Author: tomwamser

The following is a post by guest blogger, Gregg Swentor. Go to it Gregg!!!

First off, let me thank Tom for the opportunity to have this space to finally come clean. I have had a few things I have wanted to get out but never had the space. All I had to do was ask.

OK, let’s start with the marginalization I have felt since high school. The year was 1972. My girlfriend and I were returning from a coach’s house where we just had a great dinner and conversation with he and his wife. We were rumbling along a back country dirt road in rural Vermont in my 1969 Jeep Wagoneer. Beauty, eh?

We came around a soft bend in the road and off in the distance we saw a ‘streetlight’ up on the distant hill. Y’all know the scenario; a long sloping downhill, then a long sloping back up to the distant top of the next ridge. “Oh my! I can’t believe it. They installed a streetlight out here?!? “, I laughingly said to her.

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For a few seconds the light just hung there and then . . . . went DOWN the hill in front of us, then came right UP at us. It came up at us at eye level. It then zoomed right over our heads; enough for both of us to instinctively duck. Helicopter? Jet? Ball lightening? Sorry. No sound. No woosh of air. No crack of electricity. There was no way we could not have heard or felt something as it just barely missed the hood of my car. This object traveled 1/3 of a mile in the blink of an eye. We both looked at each other. She asked if we just saw what we just saw. There is no way it was earthly. This was not the last of our strange experience that night but it will suffice for this post.

This sighting has shaken my intellect. Never did I feel comfortable telling most folk of this experience. Even though we both had become intellectual, successful people, there had been times when I called her, or she called me, just to confirm our far-out memories of that night. I suppose, at times, we both felt we had dreamt it all.

It wasn’t until years later (2020) when I was able to see the object again. This time from the camera of a US Navy F-18. They called it an “unidentified aerial phenomena”. Yeah, me too! Been der, done dat.

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“My gosh!! Look at that thing! It’s going against a 120kt headwind.”

Look, it’s time to come clean. Damn it!
N=R fpnelifcL (Drake), Damn it!

HA!! We’re not alone out here on our little blue marble in the Milky Way. We’re an F’n Disneyland.

“Come on folk, lets travel to the planet we touched thousands of years ago. It’ll be fun!”

So, back to me. Isn’t that what this is always about? I had an event which blew this dudes mind. I have a hole in me that needs to feel expressed but feels I’ll be ridiculed to no end!
I want to feel normal again. Help me Agent Jay. Hit with me with your Neuralyzer!

So, why do I not just put myself out there? Maybe I should make my lil drawing of the UFO & fish and make it into a bumper sticker? What’s holding me back?

The answer, of course, is fear. I was afraid to put myself out there. I got intimidated by the posers outside of me; my job, the company I kept, my social status, my own friends and family. I endured THEIR conspiracies, their lies, their ignorance, their self-righteous opinions blown over the loudspeaker. But me, and mine? A wussy. Pleeaase don’t laugh/see/talk to me about my deep dark shit.

Maybe it’s just the maturing of my inner self to be strong, or it could just be an ole man ‘git off my lawn’ moment. Nevertheless, it’s time to put myself out there. It’s time to quit hiding because of my fears of what others think of me. My complicity has taken a toll on me. But no more!

I recently saw a poll where those who believe Pres. Biden stole the election has increased in the last month. INCREASED!! How can that happen? I know why. I was silent. I was afraid. I let the bullhorns do the talking. No, not even talking…LYING! And yet, I sat quiet and grumbled to myself. I sat waiting for someone else to clean up this mess. I was afraid of the confrontation. I wanted us all to ‘get along’. I doubted my own worth. Hmm.

But no more !!

I’m coming out…

I saw one.

OK, you can scoff now

I was taken aback by a Wall Street Journal article that popped up on my Facebook feed recently. First, because the article said that men make up only 40.5% of current college students, with trends suggesting that the percentage will get even lower. And, second, because something noteworthy actually showed up on my Facebook feed. (Must click on 20 Celebrities Who Were Bad People in Real Life).   

According to the Journal (which I never read), women made up 59.5% of college students at the close of the last academic year. Six years after enrolling, 65% of those women earned their degrees, as opposed to 59% of men. Overall, US colleges lost 1.5M students over the last 5 years, with men accounting for 71% of that decline. A pretty dismal picture for those with the Y.  

I am struggling to understand what is behind this trend. I can appreciate why the number of women getting degrees has increased. It wasn’t that long ago when career opportunities for women were limited, and while the glass ceiling still exists, at least now the doors to the atrium are open, and the ceiling itself has significant cracks. It makes sense that women are taking advantage of those opportunities. 

We as a society have also encouraged women to fulfill their potential. Over the last 20 or so years there has been a push to let girls know that they can achieve and succeed in whatever field they choose. For example, the Journal cites the proliferation of support groups for women on campuses across the country, helping women thrive in college once they are there. 

All of that was needed to rectify historic inequalities. But how does that explain boys’ failure to continue to take advantage of the opportunities they have? It isn’t as if increasing access for women means that men are now cut off from academia, or are being shut out of the job market once they graduate. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 89% of men 25 – 34 graduating from college are employed, as opposed to 83% of women, and the long-term earning potential of those with degrees continues to be significantly higher for those with a college degree. So, it isn’t as if college has become a waste of time for men.  

