Monthly Archives: August 2023

JUST DESSERTS

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When I’m in Indianapolis, I stay with my friends, Rick and Karen, who have a condo downtown, a few blocks from Monument Circle.  They know all of the fine downtown restaurants—I think, in fact, that Rick has a couple of places that have tables for him whenever he goes in—and, worse, they know all of the dessert places.

The most recent visit involved three excellent dinners and three visits to dessert places none of us had any business going into.  The last night we went to something called The Sugar Factory.

I should have turned and run as fast as I could the other way.

Of all the items on the menu, I thought the Strawberry Cheesecake Milk Shake sounded the most tasty and probably the simplest of the desserts.  Boy, was I ever wrong.

There was the milk shake in a sugar-topped glass and a straw.  But the straw was there mainly to hold the other elements together. Whipped cream and candy strawberries topped the shake itself, topped by the cheesecake and more whipped cream, a real strawberry, and then a strawberry/chocolate cupcake topped by more whipped cream.

God help me!  I ate and drank it all.  The cupcake was nothing to write a blog about but the cheesecake was pretty good and the strawberry milkshake was just the right thickness and flavor.

The eight-block walk back to the condo was done at a fairly leisurely pace.

I had planned to spend a fourth night, after the race, but I decided to stick around only long enough to take the pictures I wanted and then head home early, listening to the rest of the race on the radio (it is, after all, about a 400-mile drive).  I told Rick I was leaving early because I didn’t think I could survive another dessert.

If my doctors were to look closely at my blood samples, I am sure they would find I don’t have white blood cells.  I have vanilla blood cells.

Once a week Nancy and I get together with a couple friends for game night—dominoes, Rummikub, Five Crown, Swoop, stuff like that.  Halfway through the evening, or when we change games, is dessert time.  No matter what the basic treat is—brownies, cobblers, cake, whatever—ice cream is the vital ingredient.  Always too much ice cream.

On our refrigerator, amidst the numerous pictures of grandchildren, cartoons, the next shopping list and assorted refrigerator magnets, is an advertisement I found in a 1916 Jefferson City newspaper. I look at it the way some people consider their bumper stickers, “He said it. I believe it. So it’s true.”

In 1916 the ad assured buyers that Weber’s ice cream was safe to eat, produced in sanitary surroundings, and was not the impure foods of the time found in grocery stores, themeat sometimes hanging openly in the windows.   Eat our ice cream and you’ll be alive tomorrow to eat more.  That kind of message.

But in today’s FDA-regulated food environment, I am comfortable reading it another way—that ice cream is an essential food group.

I think it is a genetic flaw.

While doing some family research a few years ago, looking for references to my great-grandfather, a Union (with Sherman) Civil War veteran, I uncovered a family secret

A longer article in the Decatur (Ill.) Evening Bulletin from July 6,1896 telling me that Robert Thomas Priddy and his partner, A. A. Cooper, both experienced dairymen, had bought “the milk depot and ice cream business “in the basement of Fay’s meat market on the west side of Lincoln Square.”

A year later:

I inherited my addiction to ice cream from an ancestor who was with Sherman at Vicksburg and later helped capture Little Rock.

He died in 1925.

In the old family photographs, he’s thin. It’s clear he didn’t dip into the inventory as often as he could have.

I wonder what he would have thought of that Strawberry Cheesecake Milkshake at The Sugar Factory.

 

 

 

How Could Anyone Survive?

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Readers of these columns who bypass the Tuesday entries because they deal with sports, especially automobile racing, might want to stick with us for a while today because we’re going to explain how a miracle happened Saturday night—or maybe it wasn’t a miracle because the event had been anticipated and a plan was in place..

NASCAR has not had a fatal crash in one of its major touring series since Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s death in 2001.  Saturday night, at Daytona, with the laps winding down and drivers desperate to claim one of the sixteen spots in the Cup series playoffs, Ryan Treece got turned into the car of teammate Chase Briscoe.  What happened next is recorded from the NASCAR site, NBC Sports, and Youtube:

treece crash nascar – Google Search

It is difficult to quantify what we have just watched here—a 3,500 pound car travelling 200 mph or thereabouts rotates in the air about thirteen times, strikes the ground about five times and finally lands on its wheels.

Treece got out of the car and stood talking to medical personnel before he laid down on a stretcher and was taken to a hospital for observation.  He was sent home the next day.

If your or I were to roll our car at, say, a mere 70 mph, our chances of survival would be limited even with airbags and seat belts and shoulder harnesses.

Treece survived because his car protected him.

Here’ s a drawing from NASCAR of the frame of his car.

The center section is welded steel designed to keep the roof from collapsing.  Along each side is foam padding to minimize damage from side impacts. But it’s the roof that is the key in this crash.  The cockpit was so rigidly built that when the car stopped after landing on its top during its long series of rollovers, the windshield was still in place and the roof was still up. The roll cage is designed to withstand forces from all angles.

