Idiocy and the internet

The internet can be a dangerous, sad and sometimes daunting place.  I've been on websites for various of my interests and almost on every one of them, I've encountered what I've learned are known as internet trolls.  These trolls use the virtual courage that the ether bestows on them to push their own agenda, taunt and humiliate those who dare to disagree with them and, in some instances, meddle in the other persons' lives.  I've known people who have suffered horribly at these trolls' hands, and there's little to do about the internet bullying.  On the one hand, you have an actionable tort, but on the other, you have the assumption of risk.  Furthermore, some people may be too humiliated to make their sufferings public.  Not everyone can be as brave or naive as Mantei Te'o.

I'm sure some of these trolls feel their vigor is justified.  Some of them are simply delusional, others are sanctimonious to an extreme.  There are those who would say that some of my positions on issues, such as England, are extreme, and I would have to agree.  But as Charles Barkley's said (or quoted, I don't remember), opinions are like buttholes and everyone's got one.

I don't begrudge anyone his or her opinion even if it differs with mine.  I enjoy the frank exchange of ideas, especially if I stand to learn something in the process.

My complaint about some of these trolls, however, has little to do with their vitriol, their invasiveness, their sometimes unreasoned idiocy.  No, it has to do with their grammar.

Assuming, for a second, that something posted online isn't dripping with venom, I generally appreciate a well-reasoned if argumentative position.  Online, those can be few and far between.  But what irks me more than anything is sloppy spelling, misuse of words and other rhetorical miscues (logical inconsistencies, historical inaccuracies, outright lying).

For today, I'm going to focus on the grammar and the misuse of words.  Before we get into the meat of the matter, let's stipulate this:  Everyone makes mistakes.  Typos happen to me all the time.  I don't proofread what I type here and Karen will tell me later of mistakes that I never saw.  So I'm not expecting perfection by any means.  To paraphrase, stuff happens. 

Yet it becomes evident after reading a couple of lines or a couple of posts that someone is either functionally illiterate, hopelessly stupid or using English as his or her second language.  At least the person in the last category has an excuse; the first two don't.

I admit that I have trouble with certain verbal constructions; lay and lie confuddle me whenever I need to go to the preterite.  But I do know how to access the internet, I know how to use a dictionary.  Some people either don't know how to use those tools to fix their grammar problems or don't care.

Past and passed are not synonyms.  Their, they're and there mean three distinct things.  If someone is going to be so condescending as to use one of these terms, the least he can do is use them properly.  Using them incorrectly not only detracts from the message but points out that what little thought was put into the original thought didn't cost the person much.

Use of apostrophes is hit or miss.  Sometimes people omit them altogether; I guess this is an outgrowth of the texting craze, something that passed me by.  It's and its are hilariously mistaken often, and the test to make sure one is using is the correct form is, ironically, quite simple.  But to expect someone so loaded up with hatred to take the time to check his work is simply asking too much.

There is and there are are almost becoming interchangeable.  Heck, if news anchors can't even use them correctly, why should some amped up tool?

Perhaps my fondest mistake of all time was this self-proclaimed druid who liked to harken back to the good ole days and talk of his drinking meade.  Karen thinks I'm the only one who would get this, but every time he'd use meade instead of mead, I'd post this:

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the victorious general at the battle of Gettysburg, George Meade.  Unlike his predecessor Joseph Hooker and his successor U.S. Grant, George Meade drank in moderation, if at all, and almost certainly never drank mead.

Of course, by pointing these simple mistakes out, I run the risk of being labeled snooty.  To some extent perhaps I am.  But when someone attacks me and misuses language so horribly as to distract and detract from his essential message, what's the point of continuing the argument?  Someone who so woefully uses the language with which he wants to fight me is like fencing against someone using a wet noodle.


(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Television shows

Karen says I like to watch television too much.  I'm not sure about that.  There's a lot of crap on TV.  I think between the two of us, we like some good shows and like some bad shows.  I admit to having some guilty pleasures that I'm going to keep to myself.  Karen has hers as well, and we both think the other's shows are crappola.  Of course, she designates every thing involving sports as being sports crappola.

Recently, we let go of our cable movie channels for financial reasons.  Sadly, that meant we don't get Dexter, Homeland or Game of Thrones.  There are probably some other shows we'll miss as well, but those are the only ones that I can think of that we'll both miss.

The regular cable channels have some other shows that will fill the void.  Those Alaska-based shows are pretty interesting, for example.  Either way, between what remains on our cable package and Redbox movies, we'll be just fine.

In the meantime, there are a couple of new shows that have caught my interest.  One of them, Scandal, is surprising to me.  It has as its underpinning politics, which I abhor, but the storylines are intriguing to me for some reason.  They don't go too far requiring an absolute suspension of disbelief, but instead posit things that could actually happen.

Another, The Following, beguiles me.  It involves Kevin Bacon as a retired FBI agent who was instrumental in capturing a serial killer.  The killer, after being convicted, escapes from prison some years later and Bacon's character is called back to the force to help apprehend him.  If you haven't seen the show yet, give it a try; I won't explain any more of the plot other to say that the serial killer has a fixation with Edgar Allan Poe.  So far, we're only two episodes in, but I'm hooked.  And Kevin Bacon, a very underrated actor, is excellent in the role.

There's another show debuting on Valentine's Day that has caught my eye called Zero Hour.  I can't find out much about it yet other than it has something to do with a long-standing historical conspiracy.  What's been shown in the promos for the show seem to indicate devices along the lines of what was used in the original National Treasure movie which, despite the participation of Nicholas Cage, I could watch repeatedly.  I know the links between historical events in that movie -- and perhaps this new show -- are largely conjecture, but it fascinates me nevertheless.  I hope Zero Hour is on the same par.

A few years ago I was hooked on another such show, 24.  I almost didn't watch it because of Kiefer Sutherland, a member of the Nicholas Cage acting school.  The first episode was so thrilling I stuck with it and although later seasons never really measured up to the excitement of the first two, there were a couple of good seasons that kept me watching.

For all this I probably have to thank The Fugitive.  Although I never saw the show, the basic premise seems to have given birth to these kinds of shows.  Wiseguy, a show from the 80's, was another show that popularized arcs. 

What all of them have in common is a cerebral quality that makes me think.  I like to try to figure out what's going to happen next and am pleasantly surprised, typically, when I'm wrong and the plot plays out.  I enjoy the cleverness of twists and turns that are at the same time realistic. 

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Dreams

I don't remember my dreams.  Sure, I have them, but I rarely, if ever, remember much about them.  Karen remembers hers and, may I just say, they are vivid and beyond weird sometime.  I always get a kick out of hearing what she dreamt.  Sadly, for her, I can' return the favor.

That being said, I do have moments of reverie that I remember all too well.  Perhaps they qualify as daydreams which, I suppose, make them dreams, but when I say I don't remember my dreams, I mean to say that I don't remember those dreams that I have when I sleep.

These dreams or reveries that I have recur.  I can have a moment of silence and these thoughts will come back to me.  I have no control over it, much like dreams during sleep.  But unlike the dreams that I have during sleep, I remember these.

One of the most enduring dreams or reveries that I have involves me rolling over every single inch of land or ice on earth.  I imagine rolling -- not walking or running, but rolling -- through every dale and valley, up every hill and mountain, and over every desert and plain, on each continent.  I'm not one who can interpret dreams with any accuracy, but I suppose the easiest interpretation is that my love of travel and learning about other cultures explains this reverie.  When I think about this, I try to figure out how long it would take me to do this, and whether I'd be able to enjoy or even look at the lands through which I was rolling.  The odd thing about this particular dream is that whenever I'm rolling through the world, it's always daytime and it's always sunny out.  That, of course, proves the delusion.

One of the other bits of reverie involves the end of time.  Admittedly, I've never read the entirety of Revelations, and Karen's told me much of the predictions in it.  I've read some parts on my own, and I've heard Nostradamus' take on things, but I'm otherwise uninformed.

For whatever reason, I've pondered whether time will end when every possible song combination or every possible chess variation is played.  From what little I understand about music, the possible combinations of melodies are endless.  The only being, then, that could possibly figure out all of them is God.  The theory, then, is that God would decide when time is to end by allowing man to finally grasp every possible variation.  It's hard for us to conceive, with our humanity, but God alone could do it.  When that were to happen, time would end.

Likewise, chess involves endless permutations.  The sixty-four square board would appear to be limited, but the pieces all have different ways of moving.  Add to that the various strategies, between openings, middle game and endgames, and the different games are endless.  The only being, again, that could determine all of that is God.  And when He's ready for time to end, He'll allow each variation to be played by man.

I don't know why I think these things.  I don't think that they're determinative of anything.  But I can't hold a candle to Karen's dreams.  Mine, not surprisingly, are more abstruse.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Chefs

I like to cook.  I'm no chef by any means.  Our Mother used to teach me things when I was younger out of fear that someday I might find myself all alone without anyone to cook for me.  I'll never be one to cook outstanding meals.  I may, in fact, be little better than a line chef at a diner-dive.

