Decision time

My third notice came in the mail just the other day.

Traditionally, I don't let my magazine subscriptions run out. Whenever I get a notice, I almost always renew the subscription immediately. I did this for Time magazine. I did it for Civil War Times. I still do it for Monitor, another Civil War publication.

I like getting magazines in the mail. It's like getting a little Christmas present whenever they arrive.

But I may not do it this time. So I'm in a quandary.

I mean, it is Sports Illustrated, after all.

The fact that I'm considering not renewing my subscription to SI is shocking, even to me. I've been a loyal subscriber to the magazine ever since I was a junior in high school. We're talking 1968 here. That's 55 years of uninterrupted loyalty.

Sports Illustrated was the first magazine I ever subscribed to. I'd get my latest copy, take it to school and read it cover to cover in study hall when I should have been, well, studying. Every week, I'd grab my latest SI and read the editorial, the table of contents, Faces in the Crowd, even the publication statement on the contents page. My subscription even had my name on the cover's address stamp. It was mine.

I read about baseball, football, golf and basketball, but also about sports I didn't really care about. Hockey. Soccer. Auto racing. Horse racing. I felt I was becoming well rounded, if not actually aware.

Because I was subscribing to SI in my formative years, I acquired an appreciation for scintillating, incisive and perceptive sports writing. I didn't know back in high school that I would end up a sports writer myself, but maybe, just maybe, I absorbed a little bit of style and panache from the likes of Frank Deford or Dan Jenkins or Curry Kirkpatrick or Robert Creamer or George Plimpton or Tom Verducci. Maybe it was osmosis. Or maybe it was a dream.

But somehow, I became a sports writer, covering not only baseball, football, golf and basketball, but also soccer, volleyball, bass fishing, Hawg Runs and auto racing. Maybe SI helped prepare me for this. 

In the last five years, though, SI has gone through a significant change. Like most print publications, it finds itself dealing with the Internet, as well as all the other information platforms, that have virtually erased print media from our very eyes. The once weekly magazine now shows up in my mailbox once a month. That's 12 issues per year.

My subscription doesn't even include the swimsuit issue any more. I don't know how that happened.

But I understand. Even I am distracted by other news sources to where SI is now mostly out of sight, out of mind. I hardly even read my SI anymore when it does arrive, and certainly not cover to cover.

So now my 55-year-old subscription hangs in the balance. I'm doing a lot of downsizing these days in an effort to whittle away of some of the clutter in my life, and Sports Illustrated might be a victim of that downsizing.

I'm wondering if I'll get a fourth notice?

But the times are always changing, and this might be one of those times.

Blown away in Blowing Rock

For one three-day weekend every year, Kim and I head up to Blowing Rock for a quiet little getaway in the mountains.

We do this either in August or September, mostly to escape the heat of summer for a bit. The weekend we choose is the one Saturday of the month in which they offer Art in the Park, where craftsmen and artists offer their talents for sale and appreciation. It's literally cool stuff.

This year offered us something different.

The mom-and-pop motel we were staying at featured a large gazebo that offered a gas fire pit and so, even though we were a little worn out from the day of travel and shopping, we decided to join the two other couples and a single who were sitting there.

I like doing stuff like this. You're going to meet people you'll probably never see again. What could possibly go wrong?

It was actually pleasant for a while. When the conversation stalled, Kim suggested we go around the circle and tell each other where we're from and our ages, because, you know, we're nosy.

Amazingly, that went well. We all started feeling a little more comfortable with ourselves and less like strangers.

But then something happened. To this moment, I'm not sure exactly what. I mean, I wasn't expecting a U turn. But the single guy quickly went political, especially with the older couple opposite him. Suddenly, the conversation became about transgenders, and particularly, transgender children. A culture war issue.

There was a back and forth between them, growing more and more heated. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The couple directly opposite us tried to play peacemaker, but the temperature at the fire pit was rising incrementally. Suddenly, the wife of the targeted husband – who said she was 70 years old – blurted out to the single guy, "You're an asshole." She said this several times.

My brain stopped processing. I wanted to leave. But I couldn't because I was watching a car wreck and car wrecks usually have witnesses.

"Oh, really," said the single guy. "I was just trying to learn how you think, but all you give me is deflections. You're unteachable."

Kim and I remained mute, trying to become invisible. I was thinking of what my father told me some 50 odd years ago that you never talk politics or religion with strangers, and now I saw why.

"C'mon guys," pleaded the peacemaker. "We're supposed to be on vacation. Let's be civil. Chill."

The older couple, frustrated, got up and left. Shortly after that, after additional comings and goings within the group, we took our leave.

Back in our room, I had to think about what just happened. The 70 year-old-wife should never have resorted to base name calling, but why did the other guy think he was a teacher in this episode? Teaching what? His view?

But even on a deeper level, I was floored. Within 20 minutes, complete and total strangers were at each other's throats. How did this happen?

I'm trying not to turn this into a metaphor for where we are in this country, but it seems rather obvious what's happening. We've pretty much lost our civility. One of my friends suggested that confrontational reality TV has helped usher us to this point. So has unrestricted social media. I happen to think a poisoned political atmosphere has given us license to be unthinkingly rude to each other.

We've seemingly lost some of the values taught to us by our parents, by our teachers, by our churches. Heck, even our churches have become politicized despite the Founders' vision of separation of church and state.

And I don't know what the answer is. Well, for me, it's to keep my mouth shut in socially inflamed situations, especially when I'm bumping my aura with somebody else's.