Are boys put off by the increased competition? Are they so used to having the upper hand in the battle of the sexes (God, I hate that phrase) that they are not willing to even try now that the playing field is leveling? That seems too facile an explanation. I don’t see a generation throwing up its hands because others around them have the same ability to achieve their goals as well. If that’s the case, it would be pathetic. 

Maybe the whole idea of setting goals at 18 is the problem. It is axiomatic that girls mature faster than boys (certainly seemed that way to me growing up). Perhaps boys are just not responding as well to a world where college is so expensive that going in with only a vague notion of where you want to be four years later is riskier, and girls are better equipped to handle that pressure. But that seems too simple. How many 18-year kids, either boy or girl, know what that want out of life, and when has that ever been an excuse for not pushing ahead anyway?  

The Journal suggests that boys have more distractions now, with the prevalence of video games and on-line porn, and that may be having an impact. Statistics do show that boys are more likely than girls to be gamers, and the same is undoubtedly true for on-line porn. However, there have always been distractions. Before the internet and gaming there was TV. I know there’s a difference, but I find it hard to believe that gamers are that much more obsessed, though I must admit that I am not willing to totally dismiss the internet as irrelevant.  

I do wonder whether we, as a society, are properly encouraging boys to succeed. We have focused on making sure that girls know that they have a wide field of achievement ahead of them, but are we doing the same for boys? The Journal article cites a counselor at the University of Vermont who proposed a men’s center for the campus similar to women’s centers, but he couldn’t get the funding because, he says, the boys were still considered the most privileged group on campus, and therefore not in need of such support. While that has been historically true, the numbers suggest that it still may not be the case. 

Let’s face it, every kid needs a boost. Especially now. We cannot forget how difficult the teen years are. How self-doubt is an inevitable part of the landscape. How the future can seem a void. How the idea of matching the things that our parents have provides little incentive. That sense of hopelessness seems to have gotten worse, and unless we counteract it by positive reinforcement, it can be infectious. Women have done that over the last 20 years, so it is possible. 

The other response to this trend may be, so what. After all, the balance was the other way, and much worse, for many years, and we didn’t seem to care. Why should we now? Is concern about women achieving academically more than men, just repressed misogyny?   

I don’t know the answer to that question. I just know that as a man who has always loved learning, and the father of boys, I am concerned. I don’t think that we can afford to leave potential on the table, whether it’s from boys or girls. I also think that we are better off with a society where everyone is incentivized to rise to their potential. Maybe those are silly, utopian, notions, but they are mine.  

I have to admit that my 20^th Century heroes are those you would expect from an aging, left-wing, pacifist. The exception to this predictable litany is J. Krishnamurti, someone most people have never heard of. But for me he has been, and is, a touchstone that I have looked to for the last 40 years. 

Krishnamurti had a very unique childhood, to say the least. In 1909, when he was in his early teens, Krishnamurti was “discovered” by Charles Webster Leadbeater (his real name), a leader of the Theosophical Society, as the likely conduit for “Lord Maitreya”, a spirit periodically appearing on Earth, as the “World Teacher” destined to guide the evolution of humankind. (I thought that about myself at age 14 too, but no one seemed to agree).  

The Theosophists were a quasi-religious group founded by Madame Blavatsky (such great names!!!) that combined eastern and western thought, with a good bit of occultism mixed in. They were new age, before there was new age. They also had a lot of money and, probably because of that, influence.  

Krishnamurti was raised by the Society, becoming the legal guardian of one its leaders. For the next 15 years he was groomed to emerge as the harbinger of spiritual unity and global wisdom. The Theosophists thought that they had found their guru. 

While all of this sounded great, Krishnamurti had other thoughts. When he was 29, he shocked the Theosophists by, in essence, denouncing the whole idea of a world teacher. He said instead that “Truth is a pathless land”, rejecting organized religion, including Theosophy, gurus, and the very idea of a teacher/follower relationship. Instead, he said that people had to look inside to free themselves of the conditioning we are subjected to by our upbringing and culture so as to view the world with unvarnished eyes (easier said than done). 

When I first read Krishnamurti I was drawn to his courage in rejecting a role that would have guaranteed him a comfortable and revered existence. I was also drawn to his call to unstintingly look inward to examine drives and behaviors, and to honestly confront what you find. Ironically, perhaps, I found much to learn from this reluctant teacher.   

One of the Krishnamurti’s mantras was his admonition to stop the internal dialogue, that voice that mediates what we see and interprets it for us. He used the example of a sunset. We go to the beach and see a magnificent sunset and are awed by its beauty, so much so that we want to return the next night to relive it. The problem is that we have built up this expectation and the next night cannot help but compare the sunset we are seeing at that moment with what we saw the night before. Our thoughts stand in the way of us seeing the second sunset in all its glory. Our built-up expectation skews our vision.  

I thought of Krishnamurti, and the vagaries of expectation this summer on a trip my family made to Indiana and Chicago, along with Julie’s sister Beth from Boise (has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?), and two of my nephews. Even though Indiana is not known for its hiking, and we hadn’t had much luck on previous trips, I wanted to get out and at least enjoy a decent walk while we were there. This led us to Turkey Run State Park, hardly a promising appellation, about an hour west of Lafayette where we were staying. 

