From the archives.  This week, the contest is Jason Carr from Philadelphia.  In the early stages, I could hear the theme, but couldn't make out the hidden song -- but not long after it became quite clear to me.  The composer style is obviously from a distinct period, though it's a period I always have a toss-up because about three or four people.  And my toss-up guess was wrong.

Okay, and just because we're honoring Rob today, what the heck, just for the pleasure of the good fellow, here's another squirrel video.
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Twitter has really been going Full-MAGOP Crazy the past week, not just far more than usual, but overwhelmingly more than usual – which (in addition to Trump melting down) is, it seems another indication of how the trial is going.  But also how the comfortable, ordered MAGA world -- where black history doesn't exist, books you don't like are banned, the womenfolk can't get abortions like it was in 1864, law and order existed only to keep minorities in their place, science isn't real, and Trump wasn't showing early signs of dementia, and more -- is going in general, spinning more out of control than they like.  And that’s the point here.  Not that there is all this “outrage,” but that it’s grown so pronounced within such a short period of time as a touchstone for getting a view into the MAGOP mindset.
 
And further, to be clear, I don’t just mean the general public MAGOPs ranting and lying and howling at the moon, but well-known Republican figures with their hair on fire, picking on anything even remotely connected to Biden to slam him, no matter how insignificant, and often quite-literally lying about anything they can.  Because they seemingly have nothing else to offer.  Thoughtful debate is one thing, is something else.  This is grasping at whatever they can, no matter how small, holding out hope that it’s a lifeline as they tread water in the middle of the ocean. 

[UPDATE: After writing that about "no matter how insignificant," just this morning I see that the latest line of outrages MAGOP attacks at President Biden are about the shoes he's now wearing.]
 
This will be long, but that’s because the examples are need to at least give a hint of the depth and spread of it all.  And even that won’t come close to doing justice to this new spurt of wailing
 
For instance, there’s a video of a speech that President Biden made on Wednesday where he screwed up reading the TelePrompter and read the word “Pause.”  It was pretty poor, though amusing.  However, high-visible Republicans were picking on that as if it was the end of the world – including Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, Richard Grenell (Trump’s former Acting Director of National Intelligence), Don Jr. and Megyn Kelly.  Actually, Ms. Kelly went even above and beyond most when she commented on the video:  “He might have just lost.  Seriously.”
 
I wrote back --
 
"Seriously"?? Because of that??!  You think saying “Pause” will actually lose President Biden the election?  And you want us to take you “Seriously”?
 
It's telling that misreading a TelePrompter bothers you *THAT MUCH*!! -- but not Trump and his mental breakdown gibberish saying made-up words like "illegal adlinthin" and “Weak niks.”  And him being found liable for rape. And found guilty of 10 years of business fraud. And saying he wants to be a dictator. And saying he wants to throw out some of the Constitution.
 
That latter paragraph, by the way, is an adaptation of what’s now become my standard reply on social media to extreme-right “outrage” at something they find so despicable and apparently the end of democracy as we know it about President Biden.  Debating such an over-the-top reaction has no point.  Nor does explaining why they’ve misunderstood the horror they’re reacting to.  Instead, saying that "You’re supporting someone found liable for rape, who said he wants to be a dictator” seems a more pointed way to reply.
 
Kari Lake has been especially prominent among the outraged, repeatedly trying to infuriate her supporters, without really having a strong grasp on facts or policy…or what position to take (witness her first being for Arizona’s 1864 total abortion ban, than against it, and now for it) – though in fairness, she’s so deeply reality-challenged that it seems like she’s more trying to audition to be Trump’s VP choice (which will never happen because in her one and only race, she lost – and “loser” is the most damning word to Trump).  More troubling for her is that her flailing comes across as desperate, so totally off the ledge, which appears to be an indication of her concern about her Senate campaign against Ruben Gallego is going.  As just one example, she wrote –
 
“Joe Biden and Ruben Gallego want to raise our taxes by 5 trillion dollars! They've spent so much time in the swamp that they're completely out of touch. Ruben, not all of us can be bankrolled by DC lobbyists. Why are you supporting this attack on American small businesses & families?
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Of course, what the truth-challenged Ms. Lake left out (not shockingly) is that this tax hike is over ten years. And half of that is for the very wealthiest Americans who've been underpaying for decades. (A Forbes article noted that billionaire on average only pay 8.2% in taxes.)  The other half of that tax hike is for corporate taxes. None of the raise in taxes is for most Americans. Moreover, the proposal actually bring down deficit spending!
 
