Tuesday, June 28, 2016

THOUGHTS….THIS WEEK BEFORE JULY 4th


I honor Pat Summitt, most of us do.  Perhaps we should remember she was ready to come coach at UK, when UT offered to pay her moving expenses, estimated at $500, and UK declined.  The rest is history. (And we lost Bear Bryant similarly.)

To really honor Coach Summitt, how about more money for research into Alzheimer’s??


While the U.S. Flag Code is only advisory, and largely toothless for penalties, it does represent Congress’s considered judgment on how best to display and use Old Glory.

Among its prohibitions: using the flag in any form of advertising, using it in any way as an article of clothing, etc.

So take off all those bikinis that look like skimpy flags….and as for the NBA player with the flag emblazoned across his uniform’s  rump, that may be his idea of how to express Patriotism.

It is not mine.

I'm just sayin'...

Sunday, June 19, 2016

OUR SECOND MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION THIS YEAR

Happens this week, and not in Kentucky, or even the US.  England will vote on whether to remain in the EU—the European Union of some 20 countries---or leave.

It’s still our 2nd most important election because of the impact it will have on the US, depending on how the vote goes. There have been background stories in our papers, but little on national TV, though you should start seeing coverage this week. (It appears the murder of young Jo Cox, an “MP”---member of Parliament—was related to the vote. Hers is an even sadder case than our own Gabby Giffords.)

For the best TV coverage of this issue, watch the 11pm BBC news on KET. By midnight Thursday, or early Friday, we should know the outcome.

And, btw, England is our Mother Country---many of our own democratic traditions originated there.  Several years ago, Scotland voted on whether to leave the UK or not; now there’s this important referendum. Why can’t the US do the same?  I know of no laws preventing it.

For a starter, how about adding one more decision to our November ballot…Yes or No:

Congress should return to the bans on assault weapons and high capacity magazines it imposed years ago…and then let lapse.

That could write a new chapter for the nation that claims to be the world’s greatest democracy.

I'm just sayin'...

Sunday, June 5, 2016

HOW BEST TO REMEMBER THE CHAMP???

In Louisville a proposal has been made to solve 2 problems…remove the statue of the Confederate soldier and replace it with one of Ali.

Wrong.

Better we put up a plaque at that downtown diner that refused him service when he came home from winning an Olympic gold medal...because he was black, and Louisville/Kentucky was segregated.

We need reminders of our past history, and what courageous blacks did to stir our consciences and get us to correct past wrongs. Ali is a fine example of that---maybe even The Greatest.

We need to remember him when he exercised the right of every American to protest unjust laws and policies...as when he took his stand against the Vietnam war—saying his religion forbade taking lives in war, that “no Viet Cong had ever called him nigger," and he didn’t want to go kill brown people in behalf of their white colonial oppressors. (And the more you know about French policy of its former colony the more you know he was right.)

He stood against war—always dangerous in our society (remember more recently the Dixie Chicks?) It took 3 years for the Supreme Court to decide Ali was right.  Meanwhile professional boxing (always a sleazy sport) blackballed him from fighting in his best years.

How do we look at the 'Nam war today? Or Iraq and those great WMDs?

That’s how to remember Ali…as the Conscience of our Nation (and our World.)  I think he’d like that...and as he also said "maybe how pretty I was.”

I'm just sayin'...