Places and Things

    I was reading some Erma Bombeck, earlier this year; I realized she was writing stuff 'n such back in the 1970s or whenever that was more or less what I have tried to write. Essays on this and that, observations or pithy commentaries on life and death and taxes.

    I have read some Woody Allen, the great and later mostly sleazy film director; he was much of the same vain. Kind of like now I read the book by comedian/writer come U.S. Senator Stuart Smalley. Okay, that is not his real name, but that is a character he has made famous, and ghost written.Okay, I cannot think of his real name as I write this post at the end of a long day. (Footnotes per Al Franken, would be inserted her with a * or symbol, and say something about a long day being when you wake up before 4 am and run around the block a few times to get sweaty and drop a few more pounds before a weigh-in at 7ish. All a battle going for years. A personal mission or struggle, or quest, if you will.

    So, henyway, here's a few items.

    SYRIA

    Hayat Tahrir Al-Shem (HTS) is marching to the gates of Damascus, now that they have taken Aleppo (Haleb), Homa and now Homs. Next stop: the capital. The Arab Spring lives! Thanks to the Russian attrition and ineptitude, and the Israelis pounding the Hizballah and Shia-supporters in Lebanon and everywhere. Syrians who were pounding everyone else are nervous or clambering for resources. 

    Turkey is happy. They have been holding a few million Syrians for a long time. Over half a generation.

    UKRAINE

    The Ukrainians are fighting and dying and losing some land, but the costs of the war with Russia may cost Russia most in the long run. Perhaps Ukraine will cede 25 percent of the former country? I hope they maintain a majority for the long term. Ukraine deserves its own country and sovereignty. It is its own place, no matter what Putin and a million other demagogues claim or assert.

    The Russians fight dirty, are dirty, and will reap what they sow. Which is ruin. The smartest and most well gifted and endowed people to make the worst decisions. 

    Too bad. Really, quite a shame.

    CHINA

    The economy is not good there; the women do not want to have enough children. They have huge billionaires, who are famous and ostentatious, but the government acts like some authority that allows the people to prosper when most of them struggle to live. 

    They are having struggles with economics and home ownership and loans, perhaps in some ways like the United States back in 2008-2010. The Great Recession.

    INDIA

    Dirty and poor, and creating pollution, but getting wealthier and cleaner. We hope. More populous than China for a while now. But hope does come. Some people think there are too many people. We can understand those thoughts.

    FRANCE

    Politically upheaved, as it were, Emmanuel Macron has been set for jettisoning, as he has received a no confidence vote or two. He introduced the new Notre Dame, the one that burned down five or so years ago. France will get a new leader.

    REST OF WORLD: 

    Oil is not that high, but I think it is flowing. EVs, Electric Vehicles, are growing but not as fast many environmentalists would like. Or the politicians that advocate them. They are expensive and many things are not convenient about them. EVs and politicians.

    There.

    Whoops, forgot:

    SOUTH KOREA

    The president or prime minister is looking to be ousted, maybe named Hoon. He tried to declare martial law, was overruled by the congress, and now things look like they will transition in an unusual change of power.

    There. Feel better now. Happy Sunday, hope it was for all.

    Abu Mohammed Al-Golani is the guy in Damascus.

Police Connect Us, the Protection of the Community, Countering Crimes

    Most of us do not commit crimes. At least not violent or nasty ones. Some of us speed on the roads, but we avoid hurting others. The police are there to protect us; even though we loathe getting the tickets and fines, we all know that they are out there to protect us and each other from worse harm.

    

    We need laws. Some say the governments overreach too much, and we understand that some can invade our lives too much or be oppressive.

______________________________________

    I wrote that a day or two ago.

    Today I continue, wanting to write and claim some forms of continuity or art.

    Books made up of stories, novels that connect characters and feelings.

____

    Police get into some daily struggles, to include boredom. But there are all the headlines and the troubling times, that make up the work. Enforcing the law, not being killed or dying, not killing others, or even abusing them.

