30 Years Later, The Dream Lingers On

30 Years Later, The Dream Lingers On

Thirty years after a fact, it is amusing to reflect back on a thrilling occurrence. Some things that occur that are fantastic to one's imagination and interest may only happen once in a lifetime, like an incredible brush with a celebrity or a brush with fame itself; maybe there was a sudden windfall of money or a singular spectacular vacation that one knows will not happen again, so there are no further hopes of obtaining such pleasure. Fine, one can live life knowing that  one will not expect to have that event or experience again. But you will always cherish the memory.

In the world of sports and teams and players that have achieved greatness, we like to think that things will happen again, especially for those that we favor. With due diligence and patience, hard work and some luck, and of course, the continued devotion on the part of the fans and followers, success and the pay off should happen. We pay for tickets, TV rights, paraphernalia, we even donate to the school to make it great and desired for great players to make it a champion. We read about it, listen and analyze those who also read and scrutinize it. We will win the ultimate crown again, as the pattern has been established. For a fan of Bob Knight and his teams, the pattern had been established to win it all every 5 to 6 years. A nice pattern. Prior to him, IU had placed two banners in the ceiling, so the pace of victory had increased since the beginnings of the NCAA tourney in 1939.

But, Knight's last 13 years at IU he made only one more Final Four, and perhaps as a sign of the change of guard nationally Knight lost in the semi-finals to his esteemed protogě Coach Mike Krzyzewski; this was in 1992, five years after the wonderful 1987. The pattern had been altered. Well, 25 years since then, the pattern had been irrevocably smashed. Because the following year was more snake bitten. Here we are, Hoosier fans. 2017 and 5 coaches later, nada, zip, and zippo. The triumvirate of nothing superlative.

So, for an event that caused such sheer joy and celebration that many decades ago, and that was expected to yield more in the years since but to no avail, it can cause some heartache and angst.

Grumpiness. Forlornness. Contempt and crabbiness. Despair.

Lots of yelling at the TV and other things. Random dogs and cats, and the occasional squirrel.My poor wife and kids... And occasional passers-by...

We have had years to think that things would be different, that IU would in fact, rise back to their championship selves. I guess we have been tricked into thinking we (they) were that good? Was it all a deception or fantasy? Perhaps. 1992. (See above). The following year 1993-close but key big man injury ends those hopes. I was hopeful in 1994. But no.

I reached my twenties. No.

I reached my thirties, still hopeful, despite harsh setbacks like the Zero tolerance policy of former IU President Myles Brand and the firing of the Legend. No still.

Now I am past half way into my forties. The latest coach fired, after a nine year tenure. Nada.

1998. 2002. 2007. 2013. Even the beginning of this the 30th season (2016-17), we beat top teams Kansas and North Carolina, making us think we could dream so big in March of this season of '17, but this year unlike many that did not start as promising we knew by January and February that this team was on board a sinking ship.

And now in March, it sunk for sure.

It's like waiting for a job that never comes, a raise that never happens, a promised date that is forever postponed. Cancelled, booted to the cellar.

Hoosier fans have grown impatient, cynical, and desperate.Three decades! Three decades? Almost a third of a century?

And such is the life and expectation of an Indiana Hoosier basketball fan in 2017.

In 1987 I was a sophomore high school student in Bloomington, Indiana. It was the heartland of the United States late in the Ronald Reagan era, the heartland of basketball country, largely because of a legendary basketball coach at the university a mile away. Yet, Indiana cared about basketball beyond college or pros: it was at the high school level where people loved it the most in the Heartland of Indiana. Everyone cared. Well, okay, not everyone in Bloomington watched or cared about the Hurry'n Hoosiers or the local high school teams. But I learned to care and breathe it, like so many of the rest of the state. I was a part of the majority, a religion known as hoops. And I loved it.

 The intense passion for it had grown on me. In me. Through me; I knew that drugs were bad, addictive and destructive, just as an anti-drug crusader named Toma would preach and yell on the floor of Assembly Hall, the basketball arena on campus, to thousands of us middle schoolers in 1985, the very court and stage where the Hoosiers wended their magic every season. Of course, that very season of '85 the Hoosiers struggled and did not make the NCAA, the Big Dance that they had won just four years earlier. But they did make the NIT, and went on to the championship game in New York before losing to a future legendary Indiana Pacer professional player named Reggie Miller of UCLA.