Ms. Lake also posted a video of her Democratic opponent celebrating after the House passed its Ukraine aide bill passed by a massive 311-112 majority.  And so, her only response was to trod out a Trumpian attack --
 
“Ruben Gallego parading around the floor of Congress waving a foreign flag tells you all you need to know about his priorities. 60 billion of our taxpayer dollars to secure Ukraine's border. Zero to defend our own. Radical Ruben will NEVER prioritize your safety.”
 
Of course, in reality, Rep. Gallego was supporting a democratic ally that is under attack by one of America's top enemies -- celebrating a House vote passing overwhelmingly by a 3-to-1 margin that actually benefits American security in many ways.  Not only is Ms. Lake ignorant of that and in the vast minority, and not only does she leave out that it’s Republicans who blocked the border security bill, but given her flip-flopping all over the room about Arizona’s 1864 abortion law, she has a personal challenge  when it comes to prioritizing -- deciding what if anything her priorities should even be.
 
I didn’t mean to skim over the aforementioned Charlie Kirk earlier, since he has been active doing what Charlie Kirk does, being outraged, going so far over the top you fear for his safety, trying hard to regularly “trigger the libs” and if it helps him to outrage his base, just lie.  In another of his efforts, he wrote that “Biden just banned TikTok,” adding that “He is so controlled by the tech companies that he is risking his support with Gen Z.”
 
Except, well, no, of course that isn’t true. After all, no, it’s the Senate and House (the Republican-led House, by the way) who banned TikTok and passed the law.  President Biden signed it.  But even more to the point, the reality is that it's not "banned" at all -- the company has 9-12 months to sell it. Either Charlie Kirk doesn’t understand all this and is just being his normal divisive self, or he don't get how bills work or what they say.  Oh, by the way, you know who has banned this international version of China’s TikTok?  China!  (Yes, really.)
 
This MAGOP “outrage” does sometimes reach comical levels.  Like with Laura Loomer, a party mouthpiece of growing notoriety who Trump loves, who pulled out an old chestnut for some reason and then ratcheted it up, if only to express her head-exploding outrage at Democrats – and please Trump.  “Hillary Clinton belongs in hell.”  Okay, so that seems a bit hyperbolic, but hey, that’s just me.
 
Even Rudy Giuliani popped up from hibernation to help Trump by pulling out an old chestnut, although he was almost beyond pathetic, when he weirdly cried out, “The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election was stolen. Change my mind.”
 
(Okay, I couldn’t let that one pass.  I replied, “You were convicted of defamation, ruining two women's lives, for saying lies like this, and fined $148 million. No one has to convince you of anything. Rather, what you have to do is pay the $148 million fine (after appeal) because of your lying and defaming about the election.”)
 
Coming out of the woodwork, Newt Gingrich jumped in, as well, with a desperate effort to be “outraged” by the Manhattan election interference trial, although he avoided all reference to the concept of evidence, and the best he could offer was just to thrash for the sake of thrashing, “The cost of Trump’s New York trial should be charged to the Biden presidential campaign! It is all politics and no law.”  This from the man reprimanded with an ethics violation when his own party was in control of the House. Never mind that his lie about “no law” being involved in the trials against Trump distracts from the reality that The Law actually found Trump liable (twice) for the equivalence of rape, and also found him guilty of business fraud.
 