Then we got to the park, and the hiking trail. We took a bridge across a broad stream and were transported into a world of small creeks, lush canyons, boulder fields and large rock formations. It was as beautiful a hideaway as you could find. Even better, since I had no expectations whatsoever, it was doubly delightful. Like opening a gift that you had no inkling you would receive.  

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A couple of days later we were in Naperville, outside of Chicago, and went to the Morton Arboretum, a beautiful expanse of forests, ponds, prairie lands and sculptures. As we wandered about, we saw numerous signs for the “Big Rock”, out on the edges of the grounds. We decided we could not leave without taking the short trail down to this “Big Rock”. 

After a 20-minute walk on an easy trail, we emerged into a clearing and collapsed into gales of laughter. The build-up was such that we expected to see something magnificent. What we got was a decent size boulder, that could not but fail to impress those of us used to traipsing the trails of Pennsylvania, let alone the mountains around Boise. It turns out that the “Big Rock” is apparently an anomaly for the region, and should not be there, but my expectations made that meaningless.  

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In both of these incidents, despite my readings of Krishnamurti, I could not let the world come to me, but let expectations dictate my reactions. At Turkey Run, it worked out fine. At Morton Arboretum, not so well. My inner dialogue was conditioning my response, for good or ill, rather than what I was encountering.  

Of course, this happens pretty much every day, whether it’s while watching a sequel, or reading a second book from a favorite novelist, or just going to the store. When I can corral the internal dialogue (stopping it is more than I can ask for) and just accept what’s given I am more likely to see something I had previously overlooked. Sometimes it’s good, like Turkey Run, sometimes it’s disappointing, like the “Big Rock”, but at least I am confronting what is there rather than what I presuppose is there.  

There is no great insight here, or deep thought, just an on-going reminder that I can miss out on so much if I don’t look at the world as it is, rather than as I expect it to be. Not a bad lesson from an unwilling teacher.  

It is amazing how something can be both inevitable and shocking at the same time. Was there really any surprise that that the Taliban would retake Afghanistan after we Americans left? The speed with which it happened might have been stupefying, at least to those us 7,000 miles away, but the eventual return of the Taliban to power was not. And yet, it was gut wrenching to watch 20 years of futility played out in one week. 

The truth of the matter is that after 20 years there was no real Afghan government or Afghan army. There were shells in place that adopted those monikers, but there were no actual independent entities that embraced the obligations that go with governing or defending. They were stage props, fronting the US power barely hidden behind them.  

Nor was the Taliban ever really defeated. After the US invasion many of the Taliban fighters melted back into their home villages, safe from identification with the brutal regime that had terrorized opponents for the last five years. Others went to Pakistan, a US “ally” who had no interest in assisting in a rebuild of Afghanistan, and seemed happy instead to maintain the Islamic militants for as long as necessary. (Does anyone really believe that they didn’t know Bin Laden was living in Abbottabad?) 

The four administrations which oversaw this mess had to be aware of these realities. They had to know that once the US withdrew from Afghanistan the existing structures would collapse like the house of cards they were. They could not have been surprised by this outcome, any more than we were surprised by the takeover of South Vietnam by the Viet Cong in 1975. And yet, we were faced with images that eerily mirrored that those from Saigon almost 50 years ago. 

The Biden Administration bears the immediate blame for this inexplicable lack of foresight. The last six months should have used to identify everyone who had to be evacuated when the Taliban marched in, securing and/or destroying any weapons bound to fall into Taliban hands, and assuring the security of all US installations until the evacuation was complete. I cannot fathom why that was not done. 

But I don’t want to hear that the prior administration would have done any better. In fact, considering the Trump track record on advance planning, it would no doubt have been worse. Can anyone doubt that Trump would have simply denied any responsibility for the inevitable mess and tried and mask it with lie after lie? Does anyone believe that he would have authorized the evacuation of any Afghans to the United States?    

While we have to look to our own missteps, we should not avoid looking to the failures of the Afghans themselves. The news reports these days are full of stories about Afghans who took advantage of the US presence to try and change their society, but the truth of the matter is that those Afghans were few and far between. Most of the Afghan people clung to their traditional beliefs and mores, and never evinced any real interest in establishing an alternative to the Taliban.  

The American mission in Afghanistan (assuming we had one) was bound to fail unless the Afghan people embraced that mission as their own and ran with it. It was great to see Afghan women in the street protesting the return of the Taliban, but there should have been thousands of Afghans in the street over the past 20 years demanding an effective, corruption free regime answerable to the people. Unfortunately, that would have taken a popular will which was not there. 

So, was the entire an abject disaster? We initially went into Afghanistan to retaliate against Afghan support for the Al-Qaeda terrorists that masterminded the September 11 attacks. It’s a little late to debate whether that invasion was justified, but I must say that even a pacifist like me cannot dismiss this reasoning out of hand (unlike Iraq). There is no doubt that the Taliban provided Al-Qaeda with a training ground and safe haven to plan and carry out the 9/11 attacks. That initial invasion was successful in meeting this limited objective. 

The trouble was, and always is with violence “solutions”, that there was no clear path once the Taliban were thrust from power. Yes, we could militarily defeat the Taliban, but we should have realized 20 years ago that any effort to remake that country into a stable democracy was chimeric. We should have known that the only way to keep Afghanistan from lapsing into either an Islamic state or a haven for warlords was to commit to a permanent presence (our 51^st state?), which was not a real option. 