The driver sits low within this cage in a seat that is made to fit his body with side and leg protections built in.

The driver is tightly strapped to his seat so his movements are severely limited despite the g-forces generated by an extreme crash of the type Preece experienced.  Not visible in the picture but required by NASCAR is the HANS device that was mandated after Earnhardt’s death from a basilar skull fracture, a severe movement of the head forward and back in a collision that causes a spinal breakage.  The Head and Neck System is a collar that slips over the shoulders of the driver and is attached to the driver’s helmet, limiting the movement of his head in a collision.

In Preece’s case, he probably took his hands off the steering wheel and probably crossed his arms during the barrel rolls —so that his arms and hands did not fly around—and rode it out.

Earlier this summer, Indycar driver Simon Pagenaud survived a similar horrifying rollover crash. The video of the crash starts at about 2:45 into this excerpt from the NBC broadcast.

Simon Pagenaud walks away from wildest crash of IndyCar career; will miss Mid-Ohio qualifying – NBC Sports

As you watch Pagenaud get out of his car and walk away, you’ll seen the HANS device as the black collar on his shoulders.  His personal seat, tight seat belts, and HANS device kept him anchored inside the safety of the car’s cockpit.

A few years ago, IndyCar adopted what it calls an Aeroscreen, a cockpit protection system that not only provides greater protection than a roll bar provides, but also provides protection against foreign objects getting into the cockpit during a crash. The system was developed after debris from a crash struck driver Justin Wilson, causing fatal head injuries in 2015.   Pagenaud has ben ruled out for the rest of the IndyCar season because concussion symptoms remain.  We’ll learn soon whether Preece’s crash produced concussion symptoms, too.

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Now the races—

(NASCAR)—Chris Buescher has won for the third time in last five races to establish himself as the driver with the momentum going into the last ten races of the year that will decide the eventual NASCAR champion.

Martin Truex Jr., finished the first 26 races as the regular season champion despite crossing the line 23rd at Daytona.

Buescher’s win was good news for a guy who finished 12th in the race, Bubba Wallace, who is the last driver to make the 16-driver field on points.

(L-R)  Kevin Harvick,  Michael McDowell, Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney, Christopher Bell, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, William Byron, (the regular season championship trophy), Martin Truex Jr., Kule Larson, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Ross Chastain, Tyler Reddick , Chris Buescher, Bubba Wallace  (NASCAR photo)

Buescher was second on the last restart of the race—after the Preece crash—with teammate Brad Keselowski behind him.  Keselowski pushed him into the lead and the teammates finished 1-2, the first 1-2 finish for what is now Roush-Fenway-Keselowski racing since Columbia’s Carl Edwards and Ricky Stenhouse Jr., went 1-2 at Briston in 2014.

The 1-2 finish was the first for RFK Racing since Carl Edwards and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. claimed the top two spots for owner Jack Roush at Bristol in 2014.

The first three-race round of the playoffs will be next Sunday at Darlington.

(INDYCAR)—Scott Dixon has outrun two other drivers whose COMBINED ages are only one year more than his.  Dixon, 43, famous for stretching a gallon of fuel farther than anybody else in IndyCar, finished more than 22 seconds ahead of Pato O’Ward, 23, and David Malukas, 21.

Dixon started 16th but ran a three-pit stop strategy while other drivers were making four or five, and led the last forty laps with an unaccustomed time cushion. He led 123 laps at World Wide Technology Raceway within sight of the Gateway Arch. It’s his 55th career victory, second only in IndyCar history to A. J. Foyt.  He, O’Ward, and Malukas were the only three of the 218 drivers to finish on the same lap.  His winning margin over O’Ward, 22.2256 seconds was the biggest margin for an IndyCar race in track history.

Defending champion Josef Newgarden was hoping to win all of the oval races on the IndyCar schedule this year. He led 96 laps but got into the turn two wall trying to regain the lead just past the halfway point. The crash also put him out of contention for the national championship.

Season points leader Alex Pallou was seventh and saw his lead over Dixon shrink to 76 points with two races left in the season—both on road courses, which are more to his liking.  If Pallou comes out of the next race, in Portland, with a lead of 55 points, he will lock up the championship.

Pallou and Dixon are teammates at Chip Ganassi Racing.

(FORMULA ONE)—Max Verstappen has won his ninth F1 race in a row, equaling Sebastian Vettel’s record set a decade ago. It also was his 12th straight victory from the pole, equaling a record set my Michael Schumacher in 2003-2004.

The Dutch Grand Prix was run on Verstappen’s native ground.

But he wasn’t the only record-setter.  By finishing second, Fernando Alonso broke Schumacher’s record for most days between first and last podium finishes (7,399 days).  And with Alonso having a solid year, this might not have been his “last” podium finish.

And it was a distinguished day for Aston Martin, which achieved its first podium finish in the 64 years it’s been competing in F1.