No name calling, for sure.

Be kind.

All you need is love.

 

 

Fact checking

Well, here we go again.

Apparently, my last two blogs – one dealing with the 14th Amendment as a legitimate Constitutional remedy to prevent Mafia Don from seeking the United States presidency for a second time, and the other for exploring the miasma that is suffocating the Republican candidates running for the presidency (six candidates astoundingly indicated they still would vote for Trump for president even if he was convicted of criminal charges and serving time in jail.) – ruffled some Trumpian feathers.

Now, I know full well that my blogs aren't going to change any Trumpy minds, even though I still hold out hope that my perspective at least solicits an, "Oh, OK. Maybe. I didn't realize that." 

I write my blog in the spirit of traditional American political debate. That really used to be a thing, you know, going all the way back to the founding of the nation.

Instead, as it sometimes happens, I got thrown some shade, misinformation and what I consider to be conspiracy theories from the Trumpers. Rest assured, you are not going to change my mind, either. I'm sometimes labeled as a desperate hater who is suffering from Trump derangement syndrome and should stick to sports writing because clearly there's no place for such a biased and uninformed fellow like me to comment on politics. 

Hmm. So much for honest political debate. I'm still going to write my blog the way I see fit, armed with facts from the mainstream media as well as what I absorb with my own eyes and ears. If that bothers you, then don't read it. If you want to offer your view, at least respond with true facts. It's that simple.

I'm going to take a look at some of the Trump-supporting responses my last two blogs generated, and I will attempt to defend my views with links, where appropriate, to support my opinions. This could take some time.

Economy: This link is very inclusive and lengthy. It shows the economy was a mixed bag during the Trump years, but not nearly as great as Trumpers remember, either. This will take some time to read. Take note of the sources at the end. (See here).

"Biden crime family": There is no Biden crime family. The investigation into son Hunter Biden and the alleged bribes he took from China and Ukraine, along with his father, is in its fifth year with still no evidence that Joe Biden accepted bribes. There are no charges, either. So far, it's all been a Republican wet dream. (See here).

Fabricated charges: This one makes me chuckle. Some Trumpers think the current 91 charges against Mafia Don, as well as those charges against numerous Jan. 6 defendants, are phony, false and made up because Democrats/liberals are desperate to imprison Trump (the word "Desperate" comes up often). Here's a quick civics lesson: charges are not made up. Most potential charges, supported by evidence, go through grand juries first and are voted on prior to becoming indictments. It's the American system and it's worked pretty well for over 200 years. (See here).

Jan. 6: Some Trumpers still insist that the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol was staged by the FBI, CIA, Capitol police and BLM, posing as MAGA Trump supporters. I'm pretty sure if that premise were true, recently convicted Oath Keepers, Three Percenters and Proud Boys now serving time for decades are wondering why the redeeming evidence (for example, a supposedly exculpatory video by John Sullivan) hasn't been floated on their behalf. The premise is so preposterous that I don't need a link for this one. Just common sense. Oh, and because these guys have been convicted, its OK to call them insurrectionists.

The Deep State: There is no deep state, but it makes a good excuse to serve as cover when all logic fails.

The Big Lie: This is why Trumpy is in legal trouble in the first place. He refuses to believe that he lost the 2020 election, claiming that it was rigged. He was claiming the election was rigged even before the election. It makes sense that The Big Lie is built on Trump's foundation of 30,000 little lies. (See here).

Secret documents: Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden (and Mike Pence) were found to be in possession of sensitive and/or secret government documents. But there is a difference in how they were handled. Biden immediately notified the National Archives and Records Administration, as well as the Department of Justice the day they were discovered on his property. Subsequent documents were found on later dates, Biden complied with consensual searches and the documents, on each occasion, were returned. Trump, meanwhile, maintains the documents are his personal materials (by law they are not), so he is looking at several charges, including violation of the Espionage Act. It all seems so unnecessary. All he had to do was return them to NARA. It's a false equivalency to compare Trump's outrageous handling of documents with Biden. (See here).

Ageism: Joe Biden is 80 years old. Trump is 77. But Biden is the one who attracts criticism for his stumbles, mumbles and implied mental decline, while Trump appears to be, um, normal. Or not. Time for a Trevor Noah humor break. (See here).

Covid-19 response: Depending on the matrix you use to measure these things, the U.S. response to the Covid-19 pandemic was pretty shaky for a highly developed industrialized nation. But Republicans, with their stubborn anti-science, anti-vaccine and anti-masking philosophy, almost single-handedly contributed to the nation's excess death rate, dying almost twice as much as Democrats from the virus. This is Republicans at their dumbest, willing to die for Trump. Are you surprised? (see here).

Hate: What I really hate is what Trump has done to the country that I love. I can't abide by a person who is serving in the most revered political office in the world who celebrates grabbing women by the genitals, being held liable for sexual assault, paying off porn stars, lying to the people on a clearly pathological level, separating nursing children from their mothers' breasts as national policy, stealing national secrets, intimidating poll workers, displaying deadly incompetence in the face of a pandemic ("Maybe you could use bleach. And lights."), and consoling hurricane victims with rolls of paper towels among a litany of other indignities and illegalities. Hate? Not really. Don't confuse hate with our desire for accountability.

Love: Under Biden, the rate of inflation fell from a national high of 9 percent last June to 3.3 percent today. He created 13.8 million jobs during his administration. But if he didn't accomplish anything else, his Inflation Reduction Act that allows Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices to provide lower costs for consumers is a game changer. What's not to love?