So, for 20 years we dickered around, wasting untold lives and tax dollars (because we always have money for war, even if we don’t for health care, etc.) chasing a phantom. Three administrations were reluctant to leave because they knew the probable outcome, and yet developed no tangible reason to stay. The fourth administration finally left, but in doing so planned the departure as if we were leaving something lasting behind, rather than just cutting our losses.  

I wish that I could say that Afghanistan will finally teach us that nation building is a losing proposition, especially in countries with no history of stable, democratic governance. But I am not optimistic. We have a way of talking ourselves into situations, and then refusing to admit our limitations. We did it in Vietnam. We did it in Afghanistan. We cannot afford to do it again.         

I am sure many of you have been asking yourself over the last month, “Where’s Tomser’s Blog?”. “Has he deserted us?” “Are we going to be left to grope through this crazy mixed-up world without his pithy insights and razor like wit?” Or, more likely, none of you even noticed that I had stopped posting and are somewhat surprised to see me reappear. Whichever way it is, like MacArthur, I am back.  

The truth of the matter is that I decided to take a summer break. I had trips planned for late July, and late August, so I was going to be out of pocket some anyway. Plus, as I thought about the time away, memories flooded back of that feeling when school let out for the year, and an expanse of free time appeared to stretch out indefinitely. I thought that I would try and recapture that a bit of feeling. 

To be honest, I am never sure whether that is a feeling I truly ever had. Let’s face it, memories of growing up are hazy at best, and memories of specific feelings at specific times even more suspect. Does it just seem like I must have had that feeling and did I thereby implant the “memory” of that euphoria into the nether reaches of my brain? 

Frankly, I don’t care. Whether it’s a real memory or a manufactured one, it is as visceral as anything from childhood. I can picture myself walking away from Asa Packer Elementary, or East Hills Junior High, or Freedom High and letting out a whoop of release from the daily grind of school. I can see myself looking forward to sleeping in, aimlessly rolling out of bed, turning on the TV to watch late morning cartoons and feeling as blissfully free as I ever would.  

The summers, of course, never played out that simply. There were things to be done, and even I got bored of the Flintstones after a while (unless it was the episode where Barney and Fred build a pool to share, and Fred ends up using a fake cop to try and scare his bosom buddy and lifelong pal). Yet, neighborhood friends were always around, as were above-ground, non-Flintstone, swimming pools to lounge in. Pretty idyllic. 

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The feeling lingered on through my working years, even though there was no summer break, per se. Our office closed at 3:00 before the Memorial Day weekend (corporate employers are soooo generous) and it felt like the beginning of summer. I was exhilarated leaving the building, even though I knew I would be back four days later.  

I also lived vicariously through my children (don’t we all). I could sense their excitement as the school year wound down. I knew they were anxious to put aside the perceived drudgery of school, even if they liked their teachers and classes. We always marked the passing of the school year and anticipation of the summer fun ahead by going out for dinner or ice cream. I enjoyed that as much as the kids did. 

So, did talking a month off from this blog match the intoxication of an endless summer? Yes and no. It was nice to get away from the self-imposed discipline of sitting down to write every morning. It was somewhat liberating to have no scheduled tasks, even if the schedule was my own and not one imposed by work or school. And it did seem a bit more like an endless summer having the open days of August stretching out ahead. 

On the other hand, the perception of unlimited possibility as the summer break started can’t be duplicated. The feeling that possibilities are endless is one of those things that dwindles over time. There is so much of life that is inevitable (apart from Thanos) and that becomes clearer as we get older. 

Part of the trick of retirement is getting back a taste of those wide horizons. It will never be the same, because obligations remain that just weren’t there growing up, not to mention the physical limitations. Yet, the horizons are wider than they have been for 40 years, and that is nothing to sneeze at. 

While it might have only been a pale reminder of the euphoria of youth, taking August to regroup was undoubtedly a plus. Even a glimmer of unbounded free days ahead is a good thing. Oddly enough, that’s true even though there is no imposed structure on my time. I can’t explain it, but that’s the way it is.   

Golf has always been the “gentlemanly” game, for better or worse. Even at the pro level, fans have been well-behaved, staying quiet as the player stands interminably over the ball, mutely surrounding any ball hit into the crowd, as if it was about to explode, cheering politely no matter if a shot was terrific or off the mark. Yet, over the last month or so golf has had two instances of fan intrusion that, along with incursions in other sports, has got me thinking about the relationship between fan and athlete.   

In case you missed it, fans swarmed onto the fairway on the 18^th hole of the PGA Championship, overly excited by Phil Mickelson’s impending victory, jostling his playing partner Brooks Koepka, and making it difficult for him to make it to the green to finish the round. Then, in Scotland, a fan came out of the crowd while Rory McElroy was waiting to hit, calmly took a club out of McElroy’s bag and started to swing it as if he was going to tee off. I’d never seen anything like it.   