That’s largely the running theme in so many of this recent spate of “outrages.”  Not that serious arguments for debate are made to support a position, but spewing out anger (some faux, some it seems out of insecurity) that sounds substantive, but is just misdirection at best, or lies at worst.  Like when Ted Cruz (R-TX) disingenuously wrote the other day that “I could not support the foreign aid bill since it gave money to Gaza and did nothing to stop the invasion Joe Biden has allowed on our southern border.”  Never mind, of course, that in reality President Biden endorsed the border security bill that Ted Cruz’s own Republican Party blocked.  At the behest of Trump.

Actor Kevin Sorbo didn’t have anything on topic to be outraged about, but when you see your well-ordered MAGA world coming apart, he threw in an old Republican lie to do his divisive, outraged part: “If you don’t pay taxes you shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Why should you have control over a system you don’t contribute into?” he wailed. “Why?” he asks – well, because it's in the U.S. Constitution.  Because we aren’t a plutocracy, where only the wealthy get to govern.  Beyond that, it’s just lashing out without even attempting to think, which is so much the foundation of so much MAGOP “outrage.”  After all, of course, just because people don't pay income tax doesn't mean they don't pay taxes! Most people have withholding tax taken from weekly paychecks, so they don't "owe" income tax. And for that matter, everyone pays sales tax on everything they buy. Those are actually “taxes” that go to government to contribute into the system.  This is basic -- and well-known.  Except to MAGOPs grasping for something, anything to be outraged at and blame Democrats and minorities.
 
And then there’s Joey Mannarino., a prominent MAGOP fundraiser who is furiously angry about near-everything related to President Biden.  He wrote in his standard blind, lying rage: “If Joe Biden passes a 44.6% capital gains tax (think cryptocurrency) I will absolutely be renouncing my American citizenship. I hold another one already.”
 
Well, oh, my.  Heavens to Betsy.  Of course, reality down on Earth tells a totally different story.  After all, Joe Biden doesn’t “pass” tax law with a wave of his Harry Potter-style wand.  Such a tax hike could only become law if passed by Congress – which would include Republican votes.  But almost more to the point is that –
 
Even conservative Forbes writes that this proposal is only "incremental, not revolutionary" and "no cause for alarm." It’s just a small increase over the existing law – and further, the rate would only apply to those "with taxable income above $1 million and investment income above $400,000."  Forbes adds "That isn’t quite as cataclysmic a policy shift as referring to a blanket 44.6% long-term capital gains rate would suggest."

Long as this list above was, the full list is overwhelming longer. After all, I haven't even included the pure, flat out, standard, time-tested, brazen lying on social media by MAGOP elected officials like Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene, J.D. Vance, Lauren Boebert and MAGOP megaphones like Fox's Jesse Watters, OANN's Jack Posbiec, Franklin Graham and many more.  It would not only make this go on almost endlessly, but would risk readers throwing objects at their computer screens.  You're welcome.

To be clear, when I saw far longer, I don't mean just from high-profile MAGOP public figures, but also the base they go out of their way to outrage with lies, misdirection, Russian disinformation and more.  And while I know this is common these days, the point here is that all of this above is just within the past few days, when the MAGA world appears to be unraveling.  And the biggest cause – since when such a phenomenon occurs, you have to look at what is different that might have brought the increase about – seems to be seeing their infallible cult leader actually in court on trial…but also, perhaps, seeing him at the courthouse and rallies looking frail, and old, and shuffling, and lashing out even more than usual, calling for bloodbaths, confusing Jimmy Kimmel with Al Pacino, and seeing what looks like to psychiatrists as early stages of dementia as he rambles off on tangents in more odd directions than before, while making up gibberish words when his mind can’t come up with the real ones he wants.
 
So, this growing outburst of flailing MAGOP angst by Trump acolytes has to be, in part, related to Trump’s own concern about how badly the trial is going after just days, and all his other trials and how clear the profoundly losing MAGOP position of abortion is – to which can now be added this week the Pennsylvania primary where he lost 150,000 votes to Nikki Halley who dropped out of the race seven weeks ago!  (To which one can only imagine how many others wanted to vote for Haley but figured “Trump is the nominee, she’s not in the race, why bother going to the polls?”)
 