Even so, I appreciate what people can do in the kitchen.  To that end, I enjoy watching some cooking shows, chief among them Top Chef.  I admire their skill and knowledge and marvel at what they're able to whip up under time constraints and with the pressure of the $125,000 prize hanging over their heads, not to mention possible elimination because something wasn't seasoned enough.

Every once in awhile I give flight to my whimsy and wonder whether I could have ever done it.  After all, I like to cook and I love to eat.  But when I get down to brass tacks, I know it's not something that would ever have happened.

Why?  Well, for one reason, I can't keep track of the times that certain things require to be cooked correctly.  I can barely time dishes to make sure everything comes together for weeknight dinner, let alone keep track of several dishes at once.  Then there's the notion of keeping track of every ingredient of what is a classical hollandaise sauce, or how long you cook an egg for hardboiled or softboiled (more on that later).

Then there's the whole French thing.  I hate the language, frankly, and to have to use it to communicate in the kitchen bothers me.  Mise en place?  Seriously?  Why do I have to use French terms for Spanish dishes?  I don't think so.

Then there's the smell of foods.  I can barely smell certain foods.  I can smell strawberries and garlic just fine, but I can't smell a lot of other things.  The danger in this, of course, is that I might not be able to smell foods that are just past their dates.  Horribly putrid things I might be able to smell, but I wonder.

Finally, I don't like certain foods.  On Top Chef, people have either won or lost based on their seared scallops.  For me, ironically, I'm allergic to them -- horribly.  So I wouldn't know what a good scallop tasted like if someone offered me Bill Gates' fortune to tell them.  And eggs....to quote Karen, sort of, blech.  I hate cooked eggs more than any other food.  I cringe when I see someone embellishing a dish with a cooked egg (egg on hamburger?  that's just blasphemy to me...).  And yet, cooked eggs feature in many of the dishes chefs make on television.  I just couldn't do it.  I can use raw eggs in baking, but not cooked eggs on any level.  When I get fried rice, I ask that it contain no egg.  That's another smell I have no trouble recognizing, and it makes me heave.

For those reasons, then, it's best that I never went into culinary school.  Sure, it would be cool to be able to tell people that I graduated from the C.I.A., but I wouldn't want anyone to die at my hand.

Besides, I wouldn't look good in those tall chef hats the French love to wear in the kitchen.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Bad industries

In the States, there are some industries that are largely respected.  There are a few, like mine, that are held in ill-repute.  In both cases, some of what forms the opinion is right and some of what forms it is wrong. 

I'm not immune to having my prejudices.  In each case, I haven't been harmed directly by either of these industries, but I've seen others hurt by them.  I think, for the reasons stated, that these industries are in serious need of regulation -- and I'm not typically in favor of more regulation.

The first industry is the credit card industry.  An industry that sends pre-approved credit cards to dead people, animals and children ought not to be allowed to write legislation, but that's what happened in the early part of this century, when Congress allowed itself to be bought by the credit card industry and turned over the duty to re-write the Bankruptcy Code to this industry.  The resulting law, known cynically as the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA), was declared by its proponents as a perfect law.  Within four years a federal court declared certain provisions of it unconstitutional.  Moreover, and perhaps more telling, the final draft that was signed into law misspelled the word bankruptcy.

Keeping pace with the credit card industry in its race through the nine circles of hell is the insurance industry.  It sells itself as protection for consumers and then presents policies with more convoluted rules than the Internal Revenue Code.  The Gordian Knot was easier to untie.  I've seen horror stories wherein coverage was denied over some weasely technicality that, in some situations, is only reversed when the great modern antiseptic, publicity, is shone on the problem via a television story.  I know there's insurance fraud out there, but the insurance companies are at least equally guilty of misusing their own product.

The final industry to draw my wrath and scorn is perhaps not an industry, but it's the organic being known as homeowner's associations.  I find it patently ridiculous that people can be paid to tell me how to live.  I understand that it already exists in places without defined homeowner's associations, where taxes paid to a municipality indirectly fund that entity and allow it to tell a homeowner how to live -- to a certain extent.  But it doesn't typically tell you whether you can put up the American flag.  I've seen stories wherein homeowners were sued because they refused to take the flag down. 

All three industries have at their cores a problem with self-importance.  The first two are capitalist entities, but the third is almost socialist.  Regardless, the three are rife with unfairness and boorishness.  There need to be changes to make each of them more equitable.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Best and worst sportscasters

I prefer to watch sporting events at home.  That way, I can avoid all the hassles I've encountered at past sporting events:  high costs, crowds, parking, commuting to the venue, not being able to see the game because of the fools in front of me, etc.  Sure, some could call it lazy, but when you add up the costs of gas, tickets, parking and concessions, then factor in the quality of the viewing experience, sometimes it makes more sense to stay home.

Then again, when you watch from the comfort of your couch, the quality of the viewing experience can vary depending on the transmission of the game, the size of the television screen and, most notably, the experience and competence of the men calling the game.  There are some people who are so good it's almost a religious experience to listen to them.  Then there are others who make you want to tear your ears off.  Sure, you can turn down the volume.  I have friends who turn off the television volume and turn on the radio to listen to people whom they prefer.

Here then is my list of the best and the worst sportscasters whom I've heard in my lifetime.  When I say sportscasters, I'm including anyone who appears on television or radio in connection with a sporting event.  I'm sure it doesn't meet with everyone's approval, but it is what it is:

The Best (in no particular order):

Ernie Harwell/Vin Scully:  Admittedly, I didn't get to listen to them as much as I'd like to have listened to them, but if you're going to talk about the best, you have to start with them.  I wonder how them compared to the likes of Red Smith and Mel Allen, but I'll stick with these two.

Pat Foley:  What Dollar Bill did to him was unconscionable, but Foley has maintained a level of excellence in the Chicago market for over a quarter century.  That he's just a little bit snarky only adds to his charm.

Lloyd Pettit:  Before there was Foley, there was Pettit.  Anyone who grew up during the sixties and seventies and listened to Blackhawks' games knows of what I speak.

Len Casper and Bob Brenley:  Casper is as steady as they come, and Brenley is honest, sometimes brutally so, but he's always right.

Steven Stone:  Before he went elsewhere, Stone's analysis was prized by those who listened to him.  Unfortunately for Stone, he's been saddled with a couple of real doozies, more of whom anon.

Mike Emrick:  I admit he's been a revelation.  He does a consistent and even-handed job.  He's a pleasure to enjoy when he does the national and Olympic games.

James Brown:  He's only the host of an NFL pregame show, but he's about the best there is at it.  Smooth, knowledgeable and friendly, he could announce vote counting results and I'd watch it.

Tony Kornheiser/Michael Wilbon:  The PTI pair needs to be mentioned together.  They're entertaining and knowledgeable, and they're also unafraid of tackling sensitive stories.

Bob Lea:  He's the academic on the list.

Dick Schaap/Jeremy Schaap:  The only father/son duo on the list, it's obvious the apple didn't fall far from the tree.  I always appreciate listening to them and their incisive interviews.

Troy Aikman:   There aren't too many former athletes on this list, but he's good, knowledgeable and quite consistent.  Excellent, in fact.

Shannon Sharpe:  He's got a great love for the game and speaks his mind.  He's a joy to watch.

Jeff Van Gundy:  I wasn't a big fan of his when he coached, but he's an eye-opener as an analyst.

Jay Bilas:  I'm prejudiced, of course, but having an attorney who also played the game in the booth provides excellent, concise analysis.

Verne Lundquist:  There are those who don't like him, but I think he's like the fun uncle with whom you can discuss sports.

Greg Gumbel:  One of the nicest, most self-effacing and subtlely humorous men in the business.

Tim Kurkjian:  Knowledgeable, modest, always ready to laugh at himself and a good audience for others.  Makes the game of baseball that much better because of his boundless enthusiasm.

Scott Van Pelt:  He has a wicked sense of humor and is very smart on a number of different sports.  Always smooth.  He's the kind of guy with whom you'd want to have a beer.

Keith Law:  He deserves special mention here because he's not typically on air that much, but his blogging and inside information is superlative.  I'd love to sit and discuss the ins and outs of baseball with him.


The Worst (again, in no particular order):   

Harry Caray:  I know he was the longtime voice of the St. Louis Cardinals, and he may have been great back in his day, but by the time he got to the Cubs he was a disaster.  Jack Brickhouse may have been vanilla in comparison, but at least Brickhouse wasn't a joke.  Brickhouse was competent.  Caray was on a career bender.

Mike Ditka:  Why this guy is beloved by many I understand to a degree, but why he's viewed as some sort of football savant escapes me.  He drops the same phrases all the time, speaks like he's chewing on jerky at the same time and effects this hard-as-nails persona that's transparently false. 

Joe Buck:  The ultimate pretty frat boy who's in love with the sound of his own voice, he's so grating that he makes Tim McCarver almost palatable.  Not quite, but almost.

Hawk Harrelson:  The man obviously knows his stuff, but he's such a homer that he makes listening to him an exercise in self-induced vomiting.  And all those cutesy catch phrases...grow up already.

Phil Rizzuto:  I only had to listen to him a handful of times, thankfully.  That man rode his teammates coattails all the way to the Hall of Fame, but also into the broadcast booth.