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They were just two incidents in a slew of recent bad fan behavior. You had the woman waiving a sign saying hello to her grandparents stepping in front of bikers at the Tour de France, causing massive pile up which, injured numerous riders. A Yankee fan hitting Red Sox outfielder Alex Verdugo in the back with a baseball in the midst of a game. An English “football’ fan shining a laser onto the face of the Denmark goalie during a key penalty shot in the European Cup semi-final. Islander fans throwing beer cans, et al., onto the ice after their team won game 6 of their recent series with the Lightening. A Knick fan spitting on Trae Young in Madison Square Garden. And what would any litany of bad fan behavior be without an entry from Philly, where a Sixers fan dumped popcorn on injured Russell Westbrook as he was exiting the court. 

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While this litany all occurred in a short time span, bad fan behavior has been with us a long time. The English soccer hooligans of the 80’s and 90’s make the laser incident look tame. (Bill Buford’s “Among the Thugs” is a classic on hooligan culture). There was the father and son in-game attack on Royals first base coach, Tom Gamboa. And my personal favorites, the fan riots on Death to Disco night in Detroit and 10 cent beer night in Cleveland.  

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Yet, it seems as if things may be heading to a different level. Maybe it’s some post-pandemic (if we are post-pandemic) expiration of pent-up steam. Maybe is an outgrowth of an on-line culture that lets people anonymously vent hatred. Maybe it’s another symptom of a society where moderation is becoming increasingly out of style. Or maybe its gotten no worse, and I’ve just become another old fogey who remembers the past through a rose-tinted haze.      

For most of my life I have been a very vocal fan. I remember leaning far over the second balcony at the old Spectrum berating Rick Mahorn during a time out in an era when blaring music did not invade every moment of every break in the game. (He later came to the Sixers and became one of my favorite players). There was also the time I took advantage of rare good seats at a Phillies game to scream continuously at Bill Russell from the time he appeared in the on-deck circle as a pinch-hitter until he grounded out (thank you very much), calling him a bum and a Lasorda charity case, among other things. I’m such a mild-mannered sort. I’m not sure what possessed me. 

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That, of course, is the point. We get ourselves so worked up for these sports spectacles that it’s easy to become someone else, or at least let a side of ourselves usually hidden emerge. After all, these contests are often couched by the players and media in the language of war, with victory being the only alternative, all else being humiliating defeat. So much is supposedly on the line, when in fact little is.  

The good thing is that this euphoria can be truly cathartic. There is no doubt that it is a great feeling to get caught up in the emotion of a sporting event. To feel your heart pounding as a playoff game comes down to the final minutes, victory or defeat hanging in the balance. To let out a primal roar after a key basket, goal, touchdown or home run. And it is impossible to avoid the devastation when the shot goes off the rim, the puck off the post, the ball is dropped in the end zone or the home run dies on the warning track. It is the life of a sports fan (especially a Philly sports fan). 

The thing about strong emotions, like those engendered by sports, is that it is very hard to keep them in check. By their very nature these emotions are at the boiling point, and it is all too easy to blur the line between avid fan and mindless jerk. To go from leaning over the railing screaming to throwing the drink that just happens to be in your hand. From having your heart pound like your life depended on the outcome of the game, to truly believing that it does. For some that line blurs to non-existence.  

As long as we invest so much into sport, we are going to have these explosions. Whether the current state of society makes it worse remains to be seen. We can only hope that people keep their hate on-line, as obnoxious as that is, rather than bring it to the stadiums and arenas. As for me, I am a lot less vocal than I once was. Part of that is age, and part of that is not wanting to contribute to a potentially toxic atmosphere. And yet, the urge is still there. There’s plenty of bums out there to be booed. Just so we leave it at that. 

Bill is back in the Hood. Seems like old times. I have no doubt that soon he’ll be hosting a barbecue, mixing the drinks himself, of course, with Jello Pops for dessert. Making us all laugh with his stories of his time in the pen. Drawing indelible verbal pictures of his new crew, Skinny C.K., Weird Harvey, Irish Billy O, the Spaceman, “Mushmouth” Rose and Dumb Donald. Hey, Hey, Hey!!!! I see a new show coming down the pike, maybe entitled “Women Say the Darndest Things”. 

I’ve been friends with Bill my whole life. We go way back to his days as Alexander Scott in the groundbreaking show “I Spy”. Even more, his comedy albums were some of my earliest companions. We laughed together over Noah (God: I want you to build an ark. Noah: Right … What’s an ark?). The first time I got on a subway all I could think of was “A Nut in Every Car”. I never looked at The Lone Ranger the same way after Bill mimed his confrontations with Tonto and Silver. (“The bandits have an eight mile lead! …” “Don’t worry about a thing! … Hi Yo Silver!” “WAIT A MINUTE!! Are you crazy?! Get off my back!”). 

I was pretty much done with sitcoms by the time The Cosby Show came along, but I could certainly appreciate its impact. And I remember sitting with my mom laughing at Kids Say the Darndest Things (not to be confused with his proposed new show). There was no doubt that Bill Cosby Was a Very Funny Fellow Right! Unfortunately he was so much more.  

Bill is home in large part due to the efforts of the newest member of his crew, Braindead Bruce. Good Ole Braindead testified that he agreed to forego prosecution of Bill for sexual assault, so that Bill could not avoid testifying in a civil case arising from the same assault. In a press release at the time Braindead said that he “declines to authorize the filing of criminal charges in connection with this matter”. This was found by the Court to be an “unconditional promise of non-prosecution”, which Bill relied on in testifying in the civil case. It therefore threw out his conviction, and also found that the record was so tainted that Bill could not be retired.  