Indiana played poorly and loused up on occasion but they were still good. Almost great, while not champions. That was part of the thrill. And the Hoosiers would come around and win: everything!

The Big Dance, the Big Enchilada. Happened twice in my lifetime already by fourth grade, four times in the school's history, back to World War II. Indiana was a constant when it came  to hanging championship banners from the towering vaulted roofs of our home court, Assembly Hall. Right by 17th street. I lived a few blocks from 1st.

Just four years prior in 1981, as a fourth grader, the very day that our newly elected former California Governor was shot as a new president in Washington D.C., the Indiana team had won its second ring during my short life; I realized the day after that historical Monday that I did not take it in properly, that I did not celebrate enough with the surrounding campus and fellow Hoosier fans, my classmates included.

So I waited with breath bated another five years, and sure enough as a sophomore, a tenth grader at Bloomington South High School just a few miles from the campus of Indiana University and the Bob Knight Hoosiers, we (I emphasize we) did it again: this time in dramatic fashion with a tremendous comeback and a last possession shot at the Superdome in New Orleans. The games and season leading up to that pinnacle were climatically exciting as well. This was a like an energy drug of exquisite imagination and lore for me as a fan and resident of the community. Such events stretch on into the magical month of March, but well beyond into other hopes and fancies. And that would be the last time of triumph, to the chagrin of millions of us.

A little-known junior college transfer named Keith Smart carried the day along with senior and underclass heroes; we celebrated Knight's third national crown, and I soaked every moment in.

And I wanted more, in the 1990s, the 2000s...

I moved across the planet during other seasons to come, from Indiana to Chile to Utah, back to Chile, back to Utah, a side trip to the Middle East, back to Indiana, then to California, back to Chile again (3rd time's the charm), then to Virginia and California again, with trips to Missouri and Arizona,back to Virginia, with  a tour to Afghanistan, back to Virginia.

And: no! Never! New coaches! New players! New hopes! And ... nothing.

Okay, we made it to the dance and advanced a few times. All came up short, most very short.
____________________________________________________________________
BREAK: I learned today that Tom Crean has been fired after 9 years of being the IU coach, part of the unsuccessful legacy of not reaching number six for the banners, our would be 6th elusive national championship. 16 Mar. '17
The vagaries of March Madness.
______________________________________________________________________

30 years later and we are still waiting for the 6th banner to be hung from the rafters. IU came closest to this feat in 2002, but Maryland had a superior team responding to the surprising run of second year coach Mike Davis. But despite that indication of a legacy of greatness right after Knight, his luck and recruiting ran out and IU faltered into March. He was fired, the well had run dry by 2005. Other years we were generally far from the goal since 1995, some years not qualifying for the tournament or more often simply putting up a dud in the first round of the Big Dance. Like going to a ball or dance and leaving after the first song or two. Not many people's idea of a dance.

And so, this being the week  at the end of winter that IU's March dreams have ended again to the sounds and realms of a thud, the 30th year since that ecstatic time of the nostalgic eighties and my teenage, high school and middle school years, some think of them as the Wonder Years, yes, for these same reasons, I myself have a high school student daughter in her sophomore year, and the search, the quest, the dream, lingers.

The hope is ahead of us, like many seasons that we hope to see come again.

May it ever be so.

Go, IU. Get that class of players, get that championship back to Bloomington.

Go, IU!

Fight.

Fight.

Fight!

Ministering (1990)

  Ministering

Despite the Rigors of Doubt and Remorse

Sometimes you get missions within missions. In the context of a greater goal or objective, you are given "smaller" assignments. Those smaller assignments might be smaller on paper, or perhaps seem more trivial or shorter in duration, and may even seem easier to accomplish than the longer term goal, but as they say: the devil is in the details, and sometimes the little assignments can be the most difficult, the most trying. This is a story about one of those times.

This intense trial of faith, or action, happened to me.  Luckily I was given this smaller mission when I was twenty, not just 19.

At age 19, I don't think I would have been able to handle the shorter term mission goal that Judd Allsop had given me. I received this assignment within my greater two year mission, a week or so after my twentieth birthday.