The election is still seven months away.  Trump is not going to get any better.  The Manhattan trial will continue.  The other trials, even if none start before the election, all hang over him.  If this is the level of MAGOP meltdown outrage already – and man, have I left out not only a lot, but a lot that just totally delusion in its fury and grasp of reality – I can’t even begin to imagine how MAGOP heads are going to keep from exploding.

By the way, to be clear, none of this means that the Republican Party won't do well in the coming elections.  Or collapse under its own weight.  Just that whatever happens, they are on a loop de loop rollercoaster without a safety bar.

Yes, I'm biased.  But then, I'm not the one melting down.  Which makes it easier to see clearly.  And biased doesn't mean being wrong.  Just that you can appreciate the angst of people trying to undermine democracy and make the United States fascist, supporting someone who says he wants to be a dictator, throw out parts of the U.S. Constitution, was found liable for the equivalence of rape, and found guilty of ten years of business fraud.

If you missed Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on Sunday, the Main Story was about UFOs.  Yes, really.  As you might imagine, this lent itself to a great deal of humor.  That said, the focus was serious, dealing with the question of whether investigations into the issue have been substantive enough.  While I agree with that point, I also think there have been some investigations that have more substantive that the show suggests.  Regardless, it's a very entertaining piece.

This is also where I again get to point out that when Oliver mentions (much too off-handedly, I believe, as just a name on a list...) the Army's Project Blue Book, I had an astronomy class at Northwestern taught by J. Allen Hynek -- who had been the civilian head of the project.  The class was not about that, though he did devote two days to the subject.  (Hynek was also the technical adviser on Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  Spielberg even gives him a cameo close-up on the movie.  It's in the final sequence when all the scientists are gathered in a semi-circle, and previously-abducted humans leave the ship.  One of the scientists -- who looks exactly like an astronomer with with a gray goatee -- weaves his way through the crowd, steps forward, takes out his pipe, and gets a closer look.  That's Dr. Hynek.)

Three things I remember from the two days of UFO classes:  

One is that when he got a sense that the project was going to be closed down, Hynek made copies of material to take home so that he could later continue research on his own.  A second thing is that he said that Project Blue Book was not allowed to be shut down until all cases were classified -- the problem for the government was that there were many still-open cases.  So, what they did was classify those cases as "unidentified" and therefore could close down the project.  And the third thing is that Hynek said he never came across a case that convinced him the UFO sightings were aliens -- but -- he said it is ludicrous to think that we are the only living beings in the universe.  He said a whole lot more on the subject, as well as on astronomy in general, but after all this time, that's all I've got...

And as a bonus -- I actually tracked down Dr. Hynek's scene, in Close Encounters of the Third Kind!!  I'm sure there have been many people who've watched the movie of the years who have wondered, "Gee, that's a weird shot of just one guy pushing his way through, what is the point of that??!"  Well -- now you know the point.
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This is the annual reprint of a column originally written on The Huffington Post in 2009.  And this year is the 22nd anniversary of the actual event itself,  Some stories simply demand repeating.  Or better put, demand not being forgotten.  This is one of them.  And so, once again, here 'tis.
 
One additional word.  happily Maurice Cheeks is still in the NBA.  He's currently the assistant coach for the Oklahoma City Thunder, who made the playoffs this season (though alas were knocked out this week).  He also had a strong career as a solid player, and is still 16th on the all-time list of assists with 7.392.  But though this doesn't count on that list, it may be his best assist of all...
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​April 25, 2009

Oh, Say Can You Sing?  A National Anthem to Remember

As I prepared to write about an act of uncommon decency by a professional athlete, I realized that calling it that was unfair, that it diminishes what happened, because this was simply an act of uncommon decency, period.  That it happened on such a high level and under such a bright microscope might likely stir the heart more, but it's the act itself that is ultimately what stirs us to begin with.  Who it was and when it took place simply moves it up the pedestal.