There are real problems with this finding. There is no record outside of the press release for this agreement. As pointed out by the lower courts and in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Braindead has been inconsistent about what exactly he agreed to. When Bruce was running for office in 2015, he was “wrestling in my mind on ways to try to figure out how to use the new info about the deposition to create a favorable atmosphere for a prosecution”. He never mentioned that Cosby was forever shielded from prosecution. He also specifically pointed to a line in the press release where he said that “he will reconsider this decision should the need arise”.  

I really think that Braindead was a convenient excuse for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to dismiss this case without establishing troubling precedent, or bringing criticism down on themselves. The Court was clearly concerned that the pretrial publicity surrounding Bill made it impossible to have a fair trial. Montgomery County brought jurors in from the other side of the state, but surely they knew of the many allegations from other women about Bill (Of course they knew. And don’t call me Shirley). However, a ruling on that basis would have called into question the ability to hold a trial in any high-profile case. 

They were also undoubtedly troubled by admission of the testimony from other women asserting that Bill had drugged and then forced himself upon them. As a general rule, courts are reluctant to admit evidence of other criminal conduct at a trial. The question is whether the defendant committed the crime for which they are charged, not any others. There are exceptions to this general rule, and the trial and lower appellate court relied on those exceptions to uphold the conviction. My guess is that the Supreme Court, but did not want to take heat by deciding that this testimony should have been excluded.   

Luckily for the Supremes, Braindead Bruce came to their rescue. They could be fairly certain that they were not setting any precedent, because no other Prosecutor could be so incompetent and buffoonish as to agree to full immunity without a carefully written statement as to what he is granting, as well as a written agreement to the deal from the both the victim and the accused. They had to be giggling at the thought of someone using a press release to document something that important, without documenting the buy-in he allegedly secured. 

What is perhaps most astounding, and vile, is that after the ruling came out Braindead said that he was “vindicated” by the Supreme Court ruling. What a disgustingly amoral scumbag (not douchebag – thanks Anne) he must be to gloat over the release of a convicted sexual predator, holding it up as some sort of personal triumph. Even if he truly believes that he absolved Bill of prosecution for all time, it takes unmitigated gall to celebrate his release. He clearly could care less about the women involved.   

Upon reflection, I think that I will skip the welcome back barbecue. Let Bill and his new buds yuk it up. We are done. If the crew gets too loud, I might call the police, though my guess is that will do little good. Bill is who he is, and while the Supremes could throw out his conviction, and Braindead Bruce could crow at his repatriation, they cannot mask or dispel the stench that wafts over the neighborhood emanating from his abode. 

P.S. I thought it would be inappropriate to add pictures to this post.        

I have long had a Love/Hate relationship with college sports. I grew up in a Penn State household, looking up to Joe Paterno as an avatar for doing things the right way (oy vey!!!). I went to the University of South Carolina, where they had big time football, basketball and baseball programs with a fevered following, regardless of how the teams performed (which usually wasn’t too good). I watched the NCAA basketball tournament religiously, enthused by every upset (even going out to play basketball at midnight after NC State beat Houston). As a sports fan, I saw college sports as an unpredictable roller coaster that usually delivered. 

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On the other hand, I never had any doubts about the “integrity” of the NCAA, which has acts as if it stands for the purity of amateur athletics, while raking in millions of dollars off the achievements of teenagers. Despite declaring that “educational experience of the student-athlete is paramount”, everything done by the NCAA makes clear that it views the kids involved as fodder to justify multi-million-dollar salaries, appease well-heeled alumni and fund over-priced facilities that have more to do with ego than necessity. Their real goal is to generate as much money for the member schools as they can, and make sure that those schools maintain as much control over the athletes as possible. 

My reaction to the recent unanimous Supreme Court ruling that the NCAA could not bar payments and other benefits to student-athletes related to education made clear to me which side of Love/Hate is stronger. I gave a faux high-five to the Court for the decision, glad to see the duplicitous, sanctimonious, hypocrites who run the NCAA taken down a peg. I was so happy with this ruling that I even (forgive me) raised a virtual toast (beer, of course) to Brett Kavanaugh for his damning concurrence where he wrote, “The N.C.A.A. couches its arguments for not paying student-athletes in innocuous labels. But the labels cannot disguise the reality: The N.C.A.A.’s business model would be flatly illegal in almost any other industry in America.” 

While this ruling is, on its face, narrow, limited as it is to benefits related to education, it undoubtedly opens the door to the wider compensation for student-athletes. Already the NCAA has agreed that student-athletes can earn money from autograph signings, personal appearances, endorsements and social media platforms. With this, the floodgates are open. 

As much as I think that allowing these payments has to happen, I know that there will be downsides (I am thinking of renaming this blog Ambivilance.com, because I rarely face an issue where I cannot see both sides. Damn liberal arts education!!!!) Undoubtedly, only a few will benefit. It is unlikely that we are going to see money flowing to second-stringers, or even most starters. And, of course, we are only talking about the big-time sports, basketball, football and maybe baseball. There is little to be gained by athletes in all of the other NCAA sports that don’t have national exposure. 