—FOOTBALL—

(MISSOURI TIGERS)—Our first look at what Coach Drinkwitz has molded this year will be Thursday night against the South Dakota Coyotes of the Missouri Valley Conference.  Missouri has never lost against a Football Championship Subdivision team—that’s a Division One level below the really big-time schools.

South Dakota as 3-8 last year. Missouri is 20-0 agaianst FCS Schools.  Drinkwitz says the Coyotes are a “very good football tam” with a “great head coach.”  The coach is Bob Nielsen who is 32-42 in seven seasons.

Coyotes like to run and these do—averaging about 185 yards a game on the ground last year.

Their starting quarterback has some top division experience. Aldan Bouman was at Iowa State Last year, completed 61% of his throws. Eight of them were for touchdowns. One was intercepted.

Missouri could use multiple quarterbacks—last year’s starter Brady Cook, redshirt freshman Sam Horn and maybe Mike Garcia, who transferred to Missouri from Miami in the off-season.

(CHIEFS)—The Chiefs open their NFL season the Thursday after Labor Day. The Detroit Lions will be at Arrowhead.

—BASEBALL)—

The St. Louis Cardinals need to win six more games (going into Monday’s night’s contest) to eliminate the possibility of losing 100 or more games this year. They start the week 56-75.  The Cardinals opened a series last night in St. Louis against the Padres. The Royals were at home against the Pirates

The road is tougher for the Royals. They’ve already lost 91 games (as of Monday night). They have to go 21-8 or better to stave off the 100-loss year.

The Cardinals have been playing miserable baseball for a week and a half.  They’re 2-9 going into last night’s game and they’ve been outscored 73-30.

The Royals also are 2-9. They’ve been outscored 66-36.

What will these teams look like next year?  Mark your calendars:

The Cardinals first spring training game actually is two games. They’ll split their squads and play the Mets and the Marlins on February 24.  The Royals first game will be on the 23rd against the Rangers.

Just thought we’d give you something to live for.

 

 

NOTES FROM A QUIET, HOT, HUMID STREET

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This series of observations began a long, long, time ago as “Notes from a Battered Royal,” which were notes sent out to Missourinet affiliate stations about what we were planning and what they had done to help us.

With the coming of the computer, then the internet, and then the requirement that the Missourinet have a blog, it became “Notes From the Front Lines.”  But the author is no longer on the front lines. He lives on a quiet street.  And its getting quieter.  The folks who used to live in the house across the street now are in an assisted care place in Columbia.  One of the houses next to us hasn’t been occupied for more than a  year because the man living there also is in assisted living. Three nuns who lived in a house just across the street and up one driveway have moved out.

It’s been a while since we made some observations that don’t qualify for fully blogness.  Let us proceed.

Saw a letter to the editor in the local paper the other day that said Missouri’s state motto, Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto means “The will of the people is the Supreme Law.”  That’s wrong. And it’s dangerous.  Maybe we’ll go into in more depth later but for now, the correct interpretation is, “The welfare of the people is the Supreme Law.”  For now, just think of how different our freedoms would be if the word “will” actually was the philosophy of our government.  The quote, by the way, is from Marcus Tullius Cicero, who we know by his last name, the author of “On the Law.”

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Is there a more pitiful figure in American politics today than Rudi Giuliani?  Of all the people whose lives and reputations have been destroyed by their association with and defense of Mr. Trump, the wreckage that is Rudi is the most pitiful.

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I have a friend who lives in Tucson, Arizona who comes north for a couple of months every summer to find cooler weather (even 10-15 degrees cooler is significant).  I call her a Sunbird.

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There are certain words that have become so politicized that all of the honor has been crushed out of them.  I recall when words such as “liberal” and “conservative” were not said with a sneer and were not spoken as if they were scarlet letters.

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The latest word that falls into this category is “evangelicals.”  The people I heard described as such while I was growing up—-and the people who had the word on their churches—were perceived as fervent believers in God and Jesus, more fervent than us Disciples, Methodists, Presbyterians and my grandmother’s Baptists.  But then came those who discovered evangelical techniques could be applied to achieving political power, making it a third word that is being abused in “the politics of personal destruction.”

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We were talking recently with some friends about the totally trivial things we remember for decades.  I remarked that I still remembered the Army service number of a high school friend who joined the service shortly after we graduated—RA18541439.

Now there’s a new number that I’d like to remember sixty years later—P01135809.  It has a certain rhythm to it, too.

And to think this person was once known only as 45.

We’ve seen the official portrait of PO-1135809.  We are sure that Fulton County, Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis is soooooooo intimidated.

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This is about the most enthusiastic your correspondent has been for the start of the football season in decades. Maybe it’s because this year, it will bring relief from the near-daily disappointments of baseball.

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Can’t help it.  Everytime I see a major sports team or league sign a deal with a sports-betting company, I start thinking its time to cast Cooperstown plaques for Shoeless Jackson and Pete Rose.