    Police have real stories, like some soldiers, or Marines, or even others in their jobs: I sang "Dee Doo Doo Dah" last night, on the wife's new karaoke machine. "Poets, priests, and politicians". "Don't mess with the Missionary Man." --The Eurythmics.

    Annie Lennox and Sting and the millions of others, poets or lyrics as Mellencamp sings in "Check it Out." That song and theme were in my head a lot this week.

    We work on the daily cases; some turn into many weeks. We can do our work in minutes or hours. Depends on the job.

    My co-worker had some successes this week; he was congratulated. Our jobs matter and make a difference. That is nice and cool

    HTS takes cities and land in Syria, most of the Northern Hemisphere is getting colder. My daughter lives and serves there, just a continent or so away.

    I have, too.

    We are lucky and blessed to re-tell and re-live the tales.

    Police do, too.

    Blessed are the peacemakers.

    Whether you believe in God or justice or not, you must love peace and order. Or at least Mom.

    Peace.

    Peace be unto us.

Gravity, Power, Love

    Big things, certainly. We all are in the worlds and universes of gravity. The power under which, through which, by which, all of us are held. Held together. 

    There are galaxies many millions, or even billions of miles and kilometers away, from us on our orb, that as far as I know, are tethered together by this ultimate power. Is gravity bigger and more powerful than energy? Well, gravity is its own type of energy.

    I think I wanted to discuss energy by itself, or in relation to the above, but it is in all of them. 

    Gravity keeps us all in tow. Spinning and fixed, all of it.

    That is power. All that energy, keeping the gaseous gigantic ovens in their orbitals and paths, across the huge firmaments and expanses, our heavens. Endless and infinite, seemingly.

    I think I should say: THAT IS POWER! 

    So power is generated in hydrogen and all these huge stars, which apparently spew out planets. Astronomers give us all the math and physics that goes with it, as the man of Bloomington that I knew, Hollis Johnson would teach and preach and do in his long career at Indiana University, before and after Denmark, and then back to Utah where he apparently forgot it all. But that, in his mortal realm. Many of us trust Hollis has graduated to a place of no forgetting. A place in the heavens with our God, and gods, if you may.

    Power, energy, the millions and billions of gallons of oil left over from past carbon-dated life. We burn it every second of every day, the billions of us on this fragile yet miraculous and fantastical earth that we share, and love.

    Yes, there is love. Hate abounds in many quarters, but love is greater.

    There is love and unity, harmony and balance, across the universe and cosmos.

    There are those of us that do not feel it, or the feelings and evidence is illusive, but:

    Love is there. Care is present. Yet, there is the vast expanses, endless fathoms, of darkness and cold. 

    In some of those depths lies the oil, the latent sitting energy that lights our homes. Buildings. Factories, ships, and vehicles. Our cities and computers, all our electronics.

    Plus, the gas, and the wind and solar power. From the planet's crusts and caves come geo-thermal power.

    All creation and creations, a wonder or wonders.

    And there is God, and love, and peace. 

    We must seek them. Harmony, nature, kindness, strength. 

    Constancy, consistency, endurance, growth.

    Progression and advancement.

    Learning and love. Reconciliation.

    

    The planets, stars, and us.

    We are all one and together. We should make the best of it.

    

    

IU Soccer Team Loses to Denver: the Sport is Not very Fair, therefore Wrong

    I have sour grapes for this result, for sure. I love it when we win, but it does not seem fair too often, especially because Indiana men tend not to foul as much as their opponents. 

    I thought that the men were playing today, Sunday, instead of yesterday Saturday. Yesterday was a big day of American football. My Indiana Hoosiers finished out a historical season, pounding Purdue 66-0, to get to be 11-1 and likely earned a place in the College Football Championship. Top twelve teams! BYU held on to beat Houston, 30-18, and even though they came up short of the Big Twelve Championship, the Cougs were a couple of errant passes away from perfection; they rocked a few boats around the country. A very good year at 10-2. They should get a respectable bowl and opponent, even though they came up short of what many of us thought they could accomplish by mid-October. But, there were too many close wins and close losses. They maximized a few good wins, I would say.