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There are also bound to be other downsides. Schools will undoubtedly figure out a way to get a portion of this revenue, which only increases the money coming into the already cash rich programs. Plus, schools that can effectively market their players will be better placed to attract top recruits. You know that will be the Alabamas and Michigans of the world. The imbalance we already see will likely only increase (mirroring, perhaps, the wealth gap in the country generally). 

The NCAA probably could have headed this off years ago if it had established reasonable and equitable rules for compensating all athletes for the extra time and effort they put in representing their schools. Since at least 2010, some NCAA Athletic Directors advocated providing scholarships beyond the traditional cost of an education — tuition, books, and room and board – to include money to cover other cost-of-living expenses. But the NCAA has fought any such compromise tooth and nail. 

Even worse, the NCAA has continually came down hard on any player caught pocketing even minimal assistance, such as, heaven forbid, an illegal phone jack. Just this last year UMass tennis received two years’ probation, self-imposed a $5,000 fine and had the records and matches from two seasons expunged because two players received “improper benefits” of $252, namely a phone jack in the players’ off-campus apartment. All this towards making the student-athlete “paramount.” 

On the other hand, schools get a slap on the wrist for egregious conduct. For example, the eunuchs at the NCAA decided they had no jurisdiction to punish the University of North Carolina for pushing athletes into fraudulent, no-show classes to keep players eligible. If that doesn’t go to the heart of the supposed bargain where athletes are to get an education in exchange for providing their talents, I don’t know what does.  

I could go on, but I need to keep my blood pressure under control. Suffice it to say that the next few years will be very interesting indeed. We will undoubtedly hear of ridiculous deals, and massive rip-offs, which will have us shaking our heads. Hopefully, someone will come up with some equitable way to fairly fund all athletes, but with the amount of money involved I would not hold my breath. Like it or not, my Love/Hate relationship is here to stay.   

I’m taking an on-line course on World Cinema through a very pandemic start-up called BuzzClub where we watch a movie before “class” and then discuss it in a Zoom session. Right up my alley. Recently we watched and the discussed the Danish movie, Another Round, starring Mads Mikkelson, which won the 2020 Oscar for Best International Feature Film. I recommend it. It has great characters, an interesting story line, and is both funny and poignant. It also made me think, and what better can you say about a movie. 

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The story centers on four high school teachers who are, to put it mildly, in a rut. They decide to try an experiment based on a theory by a Norwegian psychiatrist, Finn Skårderud, maintaining that a steady level of alcohol in your system (about two glasses of wine’s worth) brings people up to optimum performance, maximizing personal and professional happiness. Initially things work out pretty well, though, not surprisingly, it’s not that simple. 

This film made me think about my lifelong relationship with potent potables. My parents did not drink, and were adamant about the hazards of liquor. Which meant, of course, that as soon as I got out of the house (and a bit before as well) I began indulging. Like most young, stupid kids (that’s redundant, isn’t it?), I overindulged a bit too often, and pretty much kept that up until I got married and had children. Now I’m a comparative teetotaler.  

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I am fully aware of the dangers of firewater, and the devastation that it can leave in its wake. Yet, I’d be a liar if I said that I regret all that drinking. It was, and still is to a lesser extent, a way to ease social anxiety, bond quickly with new people and take chances that I might otherwise have backed away from. Many close friendships were forged over a beer, or two, etc., etc. Many memorable conversations were interrupted only by another shot of tequila.  

In a recent op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal referenced by Phil Donahue in our class (no, not that Phil Donahue) Edward Slingerland, a Canadian Professor of Philosophy, opines that the desire to consume spirits is part of our evolutionary journey. [I can’t avoid noting the great names I encountered writing this post. Mads Mikkelson. Finn Skårderud. Edward Slingerland. They remind me of the great Eddie Izzard routine where he ponders the meeting where singer Jerry Dorsey, soon to be Engelbert Humperdinck, brainstorms stage names with his handlers, coming up with suggestions like “Zingelbert Bembledack, Tringelbert Wangledack, Slut Bunwalla, Klingybun Fistelvase, Dindlebert Zindledack, Jerry Dorsey, Zengelbert Bingledack, Engelbert Humperdinck, Vingelbert Wingledanck.”] 

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 Anyway, Slingerland’s theory is that since hooch has so many potentially negative consequences, there must be some compensatory evolutionary benefit that makes it so pervasive in human history. He believes that it is alcohol’s enhancement of certain qualities, including those noted above – artistic inspiration, deepened ability to build trust, the willingness to think outside the box – that led us to, almost universally across societies, develop drinking as a social norm. In other words, according to Slingerland, these positive byproducts of booze have been central to the development of civilization.  

This is an interesting and unique way to look at the urge to indulge. Maybe drinking is not just a brainless excuse to get out of the humdrum of everyday life, but is also a way to assure that as a species we build alliances we may otherwise have strayed away from, create art that might not have penetrated our thick skulls and take unpredictable chances with significant payoff. It kind of makes imbibing the noble endeavor we wish it was. 

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That being said, there is a reason why drinking is sometimes referred to as getting stupid. Maybe some moderate consumption enhances certain admirable traits, but anyone who has descended that path knows that before too long alliances that look good can take you down some dark alleys, that creativity becomes sloppy and chaotic, and that there is a thin line between a foolish gamble and a downright boneheaded one. As a wise man once said “Responsible Drinking? Now that’s an Oxymoron”. 

