journal entries to write, parties to attend, drills to attend and perform in.

    There. The screen time is all worth it.

    Right?

    

    

    

 Idaho, Illinois, Indiana (INDIANA!), Iowa...

    Idaho

    I think that I have met a disproportionate number of people

    From the Potato State

    Small population, relatively, but not for me

    I have spent little time there

    A little drive here and there, over the years

    But now we send our kids there to be educated

    College

Illinois

    Gone there lately to visit family

    Another way, there is traffic in Chicago

    Driving by, the suburbs and outskirts

    Driving through, late to church, ran the light to 

    Get there sooner, upset the man on the cross walk

    Hotel, not bad, but hard to move the kids

    Walked across the bridge to there, years ago

    With my stepfather

    Tracing history of George Rogers Clark

    

    A book connected to me

    And history

    

    Indiana, Our Indiana

    Everything, everywhere, all at once

    The state and places for me

    I went back last summer

    Did not go to my hometown

    Hung out a few hours away

    And learned, and lived, and worked, and read

    But I watch the games, of the college, the schools

    Even Purdue, lose to UConn

    And there is family and friends

    Iowa

    Known some folks from there

    Good people

    Driven it, seen the fields

    Saw the incredible, incredibly pink northern lights

    Well, in Illinois, on the way to Cedar Rapids and 

    Iowa City

    Places to camp and discover

    Or fly across

    

    

 The Guy Who Hates Religion

    I meet a lot of people at my work. I find most of them nice, or pleasant, or I find redeeming qualities in them. Lately there is a guy that I got to know over the last few months, since last fall, that has not sit with me well. He has bothered me the last few times. But, it has something to do with me, and it is not all him. These things happen.

    He is from a country where the religion could be called oppressive. And it is, for sure. So, there is that. But, he very American now. He does not go back to that country, or if he does, he stays clear from the government and religious authorities. He works in and for the United States. He is given the right to hate religions, and say so adamantly. We live and die to express ourselves freely here, with few extreme consequences for those who vociferously claim such things.

    I find him a dolt, but he has a right to be one. And, many people consider me doltish, I know.

    He comes from a place where religion has been exploited, abused and abusive, and now he lives in a place where he can be apart from it.

    So be it.

    I will try to keep this short. Some people accuse me of being long winded.

    I will try to like, or at least respect, and tolerate him. Try to be friends and friendly.

    He is free to feel negative against anything he wants. But he has it wrong about all religions, as he claims to hate.

    Not all are as bad as he claims. He also called out an imperfection on my face. I found a few with his head, but I did not say this out loud. Only here.

    Petty, pettiness. Not worth it.

    Will pray and think and act more positively.

    Yeah.

    

Bryce Harper and Other Contemporaries are Moving Up the All Time List of Long Ballers

 

140.	Jeromy Burnitz (14)	315	6580	L	HR Log
	Bryce Harper (13, 31)	315	6607	L	HR Log
	J.D. Martinez (14, 36)	315	6415	R	HR Log
143.	Reggie Smith (17)	314	8051	B	HR Log
144.	Iván Rodríguez+ (21)	311	10270	R	HR Log
145.	Jay Buhner (15)	310	5927	R	HR Log
146.	Edgar Martínez+ (18)	309	8674	R	HR Log
147.	Greg Luzinski (15)	307	7518	R	HR Log
	Al Simmons+ (20)	307	9520	R	HR Log
	Miguel Tejada (16)	307	9205	R	HR Log
150.	Fred Lynn (17)	306	7923	L	HR Log
Rank	Player (yrs, age)	Home Runs	PA	Bats	HR Log
	Carlos Santana (15, 38)	306	8324	B	HR Log
	Richie Sexson (12)	306	5604	R	HR Log
	Rubén Sierra (20)	306	8782	B	HR Log
154.	Raúl Ibañez (19)	305	8278	L	HR Log
	David Justice (14)	305	6602	L	HR Log
	Reggie Sanders (17)	305	7043	R	HR Log
157.	Steve Finley (19)	304	10460	L	HR Log
158.	Andrew McCutchen (16, 37)	302	8760	R	HR Log
	Anthony Rizzo (14, 34)	302	7124	L	HR Log

Hitting at a lower percentage (average than normal), but I think that he is healthy and his team is playing really well.

    I think he will finish high, for him, this season. Forty or so.