    But this post is about Indiana men's soccer.

    Alas! We lost to Denver, not sure what their nickname is, as they do not have a major football team, nor a very successful basketball program. They are doing well in soccer, now in the Elite 8, but here is my problem with the game that they beat IU: fouls disparity.

    I was chagrined, non-plussed, disappointed,  because I followed this team somewhat closely this fall. They had some really good players that were hoped to come out on top.  They started slow in August and September, then they came on strong as expected, gangbusters, winning a Big Ten Championship, or at least tied for it, although losing in the conference tourney to ... Michigan. But no worries, they proved they could beat any of them.

    They started out the 48-team tournament with a bye, then came back and beat regional foe Akron, I believe coached by a former IU player and maybe assistant coach. 

    Then: Denver.

    Here's my problem. Both teams had few shots on goal, and only Denver got the one. I checked the fouls per team. Denver 18, Indiana 3.

    Not 6-3, 9-3, or 12-3. Not two to one, three to one, four to one. SIX to one ratio of fouls

    Uhh... Am I supposed to think this was a fair result?

    In a game that has yellow and subsequent red cards, removing people from the game field?

    Another year with no championships, Todd Yeagley, a year or two younger than me, still has time to win a few more.

    But with the disparity in fouls as it is now? I have blogged about this unfair problem in the game before. Can we stop this?

    I hate it. I wish Indiana could win, of course, but I wish the game would reflect the quality or poor quality of those that play it. IU tied Evansville earlier a month or so ago, and the disparity was glaring. Not right!

    Anyway, maybe next year.

    Go Hoosiers! We shall see if Stanford or a traditional favorite will win the College Cup. Maybe Denver? I hope that they do not have to foul that much to get there. Dirty dirtiness...

    That was it for 2024. Goodbye, but not so good as it turned out.

    Something needs to change.

Those With No Losses Are Whittled Down - D1 Teams Remaining: Maybe 25? 20?

    Those teams left: a quick survey.

    Some are playing as we speak, as I write. Here are numbers according to "Team Rankings", a dubious source.

    1. Auburn. 7-0. Men's team have some chops. (1)

    3. Wisconsin. 7-0. Plucky and smart. (2)

    4. St. Mary's. 6-0. Australians much? (3)

    6. Tennessee. 7-0. SEC strong. (4)

    7. Marquette. 7-0. Yep, they seem to better than the Carlino days. (5)

    9. Oregon. 7-0. Ducks are quackin' it up. (6)

    10. Utah State. 5-0. Watch, Beehive State! (7)

    13. Kansas. 6-0. Oh, those Jayhawks. (8)

    15. Drake. 5-0. Hmmmmmm... (9) Dem bulldogs.

    16. Miss. St. 6-0 More Bulldogs? They played tonight; this site is slow to update. (10)

    25. Wichita State. 6-0. Actually, I think they did lose today... (11)

    28. Florida 7-0. (12). Gators are strong and pounded the Shockers above. TR is whack. (12)

    29. Kentucky. 6-0. Killing (metaphorically) Georgia State now. (13)

    36. UC Irvine. 5-0. Anteaters !!! (14)

    41. Rhode Island. 6-0. Whoa. (15)

    42. Ole Miss. 6-0 (16)

    46. Loyola Chicago 5-0 (17)

    50. Furman. 5-0 (18) Who are these guys?

    71. LA Tech 5-0. (19) Karl Malone U.

    82. Oklahoma. 6-0. Now likely 7-0, beating good teams. (20) I said TR is whack. !

    126. Columbia. 8-0. (21) What in the Ivy Leagues?

    191. DePaul 6-0. (22)  Uh, the Blue Demons. They have to be in the top 150, right?

    There you have it. By Team Rankings math, there are only twenty-two left, but definintely more losers after last night.