General theories, like those of Skårderud and Slingerland, can be very helpful to view the world on a macro level, but they are pretty much useless on an individual basis. Even if Skårderud is right and a consistently low level of alcohol in the system does enhance certain constructive traits (And I do question this. I know that when I did indulge in a drink at lunch all it ever enhanced was my desire to take a nap at my desk), few of us have the self-control to maintain that kind of discipline.  

In the same way, even if, as Slingerland argues, we owe some of history’s innovations to a bunch of bombed Babylonians, heavy drinking hardly seems a recipe for the technological and system recasting that we need to survive in an ever more complex and challenged world. I’ve had too many drinks with too many people to put my trust in some engineer who is mapping out the software systems for a Mars launch between shots of bourbon.  

I am certainly not going to end this by hypocritically setting out the dangers of drinking. My standing to do that sailed on the Good Ship Guiness long ago. Plus, I never met anyone who wasn’t aware of the problems over-consumption could bring, even if they were on their fourth or fifth gin and tonic. Drinking is not going anywhere. Whether through evolution or not, it is part of who we are, for better or worse. So, enjoy Another Round, with a libation at your elbow if you like, and maybe ponder the above drinking theories. Just don’t take them too seriously.   

How did this get by me? How did I miss what may be the biggest news story of 2021? How did I fail to note confirmation of the massive conspiracy that has been going on since at least the 1950’s? Why wasn’t every paper and website in the country leading with the issuance of the Defense Department Report on UFO’s? Why wasn’t every other Facebook post showing the Naval footage of unexplained flying objects? Does the cover-up go that deep? 

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It could be that the Report was a bust. Yes, the Report confirms that there have been more than 120 incidents over the past two decades of soaring aircraft sightings that did not originate from any American military or other U.S. government technology. The Report also dismisses the notion that these sightings were weather or research balloons. It would go no further.  

The bottom line is that government refused to say whether the unexplained phenomena were extra-terrestrial. They did not dismiss the possibility that we have been visited by alien spacecraft, but speculate that perhaps instead these indeterminable flying machines were experimental technology from a rival power, like China or Russia. Hardly satisfying. 

There are one of two conclusions we can glean from this Report. We can take the government at its word, accept that there are things swooping around in our skies that we can’t explain, and wait for further information. Or, (cue X-Files’ theme), we can see this as further evidence of the decade-long efforts to hide from the American people that aliens do exist, that they are visiting our planet, and that it’s only a matter of time before we will have to confront them, one way or the other. In other words, do we take the boring measured approach or indulge in incredibly enjoyable speculation without any firm facts to back us up? I think the question answers itself.    

I am generally not a fan of government conspiracy theories. They tend to be so elaborate and far reaching that they, by their very nature, have to involve hundreds, if not thousands, of people. These theories assume that those in charge are able to direct their followers, keep secret their manipulations and muzzle any leaks that may occur. That is certainly not the government I know.  

Those who propound these theories are generally the same people who want us to believe that our government is wholly incompetent, arguing against any Washington run program as a waste of money. Yet these same bureaucratic buffoons are apparently able to pull off incredibly complex, wide-ranging schemes, that extend across years, and sometimes decades. If I truly believed that our leaders were capable of that kind of planning and execution, I would feel better about the future of our country than I do. 

We also know that whenever our government has tried to keep uncomfortable truths from the public the truth has eventually emerged. Our biggest “secret project” was development of the atom bomb. We even exiled key scientists to the middle of nowhere to protect the A-Bomb discoveries. And yet, the results were leaked almost immediately. We know about the clandestine CIA experiments with LSD. We know about the Tuskegee syphilis experiments. We know about the illegal sale of arms to Iran to fund the Nicaraguan contras. We know about the FBI’s Cointelpro program (though Hoover kept that hidden for quite some time). We know about the government’s massive collection of personal data. Let’s face it. Our government cannot keep a secret if its (or our) lives depended on it. 

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Does that mean that UFOs are a sham? Absolutely not. Something is flying around in our airspace, and has been for some time. I find it hard to believe that both the Russians and the Chinese are so far ahead us in military technology that they have developed these supersonic aircraft without our knowledge. Heck, China can’t even run a marathon without killing a bunch of people. If we eliminate secret US weapons development, there are not a whole lot of other explanations. 

But if that’s true, what the heck are these aliens waiting for? Why not just come down and say howdy? If some species has the capability of flying massive distances through space, they certainly can quicky determine that we are no threat to them. Or is it just a matter of a more advanced species studying primitive beings for scientific knowledge, and having no incentive to actually interact with them? The way we might study nematodes.  

Frankly, I have no good explanation for these phenomena, and that is the frustration. I believe that there have been unexplained sightings, but every scenario I consider to make sense of what is being seen seems outlandish. It just appears to be a big game of hide and seek where someone’s found the ultimate hiding spot – in plain view (the letters of transit are in Sam’s piano). 

So, as unsatisfying as it is, I have to go back and accept our government at its word (a shocking thought). They have no idea what is going on, as much as we have no idea what is going on. Until more information is available all speculation, while enjoyable, is futile. As the wisest alien I have ever known, Mr. Spock, said, “Insufficient facts always invite danger.”  Klaatu Barada Nikto.     

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