Mike Lupica:  If I understood why Jason Whitlock was let go from ESPN, then he was right and Lupica is a yappy little chihuahua.  Can it already.

Dick Stockton:  So he has a stentorian voice. The man can't speak English properly and he usually gets basic facts wrong.  Why the lovely Lesley Visser ever married him escapes me.

Boomer Esiason:  As with Ditka and Harrelson, he's a walking warning against letting ex-athletes in the booth.  He's just annoying.

Jalen Rose:  I admit a bias against any of the formerly Fab Five, but the incessant off-key singing and the defense of the urban lifestyle injected into sports clashes with what I like. 

Brent Musberger:  After the Honey Badger and She's a beautiful woman episodes, Brent should have stopped when he quit calling You're looking live...

Bryant Gumbel:  Contrary to his brother, Greg, Bryant is one of the most pompous, egotistical and racist people in sports.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Random thoughts, the beat goes on

There's a conservative pundit whose message I generally appreciate, but whose rhetoric sours me on his monoloques.  He's the kind of critic to whom liberals rightly point to when they discuss the right's vitrol and venom.  His monologues are exercises in withstanding someone who loved to hear the sound of his own voice.  If only he could tone down his rhetoric to allow his message to be heard...

...Even so, he does one thing that I appreciate.  He regularly issues bans on words or phrases that are overused or hackneyed.  It's not exactly William Safire or Edwin Newman, but it's still funny.  What's more, I enjoy the fact that someone else is taking note of the laziness in speech and writing that pervades our culture.

So here's an nod to him:

At the end of the day, as we double down on kicking the can down the road, an iconic narrative can be achieved by amazing and passionate  job creators on journeys full of chemistry and swag as they fulfil their trending personal bucket lists before the viral fiscal cliff implodes as they hide in their man caves.


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Karen loves to do laundry.  Specifically, she loves to hang laundry out on the line to let it dry in the clean air.

My comparable fascination is chopping firewood.  Actually, it's anything to do with creating firewood, whether it's sawing it or chopping it.  Then I enjoy building and keeping a fire going in the fireplace.  When we're finally in that place that we want to be, I want us to have a great wide fireplace with an inexhaustible source of firewood so we can have plenty of warm fires through the autumn and winter.

Tonight's the coldest night of the year so far and we've had a nice little fire going.  I have enough firewood piled and drying for tomorrow night, when we're supposed to be equally cold.

To me, there's just something comforting and fun about getting firewood.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

The Catholic Church and Catholics

I'm a lapsed Catholic Christian.  No matter what anyone says, I'm a Christian.  I'm not a Papist, I don't follow Romanism.  I'm a Roman Catholic Christian.  Even so, I'm what they called lapsed.

Why am I lapsed?  Because the hierarchy of the Church let me down.  It has done everything it can to protect its institution, many times at the expense of the very faith it's supposed to represent.  For centuries, it turned against the people to protect its position in the socio-political order, condemning people to slavery at the hands of peoples it didn't choose to represent it.  It's taken ridiculously hypocritical positions, engaging in rhetorical gymnastics to promote its version of reality. 

One thing non-Catholics believe is that Catholics, because we are baptized shortly after birth, do not come willingly into the Church.  Our decision is reaffirmed with confirmation, but even then, many non-Catholics regard us as brainwashed.  I can think for myself.

Historically, what many critics of the Church point to is the Inquisition.  It was, without doubt, misguided at best and horrific at worst.  It was un-Christian, when you get right down to it.

But there are other historical facts that many critics miss.  The Church in Ireland sided with the English invasion and helped subjugate a people who never wanted foreign rule.  Once English rule ended, the Church held sway over the Irish, committing atrocities no less horrible on them than Nazi atrocities elsewhere in Europe.  So too in Spain, the Church sided with the fascist Franco and helped keep a country under the yoke of a dictatorship to preserve its unnatural place in the social order.  All the while, the Church in both countries touted its efforts to protect the common man which, in retrospect, was just a huge lie.

The Church's reliance on Jesuitical reasoning (not ironically, Ignacio de Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, was a Spaniard) to support its doctrine required a suspension of disbelief.  To present just one element with which I am personally and painfully aware, the Church's position on in vitro fertilization rests on the nebulous Law of Nature which, to simplify it, says that if something isn't in accord with nature, it must be wrong.  Since in vitro fertilization requires the assistance of medical science to bring forth new life, it is against Church doctrine.  Yet, the Church has seen ways of justifying other acts against nature, to wit: 

The Sixth Commandment says Thou shalt not murder.  Yet because the doctor of the Church, Thomas Aquinas, declared that there is such a thing as a just war, man is allowed to use weapons, brought into being with the genius God gave him, to murder his fellow man, all in the name of a just war.  Yet man, with the genius that God gave him, may not bring life into being via in vitro fertilization, despite the fact that to do so breaks no Commandment and in fact keeps up with the dictum be fruitful and multiply.  So long as man is not using this for nefarious means, what's the problem with this?

The other horribly inappropriate matter confronting the Church was the pedophilia scandal in the American Church wherein the Church protected pedophilic priests.  While giving the public lip-service, the Church protected untold thousands of criminals within its ranks and then, when faced with lawsuits from aggrieved victims, declared bankruptcy.  Thankfully, under the bankruptcy laws, such lawsuits are immune from discharge.  Even so, the worst case of self-protecting hypocrisy involved the Vatican bringing Bernard Cardinal Law to Vatican City to put him beyond the reach of American justice, so he wouldn't have to testify to his role in transferring known pedophiles from parish to parish.

We can dispute matters of doctrine between the various Christian faiths, but the Church has acted dishonorably for far too long for me to remain a communicant.  There are plenty of good Catholics, and not just the visible ones like Mother Teresa.  Consider, for a moment, Father Maximilian Kolbe, whose story can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_Kolbe

Irrespective of faith, Father Kolbe's self-sacrifice is in keeping with the Christian tradition.

The Church will not change in my lifetime.  It elevated to the Papacy a few years ago a former member of the Hitler Youth, for heaven's sake.  I can no longer defend its actions and will not support it either directly or indirectly.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Being a nerd

Nerds have become popular over the last few years, what with the advent of the internet (no thanks to Al Gore), smart phones and any manner of technological advances that supposedly make our lives easier.  One of my favorite shows, The Big Bang Theory, leaves me in stitches.  Karen says I remind her of Sheldon Cooper, one of the main geeks.  In some ways, I have to admit, I'm like him.  This recurring riff about flags and his podcast about them hits a nerve, because I actually have a book on flags; they intrigue me. 

When I was in high school, I was caught between two worlds.  I loved playing sports, principally basketball and baseball.  Despite what the politically-charged coaches thought, I was pretty darn good at both, although advancement in either was dubious at best and highly dependent on the planets aligning correctly. 

At the same time, I took honors courses, sang in the choir, was a member of the Prairie Project that was geared toward reestablishing the prairie outside our town and sundry other nerdy groups. 

There were things about both groups in which I didn't get involved; I wasn't the overly macho athlete engaged in weightlifting, driving fast cars and being a boor toward girls.  And I didn't play Dungeons and Dragons or join the Chess Club.

It always struck me that there was an almost continental divide between the two groups.  In our high school, if you were in sports you were a jock and didn't consort with the nerds.  Conversely, if you were highly intelligent you weren't in sports.  I look at The Big Bang Theory guys and, contrary from being caricatures, they are very much like former classmates.  The twain never met. 

At the same time, being involved in both worlds enriched my life in different ways.  It made me a much more complex person than I would otherwise have been.  I can converse with people from both groups to varying degrees and enjoy the company of both.  To isolate either would devalue my life; I watch sports, but I don't paint my face and go to games in subzero temperatures and take off my shirt.  At the same time, I don't wear a pocket protector and attend Comic Con, but I love to read and enjoy mental challenges.

In the end, there needs to be more understanding of both groups.  Both have good and bad elements.  Jocks can be one-dimensional and limited sometimes; nerds can be socially challenged and hard to know.  But jocks can be fun people who are smarter than they are believed to be, and nerds can actually be quite engaging if given the opportunity.

If I could go back to high school -- a thought that makes me shudder -- I'd probably veer more toward the geeks because their interests are more open-ended.  But I like sports too much to eschew them completely.

And I'd certainly join the chess club.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Swag

I love free stuff.  I'll never get swag like they get in Hollywood, but I enjoy the rewards programs that many retailers have started.  I rack up points and monitor them to make sure I get whatever rewards they offer.  I also look for loopholes to see if I can benefit from the programs. 

When we vacationed in Florida, I even signed up for rewards programs down there.  I also have reward programs for businesses that are principally in Kentucky.  Sometimes, as with these programs, I signed up for them simply to get the initial ten percent off. 

The problem with all these rewards programs is that they generate rewards programs cards.  It's gotten so obnoxius that now I have to carry a second wallet in which to keep all the rewards programs cards.  To further complicate things, some companies' logos or colors are very similar to others' logos or colors.  When I go into one store, it takes me longer to find its card because I'm constantly confusing others' cards with the one for which I'm looking.  I look like a moron with all my cards out on the counter furiously searching for the one I need.