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The Capitol regains its heartbeat for a couple of days soon. The lawmakers will decide whether to override some of Governor Parson’s vetoes.  There’s a lot of money available to pay for the things he differs with the legislature about.

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But having a lot of money now means there’s a cushion for the bad days.

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Or we can forget about the bad days and just blow it all now.

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Or we can enact tax cuts so our tax base is even less able to deal with the eventual downturn.

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Anybody else have deer in the yard that just watch you come home and go in the house without ever getting up?  I think that in our case, they’re just resting while they digest  their latest serving of Hostas from Nancy’s garden a/k/a the deer buffet.

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A longtime friend of mine died a few days ago.  He didn’t want a memorial service.  He was a retired reporter who didn’t want his death reported in the newspaper.  Steve Forsythe, whose byline for United Press International read “A. Stevenson Forsythe” was a helluva reporter. Governor Teasdale blamed us, at least in part, for his failure to win a second term.

We could have thanked him for the compliment but we never did.

 

 

Sports: Have the Cardinals Resurrected a Starter? Which Royals Team Will Show Up in ’24?; Quarterbacks in competition and Bubba on the Bubble

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(CARDINALS)—Should the Cardinals pencil in Dakota Hudson as a starter next year?   Hudson, who went 16-7 for the Cardinals in 2019 and then had Tommy John surgery the next year, appears to be at full strength as his team plays out the string in 2023.

Hudson rang up his fifth straight win of ’23 (he has yet to lose) when he became a stopper against the Mets Sunday.  The Cardinals had lost four in a row, partly because of a puny offense that had generated only five runs in their four losses.

The offense bulked up behind Hudson with 15 hits and seven runs. Every starter had at least one hit. Paul Goldschmidt was 3-for-4 with a homer, three RBIs, and two runs scored.

The series marked the debut of top rookie Masyn Winn who went 3 for 11.

His first major league hit was dribbler down the third base line. When Mets’ first baseman Pete Alonso was told to throw the ball out of play, he pitched it into the crowd—-realizing moments later it had been Winn’s first hit.  He apologized profusely and the woman in the crowd who had it gave it to a team security officer.  Winn signed another ball for her.

(ROYALS)—The Royals have reverted to form after their seven-game winning streak got fans’ hearts beating a little as this team heads for one of its worst seasons ever.  They’ve gone 4-11 since that streak.  But the new week begins with hope.  The Royals open a three-game series against the only American League team with a worse record.  The Royals open the series in Oakland at 40-86.  The A’s are 34-89.

Jordan Lyles dropped to 3-14 Sunday despite an impressive eight innings in which he allowed only two earned runs.  His eight innings dropped his ERA to 6.07.

The Royals needed three to tie in the ninth but ran out of outs after scoring only two.

(THE WEAPON AND THE LEFTY)—The Cardinals’ “Secret Weapon” has an addition to his wardrobe—a red sport coat symbolizing his membership in the Cardinals Hall of Fame.  Jose Oquendo, nicknamed “The Secret Weapon” of the Cardinals by Jack Buck, once played all nine positions in a game in 1988.  He had a solid career as a player but is best known and revered as a coach of young talent.

Left-handed pitcher Max Lanier, who died at 91 in 2007, was 101-69 in 12 years with the Cardinals. His best year was 15-7 in 1943, the year he led the National League with a 1.90 ERA.

He started as a right-handed pitcher but his son Hal—who had a long career as a utility infielder and was briefly a Cardinals coach—say he severely injured his elbow twice and had to learn to throw left-handed.

(DeJong Yawn)—-The Cardinals-Blue Jays trade that sent shortstop Paul DeJong to Toronto already is a big win for St. Louis, a big bust for Toronto, and a big downfall for a former All-Star shortstop.

The Blue Jays have designated Paul DeJong for assignment, just a eighteen days after getting him from the Cardinals.  He’d been acquired when Toronto shortstop Bo Bichette went down with a knee injury. But Bichette has been reinstated frm the IL and DeJong is available for the taking.

DeJong came up to the Cardinals in 2017, hit .285 with 25 home runs and made the All-Star game. He had 30 homers two years later but his batting average had dropped to .233.  He never recovered his freshman skills and when the Cardinals sent him to Toronto he was hitting only .233.

And Toronto became a disaster for him. He was 3 for 44 with 1 RBI.

It was a low-risk, low-return trade (so far) for both teams.  The Cardinals got minor league pitcher Matt Svanson who was not one of  Toronto’s top 30 prospects. Through Friday night he had been in four games for Springfield and had a 10.13 ERA,  7 hits, 6 runs in 5.1 innings.

CHIEFS)—Kansas City Chiefs fans disappointed that the starters played only a few downs in the first pre=season game, got a look at what happens when the starters stick around a while longer in the second pre-season contest.  And they got a pretty encouraging look at the backups, too.

