Sudan, Much Worse than South Sudan

    Recently I was noting a little about countries in crisis, where suffering and conflict are occurring. I wrote South Sudan instead of regular Sudan. 

    Sudan has serious problems now. For over a year. Millions displaced, thousands threatened by hunger and violence.

    Why do we not care as much? They are much different than what much of the West knows or cares about.

One Big, Huge Reason Soccer is Not as Popular a Sport in the United States: Stupid Rules, too Arbitrary

 One Big, Huge Reason Soccer is Not as Popular a Sport in the United States: Stupid Rules, too Arbitrary

 Orlando Cepeda Joins Willie Mays Beyond the Veil

    The second Hall of Famer from Puerto Rico (after Roberto Clemente) has passed. He was great, but sanctioned after his career for a marijuana bust. Too bad; he should have been inducted sooner.

    No matter, I guess, he received his due.

    Baby Bull Cha Cha, rest in peace.

 Struggle and Fight for Wealth

    Most of us put in concentrated effort, time, and work to become a functional part of the greater economy, which in turn helps us as individuals to survive or thrive in the world, where we pay for ourselves and others, which includes the taxes that we submit for the governments we live under and the benefit of all. In the world of economics all goods and services have a value; most of us are a part of it, in the big and the small.

    Disparities abound; over the centuries many have claimed that this wrong and unfair method or system of letting some to live in abject or close to desperate poverty while many are amazingly rich and powerful, and in the U.S. case most somewhere in between. The middle classes.

    We all work, some less than others. We are not remunerated the same. Some people have great ancestors and inheritance. Others have amazing talent or some luck and access and achieve high levels of pay. Some work hard, long, and smart. Many accomplish their life's goals of earning their wealth during or for preparation for retirement. Some never make it, dying prematurely.

    Each government, each culture, each community, corporation and business, we all struggle and fight to create the ways of living that we would like to attain.

    Economists, or at least many of them, like to claim to know how to fix things, or make them functional for more gain and prosperity. Politicians too. Pundits, some journalists or historians.

    Karl Marx swayed a lot of people. So has Milton Friedman. 

    What are the best ways?

 A Story that I wrote in 1993, from Provo, Utah

    I was 22 years old when I wrote this. It was my first year living in Utah, my first year of studies at Brigham Young University. I always wanted to write, but it could be hard to get things organized.

I will call it "Hector", some 30 plus years later. It had no title nor date affixed to it in my notebook.

    Hector

    When Hector was young he flew the kites in the spring with his schoolmates, and a few boys who didn't attend school. They ran and shouted as the classes ended, running towards their homes, where their fathers had helped them construct the kites, and where their mothers awaited with homemade bread, and their sisters would sing and clap, while even the street dogs frolicked in the wind, exasperated at the thought of so many boys running to and fro.

    The dusty streets became well-trodden with the commotion of spring, and the wind lifted the kites into the smiling sky, smiling for the time of year, blowing past the rainy months of winter, and gently arriving in the national holidays of September. Hector's heart soared beyond the clouds, into the rays of heaven, made blue like the western mountains, only endless and infinite and sculpted by dozens of earthbound pilots. Sailors of the fathomless sunny sea all edging their way through eternity.

    But that was long ago, and Hector had since grown out of childish exploits and adventure, and since then had sunken old in a wheelchair. No one was left of the family, a neighbor brought by bread freshly baked, but it wasn't the same as his mother's. His father had died quite young, his sister had married and was across the mountains. His mother was just recently buried in the town's high cemetery. It was impossible to go there in a wheelchair. 

    Hector sat alone and thought. Stared out the window at the dead-end street of soot and half buried stones. He saw the neighborhood children run with their kites in the spring, forgetting about the school notebooks on their dead-end streets.

    He was skinny and frail, with deep sunken eyes. His legs didn't move. His hands were shaky, feeble and withered. The radio was his string to the eternities, yet he couldn't quite see his kite his father and he had made. He had a hard time smelling the warm sopaipilla that were brought to him by the neighborhood children. Its taste was bland like some neutral colorless clay. It warmed his mouth, but his unfeeling stomach just let it die there. His bowels just let it return to the earth by cold running water from the streams of the far-off mountain.

__________________

The notebook was found by my daughter a couple days ago; she is close in age to what I was then.

She read other random comments and words in it and said," That is where I get it from!".

It was nice to review some of these old words and thoughts.

      

 Places That Need to be Fixed

1. Israel and Palestine.  Generations have seen it devolve and spiral down into an existential morass. In the early 2000s, and even later, I tried to get into the U.S. State Department to work on this. They did not take me. Perhaps I would have been another cipher in this complete conundrum, since October 2023 fallen into a wicked state of violence, privation, and starvation.

    Deplorable, so avoidable.

2. Ukraine and Russia. Russia has been a despotic empire for centuries. They will be eaten up from within. Too much draconian oppression, they will be crushed, as they reap what they sow.

3. South Sudan. Yikes. Why all the tribal hatred? Political infighting, literal hostility and killing of innocents.

4. Yemen. Too many Hizballah-backed Houthis.

5. Syria. Still craziness among the Bashar Al-Assad government and the rest, including Islamic State.

6. New Caledonia? Natives are restless against France.

 Taking Stock, Counting Blessings

    Sometimes in life we can review things and focus on the negative. Personally, or even globally, things can seem too hard or pessimistic. This is a bit of my plight lately. And yet, there is so much to be thankful for. So much! I must evaluate and re-evaluate, and see and sense all the good. There are many, many things to appreciate and love.

    I have failed a few things lately, and I wake up thinking about those things. However, overall, I am winning. I have winning hopes and aspirations. Many of my dreams are coming together. Despite the negatives.

    What are the negatives? As a member of the military, I have not promoted as I and others have wanted. This translates in immediate lesser pay, but also reduced duties and respect and authority. This is a thing that wears on me over the years...

    But, the glasses are more than half full.