Add to that the frustration that some companies inject into the equation.  Notably, Outback Steakhouse makes its rewards program well nigh impossible to register for.  I've had less trouble getting into federal court than I did trying to sign up for Outback's rewards program. 

There are added bonuses to belonging to rewards programs, such as birthday perks.  Other programs have incentive programs that are pretty easy, like Speedway's.  There, you only have to use their card ten times within a month to earn seven thousand bonus points.  Easy, peazy. 

It's not just the big spenders and highrollers that get perks.  But it's probably a litttle easier for them such that they don't need to carry a second wallet.  Either that or they just hire someone to carry all the rewards programs cards for them.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Politics

I'm not overtly political.  At times, I find some of the machinations fascinating, other times I find it compelling in the same way a train crash is compelling.  Most of the time, I'm disgusted by the whole industry -- and that's what it's become, an industry.

My loathing for the industry goes back to high school.  I injudiciously ran for vice president of the National Honor Society my junior year.  I spoke first to the group and told them some platitudinous stuff about not knowning what the position entailed, but whatever was involved I would strive to make the best of it and to represent my classmates to the best of my ability.  I was brief.  My opponent, who ended up with a full ride to Purdue University to study engineering and was either the valedictorian or the salutatorian, promised, if elected, to make sure that we would go to a Cubs' game.  The tally was resolved in his favor, with him winning by one vote.  It turned out that my friends in the senior class counted the votes and one of them commented that she was so sure I was going to win that she voted for my opponent so that it wasn't a shut out.  She was so upset that she told her friend that she'd change her vote in my favor.  Her friend, also a close friend of mine, correctly and thankfully told her I wouldn't want that.  With that election, my involvement in politics came to an end.

With that background I come to my adult life and politics.  As a general proposition, I'm an independent, belonging to neither established party.  I joke that I'm a Marxist, that I wouldn't join a club that would have me as a member, but Karen tells me that's lame to say.  My opinion of the two parties, painted with a very broad brush, is that the Republicans are arrogant and the Democrats are hypocritical.  Although I lean more conservative in some areas and liberal in others, I have a healthy distaste for the Democrats.

The Democrats and their liberal supporters drive me insane for this reason:  Their unexpressed motto is Do as we say, not as we do.  The recent debate on gun control is instructive.

When he was a candidate in 2008, Uncle Joe Biden said on the campaign trail that candidate Obama would have to pry his guns out of his hands.  Now, Uncle Joe is leading the charge on curtailing gunowners' rights. 

Liberals point out to the massacres that have occurred with semiautomatic weapons.  The deaths, to be sure, are horrifying.  But the statistics show that these deaths are relatively few when compared to deaths caused by knives, cars and even drugs.  Yet the outrage is focused solely on guns.

Hollywood types rail against semiautomatics.  They film commercials exercising their First Amendment rights.  Yet they ignore that they are speaking out to limit others' Second Amendment rights and conveniently ignore the movies in which they appear and for which they receive huge money wherein semiautomatics loom large.  The reason they can do that, obviously, is that when they make movies, they're excercising their First Amendment rights.  So when they're exercising their constitutional rights, it's all right, even if by doing so they unconsciouly plant the seeds in young people's minds that using these weapons illegally is all right, but heaven forbid another person exercises his Second Amendment rights lawfully.

And whatever you do, don't ask them about it.  Right, Quentin Tarantino?

Al Gore, the champion of the green movement, won an Oscar and a Nobel for his efforts.  Nevermind that the science behind his argument was later debunked.  And whatever you do, don't criticize him for selling his cable television station to Al Jazeera, an Arabic television station that served as Al Qaeda' media outlet and is funded by Qatar, a country that exists on oil -- the fossil fuel Gore allegedly demonized.  Whatever you do, don't question his need to fly his private jet instead of flying commercial like the rest of us heathens -- remember, he buys others' carbon credits.

I could go on for hours.  Sure, the Republicans aren't blameless.  I don't need their lectures and pats on the heads, either.  But there's a fundamental difference between the two:  With the Republicans, they're a fixed target.  With the Democrats, they're constantly moving, shifting their story to suit their latest needs.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Bad speeches

Don't ask me why we did this, but the other night Karen and I watched the Golden Globes Awards.  Initially, I wanted to see Tina Fey and Amy Poehler (more the former than the latter, although I was pleasantly surprised by some of Poehler's jokes), but we got caught up watching most of the telecast.

Then came Jodie Foster's award for something or other.  These celebrity awards amaze me, for reasons that I've noted elsewhere.  The speeches, typically, can be funny or touching.  Sometimes they're just plain weird.  Foster's veered so far into the weird it merits comment. 

Here's the entirety of the speech:

Thank you. Well for all of you SNL fans, I'm 50! I'm 50! You know, I need to do that without this dress on, but you know, maybe later. I'm 50! You know, I was going to bring my walker tonight, but it just didn't go with cleavage. Robert, I want to thank you for everything. For your bat-crazed, rapid-fire brain, the sweet intro. I love you and Susan, and I am so grateful that you continually talk me off the ledge when I say I'm done with acting, I'm done with acting, I'm really done, I'm done, I'm done, I'm done. Trust me, 47 years in the film business is a long time. You just ask those Golden Globies, because you've been around here forever. You know, Phil, you're a nut, Aida, Scott, thank you for honoring me tonight. It is the most fun party of the year, and tonight, I feel like the prom queen.

Looking at all those clips, you know the hairdos and the freaky platform shows, it's like a home movie nightmare that just won't end, and all of these people sitting here at these tables, they're my family of sorts, you know. Fathers, mostly — executives, producers, directors, my fellow actors out there. We've giggled through love scenes, we've punched and cried and spit and vomited and blown snot all over one another — and those are just the co-stars I liked. But you know more than anyone else, I share my most special memories with members of the crew. Blood-shaking friendships, brothers and sisters. We made movies together, and you can't get more intimate than that.

So when I'm here being all confessional, I guess I just have a sudden urge to say something that I've never really been able to air in public. So, a declaration … that I'm a little nervous about, but maybe not quite as nervous as my publicist right now, huh Jennifer? But you know, I'm just gonna put it out there, right? Loud and proud, right? So I'm gonna need your support on this. I am… single. Yes I am, I am single. No, I'm kidding. But I mean, I'm not really kidding, but I'm kind of kidding. Thank you for the enthusiasm. Can I get a wolf whistle or something? I hope you guys weren't hoping this would be a big coming out speech tonight, because I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago, back in the stone age. In those very quaint days when a fragile young girl would open up to trusted friends and family, co-workers, and then gradually, proudly to everyone who knew her, to everyone she actually met. But now apparently, I'm told that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance, and a prime time reality show. You guys might be surprised, but I am not Honey Boo Boo Child. No, I'm sorry, that's just not me, it never was, and it never will be. But please don't cry, because my reality show would be so boring. I would have to make out with Marion Cotillard, I would have to spank Daniel Craig's bottom, you know, just to stay on the air. It's not bad work if you can get it though.

But seriously. If you had been a public figure from the time you were a toddler, if you'd had to fight for a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, then maybe you too might value privacy above all else. Privacy. Someday, in the future, people will look back and remember how beautiful it once was. I have given everything, up there, from the time that I was three years old. That's reality show enough, don't you think? There are a few secrets to keeping your psyche intact over such a long career. The first: Love people, and stay beside them. That table over there, 222, way out out in Idaho, Paris, Stockholm, that one next to the bathroom with all the unfamous faces — the very same faces for all these years. My acting agent, Joe Funicello — Joe, do you believe it, what, 38 years we've been working together? Even though he doesn't count the first eight. Matt Saber, Pat Kingsley, Jennifer Allen, Grant Iman and his uncle Jerry, may he rest in peace — lifers. My family and friends, here tonight and at home. And of course, Mel Gibson — you know you saved me too.

There is no way I could ever stand here without acknowledging one of the deepest loves of my life, my heroic co-parent, my ex-partner in love but righteous soul sister in life. My confessor, ski buddy, consigliere, most-beloved BFF of 20 years, Cydney Bernard. Thank you Cyd. I am so proud of our modern family, our amazing sons Charlie and Kit, who are my reason to breathe, and to evolve, my blood and soul. And boys, in case you didn't know it, this song, like all of this, this song is for you. This brings me to the greatest influence of my life, my amazing mother Evelyn. Mom, I know you're inside those blue eyes somewhere and that there are so many things that you won't understand tonight, but this is the only important one to take in: I love you, I love you, I love you. And I hope that if I say this three times, it will magically and perfectly enter into your soul, fill you with grace, and the joy of knowing that you did good in this life. You're a great mom. Please take that with you when you're finally OK to go.

You see Charlie and Kit, sometimes your mom loses it too. But I can't help but get moony,    you    know. This feels like the end of one era and the beginning of something else. Scary and exciting, and now what? Well, I'm never going to be up on this stage again. On any stage, for that matter. Change, you've gotta love it. I will continue to tell stories, to move people by being moved: the greatest job in the world. It's just that from now on, I may be holding a different talking stick. And maybe it won't be as sparkly. Maybe it won't open on three thousand screens. Maybe it will be so quiet and delicate that only dogs can hear it whistle. But it will be my writing on the wall: Jodie Foster was here, I still am, and I want to be seen, to be understood, deeply, and to be not so very lonely. Thank you, all of you, for the company. Here's to the next fifty years.