Chiefs beat the Cardinals 38-10. The first team offense wasn’t too impressive in the first  few series’s but they looked like the Chiefs with a ten-play 92-yard drive that ended with a Justin Watson catching an 18-yeard TD pass from Patrick Mahomes. Mahomes finished his work going 10 for 15, 105 yards and the touchdown in the first quarter.  The Chiefs finished the night with 504 yards offense.

The Chiefs went up 17-0, let the Cardinals draw to within 17-10, then polished off the Arizona birds with 21 unanswered points.

Both teams are 1-1 now.

The performance by both backup quarterbacks has started some buzz.  Shane Buechele completed all ten of his pases for 105 yards and ran for a 15-yard touchdown.  Former Missouri Tiger QB Blaine Gabbert was 7 for 8, 130 yards, two touchdowns. The question remaining for the final pre-season game is which of them will be the number 2 QB.  It would not be a surprise if the Chiefs carry three quarterbacks this year.

The Chiefs welcome the Cleveland Browns to Arrowhead Stadium next Saturday night for the last pre-season game.  The teams have only one cutdown date this year. They have to name their 53-man rosters on August 29.  Although teams can have 53 roster players, only 48 can be eligible on game day.  Teams also can have a 16-player practice squad.

(SPEAKING OF QUARTERBACKS)—Coach Eli Drinkwitz says we’ll see Brady Cook and Sam Horn splitting time in the first game of the year against South Dakota. He says he wants to “let the play on the field decide it.”

Now, let’s get up to speed.

(INDYCAR)—Josef Newgarden will try to keep his IndyCar record of consecutive oval victories intact next Sunday afternoon at World Wide Technology Speedway just east of St. Louis.

Newgarden has won all four oval races this year, five in a row counting last year’s win at WWTR.  He seeks to become the first driver to sweep all of the oval races in a season since Sebastian Bourdais did it in 2006. Bourdais had a little easier time of it, though.  A race on the Milwaukee Mile was the only oval race held for IndyCar in 2006.

Racing at WWTR is usually highly-competitive. There were 13 lead changes and 520 on track passes for position last year before rookie David Malukas chased Newgarden to the finish line, trailing by .4708 of a second.

Only two races remain in the series after this one. Newgarden’s chances of overhauling Aledx Palou for the championship took a hard blow in the last race, on the Indianapolis road course two weeks ago, in which Newgarden (left) battled problems and finished 25th.

Scott Dixon won the race and moved past Newgarden into second place, 101 points behind Palou. Newgarden is back by 105.  A win by Palou would make him the first driver since Cristiano daMatta did it in 2022.

(NASCAR)—Fifteen of sixteen playoff spots have been determined heading into NASCAR’s last regular-season race.  Bubba Wallace is on the bubble in 16th,  thirty-two points ahead of rookie Ty Gibbs.

Although Wallace has some breathing room going into the race, nothing is certain when the race is at Daytona.  Multiple-car crashes often turn anticipated results (and some cars) upside down.  If a driver who has not won this year captures the flag at Daytona Saturday night, he’s in and Wallace is out.  The most desperate driver might be former series champion Chase Elliott, who has to win to be in.

(SRX)—A Missouri track provided the wrapup to the third season of Tony Stewart’s Superstar Racing Experience this week.  The race, at Wheatland in southwest Missouri, went to Jonathan Davenport and the championship to Ryan Newman.

The six-race made-for-television series features specially-built cars races by big names mostly from NASCAR and IndyCar ranks.

Davenport, the race winner, however, is a dirt-track champion who doesn’t run with the big dogs, Jonathan Davenport, a Georgia driver who has won the national championship in the Late Model Dirt Serioes in 2015, 2018, and 2019. On the podium with him was current Cup Series driver Brad Keselowski and Fenton’s ageless Kenny Schrader who, a few days earlier, had gone to Canada to win a 100-lap NASCAR Dirt Classic race at Ohsweken Speedway in Ontario.

Schader, 68, thus became the oldest driver to win a NASCAR-sanctioned event and the first non-Canadian to win in the Pinty’s Series.

(photo credits: Bob Priddy, Rick Gevers, and Lucas Oil Speedway)

Taking the Initiative (Away)

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Ohio residents voted a few days ago on a proposition that would make it harder for citizens to enact laws if the legislature refuses to do so.  Or to correct a legislative enactment many think based on something other than the general public welfare.

Ohio voters approved initiative and referendum in 1912, about the time Missourians approved it.  In the recent statewide Ohio vote, 57% of the voters rejected an effort largely led by those who do not want to see a pro-abortion amendment added to the Ohio Constitution.

In Missouri, constitutional amendments proposed by the people need only a simple majority to be approved.  This year, the Missouri House voted almost two-to-one (Republicans control the House by about the same ratio) to require 57% approval for any amendment proposed by the people.  Only another end-of-session mud fight in the Senate kept the proposal from a vote there sending the issue to the ballot.