President Allsop, my mission president, posited some trust in me; I feel like I was placed in a challenging but doable assignment: to be a Branch President in Santa Juana. Implicit within the specific mission of this longer term assignment was the belief, the trust, the noble aspiration that the Lord was guiding things, that the God of All Creation was in charge. And things would work out, people would progress in building the Kingdom of God. His faith would grow, as would mine, in depth and width.

Up to that point in my mission in Chile, I had born some responsibilities and I think that I was doing okay. Despite getting disturbingly sick for almost a month in my second area, I was healthy again and I was learning to do more things, carrying more weight as a missionary. And I was about to take on a large charge, of some import.

Keep in mind, we all do things for different reasons from day to day, from month to month, and from year to year: our motivations may change, our moods may swing, our experience and knowledge may lead us to think and act differently; outside and inside influences make us behave and decide differently as we progress.

But the primary motivation of each LDS missionary, or any Christian missionary, for that matter, is to serve Jesus Christ: to do as He would do, love as He would love, represent Him and act for Him, be a living witness and emissary of the Lord, to represent the Head of the Church that we bear on our badges. Whether you believe in a Divine Source of power and authority, you can recognize the idealistic notions, impulses, and motives of serving such a higher cause, and doing it well.

I was sent to Santa Juana for my third missionary area of Chile, after first being assigned to a rural town for four months as a newcomer, and then being part of the big city of Concepcion for six, minus the month of illness and recovery. My third and smallest area of my mission was my biggest responsibility, and perhaps became my biggest trial.

The LDS Branch of Santa Juana was one of the newest units in our Concepcion Mission: prior to me being called as the Branch President there had been four others. Elders Cluff, Boston, Bagnara, and Elder Petersen. All of us were assigned to teach and preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ like every other missionary, but with the added duty of finding leaders of the faith, particularly find and train a good branch president. If you have a good branch president, everything good can happen in a Mormon group: more organized meetings, more fun and faith-promoting events and activities, in sum, more growth and prosperity and overall success. Bounty and winning that God would certainly approve of.

The prospects for a short-term call to branch president in Santa Juana were small but not bad: there were four prospective men who could have potentially taken the helm as our hopeful branch president, within the next 4 months to a year: Eduardo Santibañez, Luis Quiñones, Mario Seguel, or Oscar Chavez. Each had pros and cons.

Eduardo was an older man of some responsibility, a barber who had his own business. He had a family and a decent house (for Santa Juana, or for Chile); he was married to a long-time devout wife, an evangelical church goer; however, after living a rather lower life of heathen, he had experienced a miraculous change of lifestyle and behavior after meeting the missionaries and joining our church. He had dropped tobacco, alcohol, poor language or abusive treatments, (from my recollection), he was motivated to be a man of God. The Mormons had "made him Christian"; his wife reciprocated his leap of faith and commitment to Jesus  with her own baptism into the faith following suit. More on this later.

Eduardo was the Branch First Counselor when I arrived to the fledgling unit, while Luis Quiñones was the second counselor. Like Eduardo, Luis seemed dedicated and earnest, but unlike Brother Santibañez, Luis's wife was not a member and did not seem too supportive of his participation in our faith. It probably did not help that she was hard of hearing, and Luis seemed to be considerably more humble of circumstances than Eduardo, also known as "El Bigote". Eduardo's nickname bespoak a man of some presence; despite his less than clean past as an individual when it came to spiritual matters, Eduardo was a family man of consequence in a small town. Eduardo seemed more properly placed or stationed as a person for new leadership in our faith, especially since his life change with the LDS elders that same year of 1990; his appearance on most fronts seemed that he was groomed to be the native leader local Branch President of Santa Juana.

Mario Seguel and Oscar Chavez had just been baptized the weekend before I arrived there, as the former Branch President Elder Cluff, the one that I replaced, left the country at the end of his two years. Mario was older and retired, married to a long time member of the Church who had been far away from any active members for many years. He was a good man, but maybe a little past his prime. Oscar was the son-in-law of Eduardo, and might have been ready for priesthood leadership within a few short months. He was young, successful, and exuberant.

But alas, things would fall apart. To use a phrase by the Nigerian Igbo author Chinua Achebe.