IU and BYU have joined them... Indiana got embarrassed by Louisville, the smacked by Gonzaga. BYU lost in overtime to Ole Miss. A more respectable loss.

    I left out Cincinatti, which has a record of 6-0 and was ranked about 120, which is ridiculous, but probably a little more accurate today.

    At the end of it, about 20 undefeated teams remain. Last day of November.

    

    

    

    

    

 Among the Germans -- (Zie Deuchen?)

    After sixty days among the Germans, this time of my life in the surreal and slightly disturbing or fearful experience; the reality and normalcy of it gradually settled in. For two months and on, working every day, long hours and perspicacious as the fellow cohorts from the Hinterland,  I was doing my thing all right. Immersed within this foreign yet familiar environment and culture: these fellow workers and uniformed troops were like me but not like me. German, Deutsch, Deutschen, not Deutschlanders as I thought they were called years before. 

    

    I was hearing it, a language some call guttural-- in person in my office in conversation and music, walking up and down the halls, in neighboring buildings like ours, across the whole military compound, edging into the cafeteria and the bars and shops to the east outside our secure fences. I was influenced by the language in other corridors, and in the barracks where I slept, or going the other direction to the outer gate of the base, past the German radio station and the memorial wall and flags dedicated in tribute and memory of those that had fallen. Germans, Norwegians, and perhaps Swedes and Finns. Their names and lives etched in printed epigraphs. Over ten years into that more distant war.

    Surrounded in this day and age by the Bundeswehr, not the Wehrmacht, as I mistakenly called it once, conversing with a younger American soldier more than ten years later, closer to now. The American young man was alarmed by my naming mistake. He knew historical terms.

    Time changes and flows.

    Now and then. Growing up in the 1970s alone, I was watching and playing World War II movies, television programs, analyzing books and photos of the ravages of the awful times that transpired in Europe and beyond from the 1930s in the 1940s. Death, destruction--a German monstrosity caused the ignominious fated and dreadful end to so many Jewish Europeans, and other Europeans of all types, along later with our American G.I.s. The graves are still solemnly spaced and remembered across the nations. Markers and memorials dot the country sides where the fighters were slain. Many of their bodies were possibly retrieved and sent back home, but their gravesites stand in stark witness of the carnage and sadness.

    As small kids we would go into our nearby woods and fight the krauts, with our sticks converted machine guns, as we were prone to do. My friend's father perhaps fought in Vietnam. If we were not fighting the Japanese, it was normally against the Germans. "The krauts!" we would exclaim; not the jerries as I learned, later, through books by Stephen Ambrose and Jeff Shaara and others. Comic books printed in the 1970s, perhaps like Sergeant Rock, the grizzled non-commissioned officer with his cigar hanging from his mouth, the helmet askance; and later Indiana Jones films and his related comics and books that I would hastily scoop up also depicted those of the Third Reich, the dreams and nightmares of the Deutschland of the generations before. Harrison Ford fought them as a G.I. Colonel right after Star Wars in Force Ten from Navarone. That was cool. That was life in the 1940s. Our mortal enemies were severe and stout. But we were the good ones, the good guys. Like Han Solo. Indiana Jones. We fight the Nazis. We beat them.

    Decades for me and the world pass. And there was I was: surrounded by zie Deuchen. In a different time and war from yesteryear. And here they were my friends and allies. To be trusted and trusted by.

    Yes, I came to be accustomed to them, to it. The Germanness. Each culture or society, mind and soul,  with its own power and flare, its underlying thoroughness or flow, an essence unto itself. I understood more and I could say more things. I learned more of German geography, culture, personalities. There was the German officer who delighted in hunkering down and focusing intently to beat me in chess-- that in our off hours at a wooden bar area outside the secure compound, where beer, assuredly German, was served and good times were shared. Even when they ran out of the cold brews in the hot season.