Abortion was (is) the principle issue behind the failed legislative effort in Missouri. One major House supporter of the increase went on record during the session admitting the increased threshold was intended to keep a petition allowing abortions from being sent to the voters for their approval. The people, in turn, sent a message back to the legislature.

One of the key arguments for the supermajority threshold is that the change is needed to keep the state constitution from being further cluttered by amendments that should be only statutes.

The concern is legitimate. The proposed means of answering that concern, though, are questionable—and the legislature largely is to blame for the situation to begin with.

Some amendments have been added to the Missouri Constitution because the legislature has refused to pass a statute to address an issue.  The legislature has at times rewritten a statute approved in an election, a perceived rebuke to the will of the people who then can petition for an amendment to the constitution that is harder for the legislature to alter. The legislature cannot, on its own, rewrite a provision in the constitution. It can, however, suggest a replacement amendment that takes the place of the citizen-adopted language inserted into the constitution.

Government can be a little dizzying sometimes but at least the governed and the government are on the same level playing field. A national movement has materialized to tilt the field, however.

The initiative process does need some changing.  But making it harder for the people to propose and pass a law or an amendment on an issue the legislature has ignored, fumbled, or is not favored by the majority (or supermajority) party is not the proper approach.

There is a hypocrisy in this proposed change of the political process. Members of the legislature elected by a simple majority can pass a proposed law or amendment with a simple majority, even a proposal to require the people to get a supermajority to propose or pass a measure the legislature has ignored or bungled.

This is a philosophical problem that is often lost in the different worlds of politics versus popular sovereignty.  Benjamin Franklin defined popular sovereignty when he wrote, “In free governments, the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns.”  Or as the Declaration of Independence reminds us, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

A simple majority governs.  A super majority dictates within the political system.

There are two kinds of supermajorities.  The human first one is a legislative majority capable of enacting laws with no regard to the presumed political equality of a minority. The second is an  entity on paper that keeps a simple majority from speaking or acting.

Supermajorities in their different forms are dangerous because they can ignore the unalienable mutual right to, in particular, liberty.

In this case, the Missouri legislature has a supermajority that wants to ban abortions with a fifty-percent-plus-one vote while requiring those who oppose the ban to get 57% support.  Changing the constitution to tilt the table against the minority is a tilt away from democracy.

There is an argument that the proposal likely to be back in the legislature next year will infringe on the right of citizens “to petition the Government for redress of grievances.”  That’s a basic right in the U. S. Constitution.  Although the document does not specifically address what it takes to petition government, our history has established the simple majority as the rule.  Making  it harder to petition for a redress of grievances hardly seems to keep faith with the founders.

The process needs improvement.  But limiting access of the people to an original right in our national charter is not the best way to handle the issue.

Here are some things—top of the head thinking so take it for what it’s worth—that could be done to improve the process. You might have others or prefer others:

—Limit the number of proposed propositions by one organizaiton to one.  Too often, petition campaign organizers file multiple versions of a proposal that vary only slightly, a process that places an unnecessary burden on the Secretary of State’s staff that has to review each proposal.

—Require clear reporting of the source of funding for the petition, identifying by name the donors and any organizations through which the financing is delivered. If someone wants to buy a part of the constititon or a state statute, voters need to know who it is and why.

—Require pre-filing public hearings in x-number of locations throughout the state so the people have chances to hear the specifics of the proposal and to criticize it within an audience of their peers, giving an early public airing of the issue which otherwise might go to the ballot with a well-financed and heavily one-sided campaign.

—-Require a hearing by a joint committee of the legislature before circulation begins. Neither the House nor the Senate could change the proposal but the hearings could explore shortcomings in a process that could be made by petition sponsors.  One of the major—and justified—criticism process is that petitions lack the refining process that legislative review offers for issues recommended for the ballot by the General Assembly.

The petition process is a right that is to be reserved and preserved for the citizens.  To limit citizens’ right by forcing on them an obligation not forced upon the people who purportedly represent them is to repudiate Franklin’s idea of a republic in which “the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns.”

We hope Missourians are as cognizant of their rights and responsibilities as citizens as the good people of Ohio are—regardless of any measure the Missouri General Assembly might try to enact that makes citizens lesser participants in their own governance.

 

SPORTS:  The Hendrick 1100; The Chiefs Debut; Tiger Basketball Gets the Beef; Tiger Football Developing.  Then there is baseball.

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(RACING)—We normally start with the stick and ball sports but the stick-shift or paddle-shift sports took some interesting turns (to coin a phrase) this weekend and we were there so we’re going to talk about things faster than a baseball pitch.

First, NASCAR and IndyCar shared the road course at Indianapolis this weekend, IndyCar on Saturday and cars with fenders on Sunday.

(HENDRICK)—The weekend was the perfect venue to unveil the cars that former NASCAR champion Kyle Larson will run next year as he tries to “do the double, .” racing in the Indianapolis 500 and then jetting to Charlotte, NC for NASCAR’s 600 mile Memorial Day race that night.