Eduardo had a weakness as far as his conversion to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and our fledgling congregation, among his other former weaknesses. But this was a strength for him as well. Perhaps one of his greatest strengths. His downfall, and eventual turning from this newfound faith that had found him meeting weekly with me and the other new members, was mostly due to his very strong and devoted Evangelical Christian wife, who had officially joined our faith not long after his baptism. We all thought she had committed to Jesus through the authority and power of our priesthood as we administered it. We thought that their commitment to God, as we understood Him, was with us. God works in mysterious ways. It was not meant to be in this way for him, with us. Not for our mission, our hopes.

No. Not that year, and not the next.

There are a dozen different excuses that might explain what was to happen, and maybe hundreds of ruminations by my part, and perhaps others have had similar thoughts, recriminations.

Excuses that would be exploited, so that Eduardo and others who had supported him would give up on that baptismal covenant that he freely took upon himself, letting go of the priesthood imparted to him, and its power and promise, relinquishing the allegiance to the Branch he had endeavored in, and to me, his Branch president. Ahh, it felt like: betrayal. I took it personally. And it wasn't all Eduardo. He was not the only one involved in leaving. He was not the only one that I felt the sting of betrayal or giving up, giving in on being an active member of the Church.

I blamed my American companion, ultimately, for the impetus of apostasy, as Eduardo and his family did and others would, for a goodbye letter interpreted as inappropriate, especially since it was left to a 15 year-old that he had ecclestiastical duty for. We would visit the people both already baptized and investigating in the branch. He wrote a final letter to some of the youth, and he would sign it with "besitos", meaning little kisses. But, worse yet as I would come to see, she had kissed it with her lipstick, which made it appear more suggestive. And then Eduardo et al, his immediate family and promising son-in-law Oscar, got hold of it.

So at least, that blame, and the shock or impact lingering from this young elder that they had grown to love and trust, created the initial push to really move them away. To stop coming. To end the exercise of that priesthood and authority that we were grooming him, our First Counselor in the Santa Juana Branch presidency for. That we, as emissaries of Christ, were preparing him for. My smaller mission within the mission. Cut in pieces and unraveling. Eduardo, his family, and others.

Many wanted him to quit us. Quit our church. And I was the guy who was supposed to help him move ahead. I am confident his wife wished it so, to go back with her to her ways. She had known her group for 29 years, the one Eduardo had ignored or avoided. And now she was determined, especially after she and others saw the letter that my companion on his way home to the United States had left with a young lady in the branch, that ill-fated missive that fell into the hands of Eduardo and the rest.

Excuses. Others had wanted it so: Eduardo's wife's flock, her pastor, while to us committed to the Restored Gospel: these were excuses and alibis of the Adversary himself ... And, lastly for reasons and blame, the excuses of us imperfect missionaries, it all came to an escape, a release of charge. The burden of responsibility, my charge, the efforts of those before me and after, back to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Spencer Kimball, Ezra Taft Benson.

I had been commissioned to do much the same as them. President Benson had signed my papers to be there.

President Allsop had asked me to take this mission faithfully. And now it had turned into apostasy. Fell into disarray.

I was in charge. But I wasn't. People had been abandoning the church. The faith. Me.

I took it personally. Eduardo, his wife, his 12 year-old son, a faithful deacon who would pass the sacrament, new converts Oscar and his wife Candida. The present and future of the Church in Santa Juana, the LDS Church in Chile writ large.

Blocked. Trancado. Or damned, condemned. It felt like we had lost part of our body.


But the spirit of flight didn't just go to this family, it wasn't stopping there.

More people were convinced that us youthful missionaries were wrong, and that this branch, which had some 40 people attend my first Sunday out of a total of 70 members on the rolls, after two short years of existence, were taking away their participation. The most recent people of promise were calling it off! Before they had really started. And more people, as they were close knit, were ready to quit. Quit these Mormons, this new faith of foreigners like us. Gringos who seemed nice enough, but could we be trusted? Were we who we claimed to be? Or simply wolves in sheep's clothing?

There was Elizabeth Reyes. Caught in the cross fire.

Sister Reyes was a 19 or 20 year-old convert (like almost everyone else in Santa Juana, so new to the faith and practice), and in charge of our primary children. She was marvelous and doing a great job, organizing our small cadre of youth and teaching them the lessons and songs every Sunday.

Of our meager membership at that point, she was one of our most vibrant and promising leaders.