 Could she have been drunk?  I suppose so.  Contrary to many in the blogosphere, however, I don't find this speech either elegant or amazing.  It's a rambling, self-indulgent waste of time, full of inside jokes or meanings and more appropriate of an unnaturally self-possessed teeanager than a fifty-year-old Ivy League graduate.  Whether she wants to come out or discuss her sexuality is her business -- we agree on privacy if nothing else -- but this speech was nowhere close to what I'd expect from an Ivy League graduate.

Curiously, it reminded me of another much-discussed acceptance speech.  Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame acceptance speech was widely pilloried as being vain, petty and full of conceit.  Here's the text of that one:

I told all my friends I was just gonna come up here and say 'thank you' and walk off. I can't. There's no way. I got too many people I gotta thank. In all the videos, you never just saw me; you saw Scottie Pippin. Every Championship I won. I've had a lot of questions over the last four weeks, and everybody's saying well 'why'd you pick David Thompson?' I know why, and David knows why, and maybe you guys don't know why, but as I grew up in North Carolina, I was 11 years old in 1974 I think when you guys won the championship. And uh, I was an anti-Carolina guy - I hated UNC, and here I ended up at UNC. But I was in love with David Thompson. Not just for the game of basketball, but in terms of what he represented. You know, we all - as Vivienne said - we go through our trials and tribulations. And, he did. And I was inspired by him. And when I called him and asked him to uh, stand up for me, I know that I shocked the sh1t outta him. (applause, laughter)

I know I did. But...he was very kind and said 'yea, I'll do it.' And that wasn't out of disrespect to any of my Carolina guys - they all know I'm a true blue Carolina guy to the heart. Coach Smith, Larry Brown, Sam Perkins, James Worthy - you know, all of those guys.

Well it all starts with my parents - you guys see all the highlights; what is it about me that you guys don't know? Uh, as I sat up here and watch all the other recipients stand up here and they give the history; there's so many things I didn't know about Jerry Sloan. I know he lived on a farm, but I didn't know he was in a small classroom from the first grade to the eighth grade. Even David Robinson - obviously I've known David for some time and you know, I've found some things out about him, and even with John I found some bad things - or good things out about him. (laughs) And even Viv - Viv, I've known Viv for years. Her and my father and my Mom spent a lot of time on the Nike trips and I found out a lot of good things about her, but what about me that you guys don't know?

I got two brothers - James and Larry - they're 5'4", 5'5" in height. (laughs) They gave me all I could ever ask for as a brother in terms of competition. You know you would think - my brother Larry is an ideal situation where small things come in small packages; this dude fought me every single day. And to the extent that my mother used to come out and make us come in because we were fighting way too much. And my older brother was always gone - he served in the Army for 31 years. (applause)
And the competition didn't stop there - my sister, who is one year younger than me, Raz, never wanted to be home by herself. She took classes - extra classes to graduate from High School with me, to go to University of North Carolina with me, and to graduate - prior - than me. (laughs) And you guys sit there asking where is my competition or where did my competitive nature come from? It came from them. It came from my older sister, who's not here today. And my father, who's not here today - obviously he's with us in all of us. I mean my competitive nature has gone a long way from the first time I picked up any sport - baseball, football, ran track, basketball - anything to miss class, I played it.

So they started the fire in me - that fire started with my parents. And as I moved on in my career people added wood to that fire. Coach Smith, you know what else can I say about him? (applause) You know, he's legendary in the game of coaching. And then there's Leroy Smith. Now you guys think that's a myth. Leroy Smith was a guy when I got cut he made the team - on the Varsity team - and he's here tonight. He's still the same 6'7" guy - he's not any bigger - probably his game is about the same. But he started the whole process with me, because when he made the team and I didn't, I wanted to prove not just to Leroy Smith, not just to myself, but to the coach that picked Leroy over me, I wanted to make sure you understood - you made a mistake dude. (laughter, applause)

And then there's Buzz Peterson, my roommate. Now when I first met Buzz - all I heard about was this kid from Ashville, North Carolina who's player of the year. I'm thinking, 'well he ain't never played against me yet, so how did he become Player of the Year?' Is that some type of media exposure? You know I came from Wimbleton; you know we had two channels, channel ABC and channel NBC, that was it. I never saw NBA sports at all when I grew up; we didn't have CBS affiliation in North Carolina in Wimbleton, so Buzz Peterson became a dot on my board. And when I got the chance to meet Buzz Peterson on the basketball court or in person - Buzz was a great person, it wasn't a fault of his. It was just that my competitive nature - I didn't think that he could beat me, or he was better than me as a basketball player. And he became my roommate. And from that point on, he became a vocal point - not knowingly; he didn't know it - but he did. And Coach Smith, the day that he was on the Sports Illustrated and he named four starters and he didn't name me - that burned me up! Because I thought I belonged on that Sports Illustrated. Now he had his own vision about giving a Freshman that exposure, and I totally understand that, but from a basketball sense I deserved to be on that Sports Illustrated, and he understand that.

And it didn't stop there. You know, my competitive nature went right into the pros; I get to the Bulls, which I was very proud that - at the time Jerry Rice <> on the team. It was another organization. And Rob Thorn drafted me. Kevin Lockey was my first coach. Kevin used to take practices and put me in the starting five, and he'd make it a competitive thing where the losing team would have to run. So now I'm on the winning team, and half way in the game, half way in the situation, he would switch me to the losing team. So I take that as a competitive thing of you trying to test me - and 9 times out of 10 the second team would come back and win no matter what he did. So I appreciate Kevin Lockey for giving me that challenge - you know providing that type of fire within me; he threw another log on that fire for me.

Jerry <> - I mean what else can I say? The next year I came back, I broke my foot and I was out for 65 games. And when I came back I wanted to play; you know he and the doctor's came up with this whole theory that you can only play 7 minutes a game, but I'm practicing 2 hours a day. I'm saying 'well, I don't think - I don't agree with that math, you know?' And back then it was about whoever had the worst record got the most balls and the ping pong balls and you know you can decide what pick you're gonna have, but I didn't care about that, I just wanted to win. I wanted to make the playoffs. You know, I wanted to keep that energy going in Chicago. So I had to go in his office, and sit down with him and say 'Jerry, you know I feel like I should play more than 14 minutes, I've been practicing 2 hours.' And he said 'MJ, I think I have to protect the long term investment that we've invested in you.' And I said 'Jerry, I, I really think I should be able to play.' And he said 'let me ask you this, if you had a headache?' And you know at that time it was about 10% chance that I could re-injure my ankle or my foot. And he said 'if you had a headache and you got 10 tablets and one of them is coated with cyanide, would you take the tablet?' And I looked at him and I said 'how bad is the headache? depend on how bad the headache.' Jerry looked at me and he said 'Yeah ok I guess that's a good answer, you can go back and play'. And he let me go back and play.

You know, Jerry provided a lot of different obstacles for me, but at the same time the guy gave me an opportunity to perform at the highest level in terms of basketball, and the Bulls - the whole Bulls organization did a great justice for me and all of my teammates - believe me I had a lot of teammates over the 14 years that I played for the Bulls. You know I respected each and every one of them, I just wanted to win. You know, it's how you want to look at it. And then along came Doug Collins who was caught in the whole midst of this Jerry Kraus and Jerry Rainsdorf. And, at the same time, you know when I was trying to play in the summertime, he said 'well, you're a part of the organization and the organization said you can't play in the summertime' and I said 'Doug, you haven't read the fine print in my contract. In my contract I have the 'love the game clause' that means I can play anytime I want, any place I want.' (laughs) And Doug looked at me and said 'yea, you're right, you're right.' And that's how we became a little closer in terms of Doug Collins and myself. And Jerry Kraus is right there, and Jerry is not here - I mean obviously, I don't know who invited him, I didn't, but uh. I hope he understands, I hope he understands it goes a long way, and he was a very competitive person and I was a very competitive person. He said 'organizations win championships'. I said 'I didn't see organizations playing with the Flu in Utah. I didn't see them playing with a bad ankle.' Granted, I think organizations put together teams, but at the end of the day, the team has to go out and play. You know, so in essence, I think the players win the championship, and the organization has something to do with it - don't get me wrong. But don't try to put the organization above the players, because at the end of the day the players still got to go out there and perform. You guys gotta pay us, but I still gotta go out and play.

Obviously, you see my kids - Jeffrey, Marcus, Jasmine - I love you guys. I think you guys represent a lot of me; a lot of different personalities. Your Mom, you represent them as well. You know I think that you guys have a heavy burden. I wouldn't want to be you guys if I had to, because of all the expectations that you have to deal with - I mean look around you, they're charging $1000 tickets for this whole event. It used to be 200 bucks. But I paid it, you know, I had no choice. I had a lot of family, a lot of friends I had to bring in... so thank you Hall of Fame for raising ticket prices, I guess.
But you guys - I love you guys - you guys, just so you know, you got a whole host of people supporting you; family, friends, people that you don't know. Relatives coming out of the woodwork, you know, no matter how you look at it. But I think we taught you right - your Mom and I - and hopefully you can make the right decision when the time comes.