Larson, who won Saturday night’s Knoxville Sprint Car Championship in Iowa, got to Indianapolis at 4 a.m. Sunday but was at the Indianapolis Speedway at mid-morning the unveiling of the cars he will drive next Memorial Day Weekend.

.His car owner, Rick Hendrick, is partnering with Arrow-McLaren Motorsports, which fields cars for the 500.  The color scheme is McLaren Papaya Orange and Hendrick’s traditional blue. Because he’s an active partner in the effort, the event has been unofficially dubbed the “Hendrick 1100,” for the 100 miles Larson will drive that day if he completes both races.

Four other drivers have tried it but only Tony Stewart has been able to run all 600 laps in the two races.  Robby Gordon tried four times, John Andretti tried it once and the most recent driver to make the attempt, Kurt Busch, was 6th at Indianapolis but fell out of the Charlotte race with engine problems.

Hendrick, owner of 94 automobile dealerships employing 10,000 people, owned Jeff Gordon’s car that one the first Brickyard 400, the first NASCAR race on the Indianapolis oval, in 1994. At one time he considered having Gordon run both races, but Gordon was cool to the idea.

But Jeff Gordon was a strong advocate for Larson to try it, and Larson has been eager to do it.  Hendrick says Larson has shown he can win in any kind of car.

For his part, Larson says he’s not nervous although he expects the nervousness to start “creeping in” as next May gets closer.

(SUNDAY ON THE ROAD COURSE WITH MIKE)—Michael McDowell had been one of the drivers keeping an eye on drivers’ points as NASCAR’s playoff runs begins to grow close.  But his win Sunday eliminated any uncertainty about his presence among the 16 drivers competing for a slot.

McDowell, who has shown improvement as a road course driver in his career, seized control of the race that went without a yellow flag for the last 77 of 82 laps.  It’s his second CUP victory—the first being the Daytona 500 two years ago.

His closest pursuer was Chase Elliott, who desperately needs a win to qualify for the playoffs.  Although Elliott trimmed McDowell’s lead from four seconds to less than one second, he couldn’t get the win that would have put him, Elliott, into the 16-car playoff field. He gave Ford its first road course victory since 2018, whcn Ryan Bleney won the first race on the Charlotte Roval.

He’s the 13th winner this year, leaving only three playoff positions available for non-winners.  Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski seem secure in the points chase, leaving only one position, for all intents and purposes, open. Bubba Wallas holds the 16th playoff spot now, by 28 pins over Daniel Suarea

McDowell’s win reduces the number of available Playoff spots to three. Keselowski and Kevin Harvick are comfortably situated on points—barring more different winners at Watkins Glen and Daytona—but Wallace’s hold on the final spot was reduced from 58 points pre-race to 28 over Suárez. Next closest is Ty Gibbs, who’s 49 points out.

The road course at Watkins Glen is next on the schedule.

(INDYCAR)—The IndyCar race Saturday was awash in history from beginning to end.  Saturday was the 90th birthday of Speedway legend Parnelli Jones, the first driver to run a 150 mph lap, a past winner of the 500 in May.  This year is the 38th anniversary of Danny Sullivan’s famous “spin and win” 1985 500. Dixon had not planned to celebrate Sullivan’s achievement when the race started but less than one minute into the contest he spun off the track into the dirt as part of a five-car tangle.  Dixon’s car was undamaged and he got back under power before the field came back around, keeping him on the leader lap.  A pit stop four laps later would let him run the rest of the race on only two more stops while other drivers had to make three.

The alert move by his team put him in the lead late and his legendary fuel-saving abilities left him ten seconds ahead of pole-sitter Graham Rahal after the final pit stops.  Rahal bit into the lead but finished about a half-second back.

(Dixon meeting a fan)

The win is Dixon’s 54th; only A. J. Foy had more (67).  It gave Dixon at least one win in 19 consecutive seasons, breaking a tie with Foyt.  He’s known as “The Ice Man” for his ability to keep his cool during tight races but he’s also IndyCar’s “Iron Man” after making his 319th consecutive start, breaking the record held by Tony Kanaan.

The race was a disaster for Josef Newgarden, the winner of the 500 in May. His car was one of the five in the first lap crash and he never got into contending position after repairs. Dixon has replaced him as second in points but Alex Palou has a 100-plus point lead going into the last three races of  the year (the first of which is just across the river from St. Louis in two weeks, at World Wide Technology Raceway).

(HELIO)—The race near St. Louis likely will be the last chance we have to see Helio Castroneves except for the Indianapolis 500.  Castroneves is easing into retirement and his only race for 2024 for his current owner, Meyer-Shank Racing, will be his next big for a fifth Indianapolis 500.  Otherwise he’ll assume a minority ownership of the team. He’ll also run sports cars in the IMSA series.

He remains one of the most popular and charismatic figures in IndyCar.