I went with my new American companion, who had replaced the letter sender, across the dusty summer streets of Santa Juana, to visit her house; it was late enough during those long summer days  of the Christmas season to be dark. Elizabeth lived with her mother, her younger sister, and two brothers, none of whom were members of the church like her.

She was doing her best to stay committed, to be an example to her own family and others. And now confronted with these new defections and feelings of doubt, she was torn, as many people would be.

Now she, too, was ready to quit. She had become close to Eduardo and his family, to the daughter Candida and Oscar, who had only been baptized a few weeks before, now in full exit mode.

That night we arrived at her house on the edge of Santa Juana with heavy hearts, a terrible feeling of loss and waywardness. Darkness and confusion. My personal mission to the small town was a shambles. How to fix it? How to stop the bleeding?

How could this be? One letter? Yes, it was against missionary rules, but one break in confidence in the form of a goodbye note from a youth leader? By a missionary that was not even the Branch President? A guy who had gone back to his native home, happy for accomplishing what he thought was a satisfactory two year mission? How could we stop this madness?

We arrived at Elizabeth's house; she wanted to talk to me, her Branch President, alone. Under the circumstances, that was appropriate. A bishop or branch president in the LDS Church has the privilege or right to speak in private to its members. As a full time missionary, we also try to comply with the rules of never being alone. So we went into their back yard, within sight of the kitchen window where my companion could see both of us, Elizabeth and the Branch President in crisis mode, and me, him. There were also males inside the home, which although not members or priesthood holders, was a good thing for us elders to be surrounded by.

I stood in that darkened Chilean patio area, among grape arbors and other trees and plants, with Elizabeth.

She said, President Clinch, or Elder Clinch, " I do not wish to continue going to Church."

I didn't know what to say. A knife that that was already lodged in my inner gut was now being twisted tighter.

I don't think I could speak at that moment. I think I did the only thing my body, my heart, my anguished soul knew how to do.

I wept.

I then said some things, (it has been many years and perhaps I did not want to record on paper what else I attempted to say). Suffice it say, I cried and then pleaded with her to reconsider.

Like a kind soul, she tried to console me and reached out to hug me, seeing me in a state of grief and pain. I put an arm up to stop her. Missionaries do not have close physical embraces with young ladies. This was the root of the very reason, excuse, that the Mormon Santa Juaninos had rebelled against their newfound allegiance to this foreign faith, because of the young man who had left a few days before, with that accursed note. An impropriety of intimacy between genders, rules broken by young men who should know better.

We humans should know better.

Elizabeth remained active the remainder of my months in Santa Juana. We weathered the storm of inactivity, with Mario Seguel, and Luis Quinones, and few other stalwort priesthood men and women and children, like Elizabeth, and others like Sister Leonor Guzman, and Brother Alex Bueno and his wife and family. We finally baptized three converts before I left, after a long, hot, dry summer of little growth or convert action. We staunched the bleeding, we weathered the storm. I left after five months, realistically far from achieving the personal mission that I was given by my mission president. I guess we had fallen further behind than when I had first arrived. But we held on to what we could.

The smaller objective within the greater mission was frustrated, but the mission of Jesus Christ for me and others endured.

What things would I have changed, had I known of all the consequences of indiscretions by my missionary partner and even my own misjudgments, I would have done things differently. I readily admit that I could have been much better at applying my better judgment before, during, and after all the travails and trials, I have this story to tell.

I call it "ministering".

We could have avoided so much misdirected angst, regret, loss. We could have made Santa Juana a visionary Latter-day Saint Branch, a jewel among a crown of other churches.

Our ministering, our administering, our preaching and organizing, our efforts could have been better.

Our faults could have been less visible, less exploited, less damaging.

But in ministering, in attempting to serve a Higher cause, a Higher mission, the Highest Master of All, we see how us mortal ministers are in such need as One like Him.

Beyond doubts and remorse, we must aim for the mission of life and death, which is redemption.

Redemption and forgiveness.

Forgive us, Father, for we know not what we do.

We do know that we have tried to minister in Thy name.

And there is no more regret. Only shining hope, with distant memories of attempting to do what the Son of God, who submitted Himself below all, has done for us, His dear brothers and sisters.

To the farthest reaches of the Earth.

Even ministering to the Saints of Santa Juana. Saint Jane.

Much has been forgotten in the course of history, but not you. This twenty year-old going on fifty (within the decade) remembers you fondly. I was your minister.