My Mom, what else can I say about my Mom. My Mom never stays still. You think I'm busy? She's always on the go. And without her - she's a rock - she's unbelievable. Right now she takes over two jobs. (applause) She's an unbelievable woman. If I've got anybody that's nagging me each and every day, it is her. And she constantly keeps me focused on the good things about life - you know how people perceive you, how you respect them, you know what's good for the kids, what's good for you. How you are perceived publicly, take a pause and think about the things that you do. And that all came from my parents, you know it came from my Mom. And she still at this stage - I'm 46 years old - she's still parenting me today. And that's the good thing about that lady, I love her to death. I love her to death.

And I'm going to thank a couple people that you guys probably wouldn't even think that I would thank. Isiah Thomas, Magic Johnson, George Gervin - now they say it was a so-called 'freeze out' in my rookie season. I wouldn't have never guessed, but you guys gave me the motivation to say 'you know what, evidently I haven't proved enough to these guys. I gotta prove to them that I deserve what I've gotten on this level'. And no matter what people may have said - if it was a rumor, I never took it as truth - but you guys never froze me out, because I was just happy to be there, no matter how you look at it. And from that point forward I wanted to prove to you, Magic, Larry, George, everybody - that I deserved to be on this level just as much as everybody else. And hopefully over the period of my career I've done that, without a doubt - you know even in the Detroit years, we've done that.
Pat Riley. I mean, you and I, we go way back. I still remember in Hawaii - you remember in Hawaii, you and I - I was coming in and you were I guess leaving and you decided to stay a couple extra days, but you were in my suite. And they came and they told you you had to get out of my suite. And you slid a note underneath my door - although you had to move; you did move - you slid a note, saying: 'I enjoyed the competition, congratulations. But we will meet again.' And I took the heart in that because I think in all honesty you're just as competitive as I am, even from a coaching stand point. And you challenged me every time I played the Knicks, the Heat - and I don't think you were with the Lakers - but anytime I played against you, you had Jordan-Stoppers on your team, you had John Starks who I loved. You even had my friend Charles Oakley saying 'we can't go to lunch, we can't go to dinner, because Pat doesn't believe in fraternizing between the two of us.' And this guy hit me harder than anybody else in the league and he was my best friend. Patrick Ewing - we had the same agent, we came at the same time, but we can't go to lunch. Why is this? You think I'm gonna play against Patrick any different than I play against anybody else? Nah, nah. And then you had your little guy, who was on your staff, who became the next coach after you - Jeff VanGundy. He said I conned the players, I befriended them and then I attacked them on the basketball court. Where did that come from? I just so happen to be a friendly guy. I get along with everybody, but at the same time when the light comes on I'm just as competitive as anybody you know. So you guys I have to say thank you very much for that motivation that I desperately needed. (applause)

Phil Jackson. Phil Jackson is a - to me, he's a professional Dean Smith. He challenged me mentally, not just physically. You know, he understood the game, along with Tex Winter. They taught me a lot about the basketball game - Tex being the specialist - you know I could never please Tex. And I love Tex. Tex is not here, but I know he's here in spirit. I can remember a game coming off the basketball court, and we were down, I don't know 5-10 points, and I go off for about 25 points and we come back and win the game. And we're walking off the floor and Tex look at me and says 'you know, there's no 'i' in team'. And I said 'Tex, there's not, there's not an 'i' in team, but there's an 'i' in win.' (laughs, applause). I think he got my message: I'll do anything to win. You know, if that means we play team format, we win. If that means I have to do whatever I have to do, we gonna win no matter how you look at it.

And then we had all those media nay-sayers. Oh 'scoring champion can't win an NBA title.' Or 'you're not as good as Magic Johnson, you're not as good as Larry Bird - you're good, but you're not as good as those guys.' You know, I had to listen to all of this - and that put so much wool on that fire that it kept me - each and everyday, trying to get better as a basketball player. Now I'm not saying that they were wrong - I may have looked at it from a different perspective. But at the same time, as a basketball player I'm trying to become the best that I can, you know, and for someone like me who achieved a lot over the course of my career you look for any kind of messages that people may say or do to get you motivated to play the game of basketball at the highest level, because that is when I feel like i excel at my best.

And my last example of that - and the last one that you guys have probably seen - I hate to do it to him, but - he's such a nice guy and uh. When I first met Bryan Russell - John <> will remember this - I was in Chicago in 1994. I was working out for baseball, and they came down for a workout and shoot-around and I came over to say hello. And at this time I had no thoughts of coming back and playing the game of basketball, and Bryan Russell came over to me and said 'you know what man, why'd you quit? Why'd you quit? You know I could guard you. If I ever see you in a pair of shorts. If I ever see you in a pair of shorts.' Remember this John? (laughs)

So when I did decide to come back in 1995, and then we played Utah in '96, I'm at the Center Circle and Bryan Russell is sitting next to me and I look over at Bryan and I said 'do you remember this conversation you made in 1994, or when you 'I think I can guard you, I can shut you down, and I would love to play against you.' 'well you about to get your chance.' And believe me, ever since that day, he got his chance. I don't know how succeeding he was, but I think he had his chance, and believe me I relished on that point and from this day forward if I ever see him in shorts I'm coming at him.

I know you guys gotta go - I know I've been up here a lot longer than I told my friends I was going to be up here. I cried. I was supposed to go up here say 'thank you' and walk off, and I didn't even do that, so uh.

As I close - the game of basketball has been everything to me. My refuge. My place I've always gone when I needed to find comfort and peace. It's been a source of intense pain, and a source of most intense feelings of joy and satisfaction. And one that no one can even imagine. It's been a relationship that has evolved over time, and given me the greatest respect and love for the game. It has provided me with a platform to share my passion with millions in a way I neither expected nor could have imagined in my career. I hope that it's given the millions of people that I've touched, the optimism and the desire to achieve their goals through hard-work, perseverance, and positive attitude. Although I'm recognized with this tremendous honor of being in the basketball Hall of Fame - I don't look at this moment as a defining end to my relationship with the game of basketball. It's simply a continuation of something that I started a long time ago. One day you might look up and see me playing the game at 50. (laughs) Oh don't laugh. Never say never. Because limits, like fears are often just an illusion. Thank you very much. Looking forward to it.

Jordan isn't Foster's intellectual equal. Both are highly accomplished in their respective fields and worthy of the accolades they've received.  But neither of them can give an acceptance speech to save their lives.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Karen

I post here about silly and serious things.  I mix it up because I don't want to bore myself.  Besides, there are plenty of things I find interesting and feel the urge, if not the need, to comment on, dangling preposition be darned. 

There is one thing about which my passion knows no bounds, and that is the love of my life, Karen.  She is my best friend, my lover, the darling of my heart.  She loves me as no one has ever loved me.  She has taught me things no one could ever teach me, shown me new things and opened vistas to me that were kept from me.  We have laughed together, we've cried together.  We've shouted at each other and loved each other even more passionately.  I have never known the support from another person that I've known from my girl.

Karen is sick.  She's fighting illnesses that doctors are having trouble to pin down.  As a result Karen, who is wicked smart and more medically informed than even some of her doctors, has researched her symptoms and come away scared from what she's read.  She hurts so badly at night that she wakes up crying and then goes to the computer to try to diagnose what ails her.  What she reads alternately scares and comforts her.

In this scheme, I'm relatively unimportant.  That statement, in a vacuum, will anger my girl.  I mean by that, however, that my statement about feeling helpless is nothing more than a statement of fact, not a complaint.  I want to help her, remove her pain, comfort her and ease her burden.  At times, too few for my taste, I'm able to do something for her, but more often than not, her pain continues.

She bridles when I tell her she's strong.  She scoffs at the notion that she handles pain that other people can't.  But she does, and she does it with grace and a smile.

I pray for her all the time.  I try to do things that will make her life easier.  I want to live a long time with her, since we met relatively late.

Karen means the world to me.  She is my family, past, present and future.  No woman -- no person -- has ever meant as much to me.  I love her with all my heart.  I've loved her since before I was born and I will love her beyond the end of time.  I ask God to heal her and to guide the doctors who are treating her to find her ailment and relieve her of them.

I love you sweetheart.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

MacArthur

Recently it came to my attention that another servicman had been awarded a Medal of Honor for action in Afghanistan.  In all likelihood, it was a well-deserved award.  Fortunately, unlike the first seven that were awarded posthumously in for action in Iraq and Afghanistan, the recipient will be present in the White House in February.

The Medal of Honor has a long but sometimes tortured history.  Congress in the early days of the award doled it out like penny candy.  Sometimes, people who didn't deserve the award at all won it.  There were even shameful instances where African- and Asian-American servicemen didn't have their applications processed our of racial bias.  Since World War I, the attention given to the award has stiffened somewhat, resulting in less questionable and controversial awards.  There have still been some mistakes, but by and large the awarding of this honor has been improved greatly.