Today is the sixth anniversary of Maurice Cheek's moment on the pedestal.

There is in the American consciousness for notable performances of the National Anthem at sporting events.  Jose Feliciano's evocative singing at the 1968 World Series in Detroit was the first to interpret the "Star Spangled Banner" before a national audience.  Because 1968 was one of the most tumultuous years in U.S. history, many at the time were so outraged that it took his career years to recover.  Today, the rendition not only seems tame, but one of the most tender and beautiful.  (And among the least known.  If you've never heard it, do yourself a favor and click here to listen.) 

Whitney Houston gets mentioned often for her rousing rendition at the 1991 Super Bowl, during the Gulf War.  For many, Marvin Gaye's deeply soulful performance at the 1983 NBA All Star is the most memorable.

But for sheer emotional joy, it's hard to top what happened on April 25, 2003, before Game 4 of the NBA playoffs between the Portland Trailblazers and Dallas Mavericks.

Context only adds to the story.  So, once again: 

This was the playoffs.  This is what all professional athletes live for, what their year is about.  The regular season is a prelude, an effort to get into the post-season and be in place to win the league championship, to become a part of your sport's history.  Everything centers on this.  As the start of each playoff game nears, as the roaring crowd is at its highest pitch, as players put on their proverbial "game faces" and the battle is moments from beginning, all external thoughts get filtered out, and focus is completely, solely on their task ahead.  

The National Anthem, for most athletes, must be one of those external influences.  More than most of us, who hear the "Star Spangled Banner" largely on special occasions, professional athletes have heard the National Anthem played before every single competitive game they've played.  Game after game repeatedly each season, and season after season, for decades.  Relentlessly.  As meaningful as the song is, it is also just part of the ritual for a professional athlete, focused on the game, geared up for the game, anxious to start the game.  Silent, not singing, maybe not even hearing the music.  Waiting for the National Anthem to be played, and finished, so that they can finally start what they're there for.  It's likely as much background noise as it is patriotic uplift.

And so it must have been as the Trailblazers and Mavericks prepared for their playoff game to start.  

Stepping out onto the court was Natalie Gilbert, a 13-year-old girl.   Just another National Anthem, just another youngster who won a contest, just another two minutes the crowd wanted to get past for the game they were there to see, to start.  And she started fine.  A little hesitant, since it's a frightening occasion for a child, with a national audience, flashing lights and a military guard.  But in her wavering voice, she was prepared.

Except that a few lines in, the high pageantry of the moment got her, and something went very wrong.  She totally, thoroughly forgot the words.  A young 13-year-old child, standing in front of over 10,000 people, lost.  Alone.

And that's when Maurice Cheeks showed the kind of person he was.

Maurice Cheeks had had a very good NBA career as a player.  He played for 15 years and was selected to four All Star games.  When he retired, he was the all-time leader in steals and fifth in assists.  He averaged over 11 points a game.  And then he later became a coach, the position he was currently in for the Portland Trailblazers.  It was Cheeks who was responsible for his team, responsible for keeping them focused on the game, responsible for guiding them.  But he saw a 13-year-old girl in trouble.

And that's when Maurice Cheeks showed the kind of person he was.  Immediately.

Cheeks always had a reputation in the NBA as a good guy.  But he was about to prove it on a national stage.  And what happened next - not just with Maurice Cheeks, but eventually with all the jaded players whose minds had been previously-focused on their game, an entire stadium of basketball fans there to see basketball, even the opposing white-haired coach Don Nelson - is just enthralling.

The moment is wonderful, but how it builds and surprises is even better.

And at the end, this tiny girl looking up at the giant of a man - who stayed around, refusing to leave her side and return to his team - with her face awash with relief, a huge hug, and the clear words mouthed, "Thank you," is all you need to see to why it's hard to top what happened on April 25, 2003, before Game 4 of the NBA playoffs for sheer emotional joy.  Six years ago today.