I will see you again. Thanks to the Minister.

Milton Chaparro, Manuel Rojas, Juan Azua: Miss You Guys! Sorta...

A while ago I started a book about Mexico...

I mostly finished it. The book had to do with my impressions of the people and country of Mexico, and it roughly corresponded with my visits and travels there. I have copied and pasted most of it on this blog. The years covered of my travels were from 1982 to 2005, and it covers about 12 trips.

Editing for it would still be good. I need to make it more readable, cogent.

Part of the story of my understanding of the country of Mexico, its people, its culture, its significance, has to do with me living and serving with my Chilean companions while being an LDS missionary in South America.

Latinos have things in common, and I believe my companions that I was assigned to, 9 in total for periods of weeks and months, helped me see into the world of greater Latin America better.

And then there are Mexicans, a few of which I have grown to know better...

Fidel, Fidel, Fidel

You finally died. That chapter of history has more or less ended. The weekend of November 25, 2016. Thanksgiving, indeed. After 90 years of doing things in your island, your way.

Dictator. Of the people? Liar. Men and women of the people allow choices. Freedom. That you did not permit. Deceiver of yourself and the masses you coerced.

We hope that a new chapter arises on that great island nation. Hopefully for the better.

A relatively small country became a large thorn in the side of the biggest power in the world, for a very long time. And the US had little answers.

Your new system was supposed to help Cuba and its Communist Revolution for the poor and the laborer, the proletariat, the lowly that assumed to benefit from the selfishness of capitalism.

But it didn't.

Now your brother is in charge, replacing you by plan and for the continuation of your failed cause.

Good riddance, Fidel.

My professors of Chile knew and believed in you, confided in you, thought that the world wide plan of Communism was right ... But then they worked for the diplomatic corps of China, then Cuba, and then East Germany, perhaps worst yet under Soviet rule. Hard to imagine a place worse than China where millions disappeared under the auspices the of the People's Republic of Mao. A terrible,  miserable, unbelievable joke.

And they, my teachers, the two Rojas, escaped from your maddening  schemes of "healing the planet" this socialistic plan of intervention.

Hog wash. It was just a new means to exploit and undermine the people.

Some got better health care or medicine, some Cubans excelled in sports and the arts. But most? Still left behind, you gran mentiroso.

Leave your people be, and move on to that God that you have denied, that you unfairly and cruelly replaced for the Cubanos relegated to the margins of your culture.

They will survive, because neither you nor your cause are God or divine. You do not have ultimate control.

Thank the Divine.

You could not admit you were wrong.

Death is the answer for you.

Friend of Che Guevara, another so-called hero who only lead people to more misery.

Fighting powers that should have been accepted.

Oh, well. At least my professor Gonzalo learned to renounce Communism by 1979.

Fidel, Fidel, Fidel. Did you never learn?

Perhaps now in the heavens.

See you there someday, amigo. We'll talk some more about your legacy.

QDEP 2016 : Now the real revolution can begin.

In a Perfect World ...

 In a Perfect World ...

In a perfect world, things would not be perfect, but things would be much better.

For starters, no one would go hungry. No humans, anyway, would suffer from the lack of food and nutrition. I don't know about all the domestic pets and beasts around, because as far as I am concerned animals exist first to help us from not starving, and then maybe for those who are blessed and privileged people can derive utility and pleasure from them. But I don't like when animals are getting better care and food than humans. Doesn't sit right, doesn't make sense to me.

Especially minors. Kids deserve food, there should be no empty stomachs. I don't care if its Greenland, Namibia, Bangladesh, or the Marshall Islands. Children should not suffer hunger.

In the last thousand years the human race has not done a very good job of staving off hunger for its people, yet we have the means to produce food. Where we have done perhaps the worst job is in the dissemination of food. Places and regions have had their droughts and blights while neighbors are not able to help, because of selfishness, or a myriad of other reasons, like poor leadership that allows its people to die while those in power hold on to their own control, like the modern day North Korea or Somalia or a dozen or more other African nations. Syria has seen the same issues because of war recently, as well as Yemen.

War.

Feast or famine, war is another area where there would be a lot less of it in a perfect world.

Violence in general would be, should be, so much less.

Why are so many people getting killed in Chicago this year? It's 2016. The current president hails from Chicago. I call that a mini-war.