Even so, the award to one recipient has always bothered me.  Douglas MacArthur, the pompous, self-righteous, egomaniacal general with the long and checkered military career, was awarded a Medal of Honor early in World War II.  Here's the language of the citation:

For conspicuous leadership in preparing the Philippine Islands to resist conquest, for gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action against invading Japanese forces, and for the heroic conduct of defensive and offensive operations on the Bataan Peninsula. He mobilized, trained, and led an army which has received world acclaim for its gallant defense against a tremendous superiority of enemy forces in men and arms. His utter disregard of personal danger under heavy fire and aerial bombardment, his calm judgment in each crisis, inspired his troops, galvanized the spirit of resistance of the Filipino people, and confirmed the faith of the American people in their Armed Forces.

There are a few problems with this.  First and foremost, even though he'd been given advance warning of an attack in the Philippines, Dougie kept his bombers lined up in the airfields, not dispersing them to make aerial attack more difficult.  His argument was that he feared guerrilla attack.  The truth of the matter is he disdained the Asian soldier, despite the fact that the Japanese army had eight years of hard fighting under its belt by the time it attacked in late 1941. 

Dougie also did nothing to prepare the islands against invasion.  The honorable fight put up by US forces on the Bataan peninsula could have been even harder on the Japanese had Dougie made adequate preparations before they came.  Supplies weren't distributed correctly.  Force dispositions dissipated American strengths.  It's unlikely that the Japanese could have been defeated; they had the advantage of superior interior lines.  Even so, what MacArthur did was criminally neglectful and certainly not worthy of the Medal of Honor.

There's no question that Roosevelt gave MacArthur the Medal of Honor to instill pride in the United States people and to rally them around the cause.  But in so doing, he devalued the award to those men who made the ultimate sacrifice.  It was a shameful choice that only served to fuel MacArthur's ego that led to later miscalculations at Peliliu and Chosin needlessly costing brave men their lives and futures.

That MacArthur served his country is undeniable.  But that he was given the nation's highest award for valor in combat is one of the worst decisions in the long history of the Medal of Honor.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Update on the Generals

I think it's time for an update on the Generals.  The boys have been growing up admirably in some ways, not so admirably in others.  Let's start with the bad first.

Custer has been feeling his oats.  He's determined to wrest the position of Alpha Male from Sherman.  There have been some knock-down, drag-out battles between them.  Think bears fighting on their hind legs, with plenty of biting and swipes with their front paws, just on a smaller scale.  I'm no lightweight, but I had to give up trying to separate them phyically.  I've had to resort to the spritzer to get them apart.  It's sad.

Sherman sleeps most of his days.  But when I go out and come back, with his brothers squestered elsewhere (more of that anon), he gets animated and wrestles with me like back in the day.  He's so smart that he knows we run no risks of Custer trying to impose his will on us since he's locked up.  Today, for example, he and I played for a good ten minutes until he got winded.

Custer, for all his pretentions to the throne, is a bedwetter and a covert pooper.  If I leave him out, the odds are even that I'll come home to a load deposited in a couple of select places in the family room.  I've had to cordon off the living room to try and keep that safe.  Once in awhile I'll bring the galoot down in the basement with me, but that engenders a host of other issues.  On our way up the stairs, Cus thinks that it's play time.  As I get to the landing, he jumps up on me as if to play.  I push him down with my knee, but it's difficult, especially if I'm carrying something. 

There are times when Stonewall is trying to play with him in his inimitable style, which entails grabbing onto Cus' jowls and pulling -- hard -- and I go after Stonewall to get him to stop it.  Cus, not realizing I'm trying to protect him, thinks it's time to play and jumps on me.  Again, that just makes everything more difficult.

But Custer's biggest surprise for us involved the fireplace.  It was always my impression that animals feared fire.  Not Custer.  He's already demonstrated that he has no fear of the water, having jumped into Lake Michigan, but now he's quite comfortable sticking himself as close to the fireplace as possible.  I have to block him off so I can build the fire in the first place, and if I go near it to stoke it, he comes to help me.  Once the fire is roaring, he'll lie down in front of it with his snout inches from the safety grating.  With his flatulence problem, Karen and I joke that if he ever lets one loose while in front of a fire, he'll incinerate us. 

As fearless as he is of the elements, he's that scared by sound.  Yesterday I clanged the dog bowls together and Custer ran with his powder-puff tail tucked in tightly. 

Perhaps the funniest thing that Cus does is follow reflections.  Karen's cousin Robert first discovered that Cus followed the light made by a flashlight.  He'd twirl the light on the floor and Custer turned round and round chasing the light.  The other night I was reading a book, unaware that the glossy book jacket reflected light from the lamp on the ceiling.  As I turned the book in my hands, Custer would chase the light on the ceiling.

Stonewall is now taller than his brothers, but he's not filling out.  Karen says he's a lower grade bulldog.  He's very energetic and fast as a whippet, but he's slowly learning how to behave.  He still piddles when my back is turned.  But now he and I roughhouse the way I do with his older brothers, and he's catching on as to how hard he can bite my hands.  He's every bit as affectionate as he always was, and he is beginning to understand that he's the lowest man on the totem pole.

The funny thing is when we're watching television and a dog barks in a scene on a show.  Both Stoney and Cus go nuts looking for the dog.  Stoney barks, Cus mewls.  When the doorbell rings in a scene, the three of them run to the front door.

It makes me sad when people are cruel to pets.  I can understand putting down a rabid dog or a violent animal, but when the harmless and reliant pets have done nothing, being subjected to man's inhumanity is unforgivable.  Were anyone to hurt one of our boys, I'd lose my mind.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Race and sports

I used to play baseball and basketball.  I wasn't too bad in either sport.  Arguably, I could have been a pro in baseball with a lot of things breaking right for me, but high school politics got in the way.  In basketball, there was no way I was going to get a Division I scholarship, much less make the pros.  I didn't have the athletic body needed to compete at that level.

My high school days were the late 70's.  I played intramural ball in college in the early 80's.  I played mostly against white players but also more and more black players as opportunities opened up for blacks.  Some were very, very good, some just thought they were.  There was, however, one theme that persisted in blacks' play:  Most of them, if not all of them, were athletically better than ninety-percent of the white players out there.

This is not a complaint about blacks getting more playing time on college teams.  It isn't a complaint at all.  But for years, I've been fascinated by one issue related to blacks' athletic abilities.  I concede at the outset that many of them work harder at their chosen sport than do whites.  That may be the result of several different factors.  That they succeed to the point that eighty- to ninety-percent of the NBA is black is fine with me.

What I can't fathom, however, are the freaks of nature that come in black bodies.  I'm not referring to Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Michael Jordan, Earvin Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or any of the genetically-gifted players who combine height and athletic ability.  I'm referring to people like Spud Webb and William Perry.

Spud Webb, for those who don't know or remember, maxed out at 5'7" tall.  That he made the NBA is of no consequence.  That he won the Slam Dunk competition at the All Star game festivities would be of no consequence either, except for his notorious lack of height.  How can someone so short dunk as well as he did?  How can someone so short jump that high?

He's not the only one at that height, either.  Nate Robinson measures 5'9" tall and did the same thing as Spud Webb did.  How many white or Latino guys could do this?  Did these guys just practice long enough to be able to do this, or is there some physical explanation for it?

Were it only guys on the shorter end of the scale, we might write it off as a genetic anomaly, but then there's William Perry.  Perry was taller than Webb and Robinson, coming out at 6'2".  But he weighed over three hundred pounds.  I saw video of him dunking a basketball.  I've seen video of him dunking a football over the goalpost wearing all his football gear.  How is it possible for someone that heavy to get up that high?  As with Webb and Robinson, the same questions nag:  How many white or Latino guys could do this? Did these guys just practice long enough to be able to do this, or is there some physical explanation for it?

I've heard that there is some physiognomic (if that's the right word) explanation for the difference between black bodies and white bodies, something to do with fast-twitch muscles and slow-twitch muscles.  There has long been talk about blacks' bones being heavier as explanation for why blacks don't succeed as swimmers.  I don't know if any of that is correct or not.  But I wonder how guys like Webb, Robinson and Perry are able to perform those feats with the physical limitations they possess.


(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Confusing actors

I enjoy war movies.  I've probably seen every one of them, and I can't wait to see Dark Zero Thirty this weekend.

A few years ago, The Thin Red Line was all the rage.  Terrance Malick is some sort of savant director who has made very artsy movies that Hollywood types love.  He may have; I'm unaware.  I just cared that another World War II movie was made and I was anxious to see it.

Well, I was a little underwhelmed in that there wasn't as much action as I'd have liked.  John Travolta's character came off as gay.  The cinematography was wonderful, though, so there was that.  Since I never read James Jones's novel, I can't say whether it was a faithful adaptation.  Aside from all the stars in the movie, there was one thing that distracted the heck out of me.