    Months and more months passed, the seasons changed, but things became a routine. My German friends and co-workers ate and dined together with me, in the German cafeteria surround by peoples of all nations.

    We were among them, and they among us.

    And so, times change, and images and thoughts and German patriotism and nationalism evolves and adapts. The dead leave behind their legacies; the living heritages also continue.

    Here we are in 2024, past the age of Merkel and Obama and Bush in those former days of Afghanistan, longer since the era of the Berlin Wall when Kohl and Reagan were afoot, and longer still since Kennedy and the newer generations of German leadership in the 1960s, and then back to the tragic times of the 1940s themselves. Death camps and tank battles and bomber runs crushing and burning cities and bodies. So much ordnance, so much sturm and drang, after blitzkriegs and panzer movements, all the sig heils and goose steps and lifted hands and arms, the movements and uniforms and the random Tarantino film pursuing the past demons of the continent. Not to forget Africa, either. And the seas. 

    So many waters under the bridge, as it were. Blood and names and bodies made bones and dust, and the left-over wealth and genealogies, families who came and went: some who fortunately survived.

    And here we are. Reflecting peacefully, now done with what I call the insipid tome, translated into English from the original German, translated unto the other world languages, into our English as I have finally read it one hundred years after publishing.

    One hundred years, a century since publishing. His struggle, my struggle, our struggle. 1924. 2024.

    And we continue living, breathing, and dying, among the Germans. And the Afghans, too.

    I worked with the Bundeswehr, and things were legal and clean and we kept things sterile, fighting the insurgents and terrorists at arms' length. We did our parts, and gathered information, and used the U.S. forces to do most of the kinetic work, which could end up hurting (yes, killing) our guys.

    Our struggles continue in a world of a more peaceful, recalcitrant, but firm and strong Deutschland.

    Long live the Germans. And the rest of us.

    It disappeared from a few minutes ago, but I write, or wrote, of love over hate. Hate should not be the basis for our goals and missions. Our national and local hopes should be based in love and care, not the opposite.

    We love the Germans, and the Germans must love us. And a hundred years from now we should be brothers and sisters still. Could we ask for Russian and Chinese companionship and solidarity?

    We may. We should. We must. 

    Ich liebe dich, meine broter undt sister.

    

    

IU Gets Crushed by the Cards, and Look Hapless -- Ech

    Uh, I started seeing it on TV from work, and we only trailed by 8 at the half. And then it got worse. Much worse. We were all so chagrined. Outplayed and outhustled. The Hoosiers looked a bit inept. 23 Turnovers? Many missed buckets, but the TOs led to 30 Cardinals points, I guess. No way to play or win.

    HOWEVER: Miles Rice and Kanaan Karlyle are young guards, newly arrived to the team. Rice is a sophomore, and redshirted two years ago, so should be about twenty-one years-old now. He has suffered some Lymphoma cancer, so he is older for only having played one season. Carlyle, coming from Stanford, as Rice played at Washington State, is also young. Both have only played one season on the West Coast. They both just got a strong dose of East Coast basketball in Paradise Island, the Bahamas.

    Thanks to an upset by the West Virginia Mountaineers over the top ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs, IU gets to play those guys tomorrow, Thursday. Gear up and buckle down, boys.

    Maybe Anthony Leal deserves some more time? I don't know. Tre Galloway should be better, a long-time guard for the Hoosiers.

    Mackenzie Mgbako did not get enough shots. He needs to drive, too.

    But overall, the turnovers are killer. Stop those.

    Indiana has joined those who have lost. Perhaps there are only 40 or so left? Maybe only thirty. Save that for another blog post. I am having fun seeing the previously perfect teams lose their firsts. Or second, in the case of UConn! Hah! Liam McNeeley, you spurned IU. Hard to forget.

    Can the Hoosiers revamp? Will Woodson start some different dudes?

    Hmmm... Should be a long and interesting season.

    Fight, fight, fight.

    NEXT POST: Working among the Germans.