Some talk about a war on poverty, a war on drugs. I think there ought to be a war on war, starting with stopping the motivations that make people want to kill other people.

Killing is bad, and in a perfect world it would be reduced, from the big wars down to the smallest potentially deadly conflicts, like gang violence. Or ethnic groups being systematically targeted and oppressed, or gassed, or buried in mass graves, or suppressed in their languages or movements.

What about the Kurds? In a perfect world, we wouldn't necessarily have a Kurdistan, but Kurds would peacefully cohabitate in their homelands, and we would not have to worry about them getting massacred, be they Sunni or Shia or Yazidi or Shabak.

Religions and languages should not be reasons to kill or unfairly discriminate.

And yet, we do.

Do we blame religion? Superstition? Ideologies? Governments?

I blame: us. People.

In a perfect world, we would be people, human, and we would protect and sustain life. We would not use every system and organization to take advantage and exploit people. Or exploit the weakness of others. We would give and protect.

We would be kinder, more generous, and abhor those that prey on the weak.

It all starts with each waking decision we make.
 

Top Twelve Things About You Know Who

 Top Twelve Things About You Know Who

1. When I first met her, she had me at ... whatever she said, that I cannot quite remember, (maybe she can, I can make an educated guess), but suffice it say, whatever she was selling I was buying. Check, please!

2. The last time I ever see her in this life, I'm pretty sure she will smile and cry and be one happy wet mess. And I like that. Not a great thought, really, but better than a smirk or a dismissing sigh.

3.  I was glad to know some of her large family before meeting her, because I kind of felt like Moses exiled in Moab, surrounded by a bunch of young gigglers at the well. You know, the one with all the goats and the thugs when Moses was parched after crossing the Sinai. And then of course she showed up, and it was immediately obvious who Charlton Heston was gonna fall for. Obvious. God and Cecil B. DeMille know how to direct, and all I need to do is follow the script. Thank you God and Mr. DeMille. Great casting!

4. She cooks really well, and not only does she cook, bake, and assemble food items in great quality, but she has an incredible talent for consistently producing more good eats, when maybe some tables and fridges would be running bare. I've never feared hunger in my house. Or even at my work. She can pack food, too!

5. She has cute things all over, but I don't want to embarrass anyone about the details, especially minors, elders, those of mixed company and the 7th fleet of the U.S. Navy. Enough to make a sailor blush! I guess I can surmise it with: I love her all over. Take her toes, for examples ...

6. She is pleased with gestures from me and others, large and small. At the end of the day I am not sure how big of gestures I can come up with, so I am reasonably confident that I have to bet on keeping her with any gestures, even if they don't add up to too much. But with her, it seems like the thought counts.

7. Reason number seven, rhymes with leaven, one word: heaven.

8. She is talented musically and a really good singer.

9. She speaks Spanish and compelled me to go back to one of my favorite second countries, where we stayed for six months. Great memories, a lot of people cannot claim to have done something like that. All that after actively attending a Spanish speaking congregation in the US for two years!

10. Numbers 8 and 9 were prerequisites that I had right after my mission at age 21. By the time I was 28 or so and still very single, I had given up on those dreams of a future mate, being fluent in Spanish and good at music. However, this lady made all my dreams come true!

11. I had another pre-requisite or two of a future spouse when I was a newly returned missionary from South America: she had to be nice and she had to like me. So far, I think we're good.

12.  She is the mother of some pretty awesome kids, and she follows up  with them. I have never seen or heard of anyone better. I'll go with my pick.

13. Yeah, she's worth 13 on a list of top twelve.

#45, Presidents Come and Go

The Donald. The Ego.

He did it. Surprising. Shocking.

Wow, America.

The United States, a continual experiment going global. Well into the 21st century, some 15 years into our Long War, the Global War on Terror.

And it still is about the economy, Stupid.

On our 45th try, after more than 200 years, we picked a guy who had never held public office or served in the military. But he learned the Art of the Deal. And has some New York attitude.

We chose him over a very experienced first time ever female presidential candidate, former first lady, Senator, Secretary of State. Hmm. We are different than our forefathers for sure.

I think he is older than any candidate ever. But he is pretty tough and in good shape.

So far. Let's check a couple years from now.

So the experiment continues.Four more years.