Before this movie came out, I don't think I knew who James Caviezel, Elias Koteas, Adrian Brody and Ben Chaplin were.  All of them are fine actors, one of them proving as much with an best actor Oscar (Brody).  My problem was that I couldn't keep the actors and their characters straight because they all resembled, to my eye, each other enough that I got confused by who was who.  I spent every scene in which one or more of them appeared trying to figure out what their roles were in the plot.

Well, I have another such issue, but it's not with a single movie.  For some reason, I can't keep Toby Maguire, Lukas Haas and Elijah Wood straight.  I saw Haas for the first time in one of my favorite movies, Witness, but he was a child in that movie.  Since he's grown up, I've lost track of him, and then every once in awhile, he pops up in a movie and I have to try and remember his name.  Maguire I've seen in some things, although I've never watched one of the Spiderman movies, so when I see him in something, all I know is that he was Spiderman...but I can't remember his name.  Wood was in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but beyond that, I easily confuse him with Maguire. 

Ordinarily, I'm pretty good remembering faces and names.  For some reason, when these guys are in movies, I get confused.  I've long since straightened out Caviezel, Koteas, Brody and Chaplin.  I even saw Koteas at a party one Thanksgiving, so that helped.  Caviezel, of course, played Christ.  Brody kissed Hallie Berry and Chaplin's a Brit. 

I hope that with time I'll get Haas, Maguire and Wood correct.  In the meantime, it's going to bother me every time I see one of them in a movie.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Timely sayings

Everyone, presumably, has those times he's in a moment and there's a perfect comeback or riposte that just doesn't occur to him until that moment has passed.  Some people are able to do it right away.  Others never get it.  Then there are those of us who have those few, shining moments that we remember forever.

The comments don't have to be incisive or particularly humorous.  They just have to be well-timed and somewhat amusing.  At least, that's my standard.

My alma mater has school colors of blue and orange.  For whatever moronic reason, it's chosen orange as the predominant color.  I don't like orange at all.  But I'm also Irish (lapsed) Catholic.  One time, a buddy of mine was telling me how I should wear an orange sweatshirt to show my school pride at a sporting event.  I told him that just wasn't going to happen, and he continued to chide me. 

"Jim," I said, "Irish Catholics don't wear orange."

Point, me.

Older brothers are supposed to torment their sisters.  It's like being the loyal opposition in politics.  I wasn't the worst brother ever, despite what my siblings think, but I had my moments.  One time, however, I wasn't being mean so much as honest and funny (well, in my opinion anyway), when my sister offered me some cookies she had just made.  She was probably around twelve or thirteen at the time, old enough to tease but still sensitive enough to be hurt.

I took a bite of one of her offerings and found it to be not only burnt, but tasteless as well.

In my inimitable style, I told her, "Meg, there are bakery goods and there are bakery bads.  These are bakery bads."  Thankfully, that was the last time I had to eat any cookies she made.  I did feel bad that I hurt her feelings, though.

The last one I can remember was when I was interviewed for a position that I had no intention of taking.  I took the interview merely to meet these titans of our industry and as a favor to a friend in the firm.  They asked me every violative question they could possibly ask -- how old was I?  how was my health? -- knowing full well it would be my word versus theirs if the EEOC were ever brought into it.

They had the policy of making their employees work every Saturday, and I told them that I'd work one out of every four Saturdays, but because I was going to get married soon, I didn't see working every Saturday being in my future.

The one employer who was playing the bad cop went Vesuvian, so the good employer tried to rein us back in by saying, "Let's see what we know about you:  We know you're young, we know you're relatively healthy and we know you're not gay because you told us you're getting married soon."

Disregarding the non sequiter for the moment, I knew exactly where it was coming from.  A few years before, one of their employees was cited for contempt for mouthing off to a judge.  It so happened the employee was gay.  In their minds, the employers equated homosexuality to mouthiness and, since I was obviously -- in their minds -- not gay, they wouldn't have to worry about that.

For once, the planets in my head aligned perfectly.

"No, I'm not gay," I replied calmly, "but I could be bisexual."

The blood in good cop's face drained slowly, much to my pleasure.

It was the best comeback since Churchill's, I must say.  Well, it's the best one I ever came back with.

Needless to say, I never got a call about the job.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Musicals

I like to listen to music.  Growing up, our Mother instilled in us a love for music.  She could sing quite well, having once cut a record for a relative.  I listened to all the great musical of the 40's and 50's, Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.  I came to have a great appreciation for wonderfully written songs from those shows and to this day can still sing portions of them from memory.

At the same time, I cultivated a healthy disdain for the genre itself.  The platform is designed to launch singing and dancing but defies reality.  Where in life do people spontaneously break into song perfectly, harmonizing with other voices -- some of which are unknown to them prior to the song's beginning -- and with the lyrics perfectly sung?  Add to that the perfectly choreographed dances, intricate numbers involving lifts and ballet moves that mere mortals must practice for weeks to perfect, and you see the senseless optimism of the era in which the movies were wrought.

There were few credible and successful musicals after ther 50's -- The Sound of Music is the only one that comes to mind -- until the recent sourge that started, I think, with Moulin Rouge sometime within the last ten to fifteen years.  I can't claim to know how well they're written or performed, since I haven't paid any attention to them.  But since Moulin Rouge, there's been an increasing trend toward putting out musicals.

The latest entry is Les Miserables.  No, I won't give the diacriticals to make it more correctly French because the Brit producer didn't see fit to make it more correct, so I see no need to do it either.  I'll explain that below.  This film is an adaptation of the theater play that was, of course, a loose adaptation of Victor Hugo's opus.

I won't regale you with the same stuff about the suspension of disbelief regarding singing and dancing.  All that's in there, although there's thankfully little dancing.  Sure, there are some choreographed scenes, but they're more like choreographed chaos, trying to make the banal seem intricately woven.  The singing is the real problem.

First of all, I'm used to the likes of Gordon McRae, Shirley Jones, Julie Andrews, even Dick Van Dyke, being cast in roles that required singing.  If I'm going to spend the time listening to this, I may as well not be subjected to the sound of someone singing while a surgeon operates on his brain using a rusty rake.  They don't have to be operatic superstars or even recording artists, just be able to hold a tune...pleasantly.

Anne Hathaway, whom I despise, ruined her part for me by waxing obnoxious explaining in an interview how she had to learn to sing while she cried.  Save it already.  I Dream A Dream is a beautifullly melancholy song.  I get the emotion of it, just sing it so it's a song and not a death rattle.  This, of course, points out the obvious, inherent flaw in musicals:  Emotion is clearly called for in this scene, but to inject it ruins the song, thereby nullifying the whole point of the musical in the first place.

Hugh Jackman, whom I admire, did a great job and both acted and sang his part fine.

The others, for the most part, performed capably, notably the actress who did the jilted daughter of the hoteliers and, most suprisingly, Amanda Seyfried.  Karen reminded me she'd been in Mamma Mia -- another musical I'd been fortunate enough to avoid -- and that explained her competence.  The only thing I'd heard about that movie is that Pierce Brosnan brayed like a water buffalo.

But the true horror of the movie, insofar as singing was concerned, was the unfortunate choice of Russell Crowe to play the pivotal role of Javert.  For some inexplicable reason, the producers of the movie chose someone whose singing style, should it exist at all, is best confined to a shower in a prison.  Whatever accolades Crowe earned in his career, I don't think that singing ranked in the top fifty.

The other and equally bothersome aspect of the movie was the by now almost kneejerk insistence on putting Brits in roles to liven up the local color.  The last time I checked, Les Miserables was all about France.  There was no relation to Britain at all, unlike A Tale of Two Cities.  There was some puny runt who fought on the barricades during the last quarter of the movie who had a decidedly Cockney accent.  It was like Oliver Twist had magically been transported to Paris.  For the life of me, I don't understand why artists in the English-speaking world feel that putting a Brit in a movie ups the cultural content no matter how jarring the accent.  Ancient Greece?  Cast a Brit.  The Roman Empire?  Get another Brit?  Post-Bonaparte France?  Get me a Brit.

For that reason, I make no effort to put diacriticals in the title since, after all, we don't use 'em in English.

I survived the musical.  What mattered is that Karen loved it.  As our new New Year's Day tradition, Karen and I saw another movie after this one.  Just to get us as far away from British Paris as we could, we saw Django Unlimited. 

Of course, Django had both a German bounty hunter and a German-speaking slave which, naturally, there were plenty of examples of in the antebellum South.

Ah yes, the suspension of disbelief.  If only I could master that skill.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

New Year's Day

New Year's Eve is amateur night.  Everyone uses it as an excuse to get drunk.  I'm not much into New Year's Eve, since it's one of the more underwhelming holidays on the schedule.

I've never understood the notion of getting all gussied up, drinking myself into a stupor just to wait for midnight so I could count down from ten to one.  Then you find a person to kiss for some reason.

When I lived in Spain I learned their traditions which, to my mind, were at least interesting.  There, everyone crams into the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, the Times Square of Spain.  When the countdown reaches twelve, everyone pops a grape into his mouth every second to represent the twelve months of the expiring year to symbolize the ouster of the old year and preparation for the new.  If nothing else, it's different.

I prefer to spend the night alone with Karen and our boys quietly in our home.  That, more than anything, makes me happy.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles