No comment is really necessary. Though, "Someone took a 'P'" might be appropriate.
The positive news is that the mayor spelled "Stranczek" correctly, and that's clearly the more difficult one. The unfortunate news is that he got elected in the first place.
1 Comment
Sometimes great catches don't come from just the major leagues. And sometimes the context is what makes a catch even better. And sometimes, it's the very best when it comes from a player in the Chicago Cubs system!
Okay, I'm biased on the third point. Last night, the Tennessee Smokies (the Double-A affiliate of the Chicago Cubs) were in extra innings of a tied 2-2 game against the Mobile Bay Bears. In the top of the 12th inning, with the bases loaded and two out, the Mobile batter sent a line shot deep into the left-field corner, sure to go the wall and clear the bases, giving them an almost insurmountable 5-2 lead. That's when the Smokies' left-fielder Jacob Hannemann ignored the threat to his body and just dove, laying himself out, almost flying through the air to make the catch and end the threat. It saved the game, too, since Cubs' top-prospect Kyle Schwarber got the game-winning hit in the bottom of the inning. O joy! Huzzah. This is catch. The context makes it all the more impressive and dramatic, but...man, it's still terrific all on its own. During the George W. Bush Administration, when they created the Department of Homeland Security, Republicans and most-especially far-right conservatives lauded to the rafters the new post as the near-savior of America. Be against it, and you may well be a traitor -- be against it, and at the very least you're certainly not patriotic, and are willing to make America unsafe against terrorists and all our enemies. This is the Department of Homeland Security, after all! And they wrapped themselves in it like the most comforting lambs-wool blanket.
Well, live by the sword, die by the sword. DHS has put together an intelligence assessment, and it is centered specifically on the domestic terror threat from what are known as "right-wing sovereign citizen extremists." In fact, as a CNN study of the report show, "Some federal and local law enforcement groups view the domestic terror threat from sovereign citizen groups as equal to -- and in some cases greater than -- the threat from foreign Islamic terror groups, such as ISIS, that garner more public attention." You can read the whole article and see the video here. It's not just a case of an incident or two, but the DHS -- again, this is the beloved DHS that is needed to protect us all -- lists as many as 24 "violent sovereign citizen-related" in the United Stated in just the past few years, since 2010. "Sovereign citizen" groups are those made up of extremists who believe believe that because their personal rights are under attack they therefore are not required to obey laws or court orders or even anything as simple as a traffic stop. In most civilizations since the beginning of time, this is the accepted definition of "anarchy." It's also the natural outgrowth of a disingenuous supposed-Era of Personal Responsibility which ridiculed the concept of how "It takes a village" to grow a society, all for the cause of merely and selfishly keeping government off our backs. Ultimately, right-wing extremists is what you risk ending up getting when that's your philosophy. it's pretty hard to love a country when you're at war with it and want to shrink the government so much that it's small enough to drown in a bathtub.. As whimsy would have it, these "sovereign citizens" seemingly are heirs of the same people -- or indeed the same people themselves -- who during the 1960s railed against the damn hippies with their long hair and free-living ways who, if they didn't love America, they could leave it. The pesky differences are many, but for starters the damn hippies were about peace and love, and not shooting a traffic cop because you got pulled over for speeding. (That's not being facetious, it's one of the many incidents detailed in the report, occurring in 2012 when a couple of Louisiana men began a shootout that killed two traffic policeman specifically because they believed the officers had no authority over how they drove their car. Or over anything they did.) The report notes that "law enforcement officers will remain the primary target of (sovereign citizen) violence over the next year due to their role in physically enforcing laws and regulations." For anyone who tries to dismiss this targeting of law-enforcement as domestic terrorism and a threat to the nation's safety, imagine for a moment how you'd react if this was a story instead about black people. Or even more specifically a growing, concerted organizing of black people. And again, I repeat, this is a report from the Department of Homeland Security. The love-child of the far right. The unimpeachable savior of protecting America against terrorists and all our enemies. If one wishes to dismiss its findings for any reason you think valid, so be it. But then you pretty much have to dismiss the near-perfect validity of DHS. (Personally, I have no particular problem with the DHS existing -- I just think that, like any government agency, it has flaws and needs heavy oversight. But then, I'm not among those who felt the creation of the department was needed to prove one's patriotism and trusted with the full-faith and credit of George Bush, George Washington and God Almighty Himself.) It's worth remembering that this isn't the first time we've gotten security reports about the threat to the country by right-wing extremist groups. That was in 2009 when DHS published a study (that was done during the Bush Administration) about right-wing militia groups. And when it occurred the last time, there was an heart-rending outcry from Republicans about how unfair and wrong and biased this was, somewhat akin to the sound of a pig being stuck. In the words of the philosopher Gomer Pyle: "Full me once, shame on you. Full me twice, shame on me." The operative word here, though, is shame. For those seeing the headlines about the scandal and arrests of FIFA executives, but are a bit unsure why a sports organization is getting all this attention -- here's a wonderful, 13-minute rant about the organization that John Oliver did a year ago, almost a year to the day, June 8, 2014. The final rounds of the National Spelling Bee will be broadcast tonight (Thursday) on ESPN. It starts at 5 PM Los Angeles time, or 8 PM in the East. I've never been able to make it through a huge amount of the broadcast, but always have enjoyed times I did sit through it. In the words of E.T. -- Bee Good. By the way, even if you don't watch much of the coverage -- or even none of it -- I highly recommend the wonderful documentary, Spellbound, which follows eight contestants in the 2001 competition. The joyous film received an Oscar nomination as Best Documentary Feature. It has a stunning 98% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes (though the viewer rating there is a "just" 83%...) It's available on Netflix. Here's the trailer --
|
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
Categories
All
|
© Copyright Robert J. Elisberg 2024
|