His MSR teammate, Simon Pagenaud, is still not allowed to race because of concussion problems resulting from his horrendous crash at Mid-Ohio a month ago. His contract with Meyer Shank ends at the end of this season. Linus Lundqvist has been filling in for him. He was 12th in the Saturday race.

(ONE OTHER THING)—Imagine the players on your favorite base, foot, basket, or soft ball team pausing on their way to the field to start the game to pass among fans and sign autographs.

IndyCar and NASCAR drivers do that.  We weren’t there to collect autographs but instead we were there to photograph drivers.  One young Indiana couple brought their young children, each wearing t-shirts saying, “My First NASCAR Race.”

Chase Briscoe was one of the several drivers who saw their little girl sitting on top of the fence, held by her father whose hat was signed earlier by broadcaster Dale Earnhardt Jr., (barely visible on the bill) and signed her shirt. Briscoe finished sixth in the race.  Briscoe is 28 with a lot of future ahead of him; she looked to be three or four with even more future before her.

Forty-six years ago, a woman named Janet Guthrie became the first woman to start a Daytona 500 AND an Indianapolis 500.  A year later she finished sixth at Bristol, the highest finish in a NASCAR race ever by a woman up to that time (Danica Patrick also finished 6th in a NASCAR race, in 2017).

Your on-the-scene scribe once had an autographed Guthrie picture hanging in his daughter’s bedroom, not because he thought she would become a woman race driver but because he wanted her to know she could be anything she wanted to be.

TIGER FOOTBALL)—Coach Eli Drinkwitz started sounding a little more positive about his team after Saturday’s closed practice, especially about the defense—although the offense began to find itself a bit toward the end of the first half of the closes scrimmage.

The competition for slots on the offensive line is intensifying. He says as many as eight players are competing for five positions.  He indicates Javon Foster might have left tackle nailed down and Connor Tollison is impressive at center.

A week ago he was critical of Tiger wide receivers for their shortcomings in the blocking game but after the weekend scrimmage, he says the players have “responded really well.”

(MISSOURI ROUNDBALL)—Coach Dennis Gates has been signing some big guys to fill what has been an aching shortcoming of the Tigers for years—the lack of interior size.  His newest recruit isn’t just tall.  He’s BIG.

He’s Peyton Marshall, a 7-foot, 300-pound center from Marietta, Georgia, who has picked Missouri aver Georgia Tech, Auburn Ole Miss, Cincinnati, Georgetown, and Mississippi State, and about ten other schools.  He’s the third top 100 player in the 2024 recruiting class. He is considered to have a lot of raw but unpolished talent.

(CHIEFS FOOTBALL)—The starters hardly broke a sweat in their first exhibition game of the year against Russell Wilson and the New Orleans Saints 26-24 on a late field goal.  The regulars were in for just a few plays while coach Andy Reid got a good  look at the rookies and the newbies. The Chiefs play the Cardinals next week. The regular seasons starts September 7.

Okay, now let’s take a look at our baseball teams. It will be a short one.

Our two teams had a rare Sunday off after their two game series that ended in a split at the end of the week.  In both games, both games played well above their winning percentage.

(ROYALS)—The Royals have to win their next 50 games in a row to have a .500 season. They start tonight’s game against the Mariners 31-81.  The Royals used the day to juggle the lineup.  Drew Waters is returning from the three-day Bereavement List.

Edward Olivares is headed down to Omaha to make room on the roster for Bubba Thompson, coming over from the Rangers, who designated hm for assignment this week. At first glance, Thompson doesn’t appear to be much of a game-changer. He is hitting .170 in 27 games for Texas.

(CARDINALS)—The Cardinals (52-66) face another team that, on paper, would appear to be easy pickings—the Oakland Athletics, who sport a 33-85 record.  It is the first meeting of these two teams since 2019.

Just when some things were starting to look just a teeny more rosy, the Cardinals have announced that Steven Matz is going to be on the 15-dayh DL with a left lat strain.

Manager Oli Marmol hasn’t said it in so many words, but the time as come to seriously address what’s to be done with Adam Wainwright.  Last Friday night’s outing against the lowly Royals was nothing if not tragic for a beloved player who wants so badly to go out with 200 wins. Marmol promised afterward to “sit down with Waino” and “talk through a few things.”  But he says the future doesn’t look great.

Wainwright, however, will make a start later this week.

(Photo Credits: Bob Priddy and Rick Gevers)

 

The Bag

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Did you ever hear someone say something out of the blue that just hit you squarely between the eyes?   Something that stopped you cold.  Something you had to write down because it was so startingly profound to you that you dared not let it escape?

It is so rare that this kind of thing happens.  Stops you in your tracks.

I was asked to speak to the local Unitarian Universalist Fellowship a few days ago and on Thursday I was doing the final edits of my remarks before printing them out.

As I was typing those last thoughts, I was listening to Sirius/XM’s channel of old radio programs from the 30s into the 60s when radio drama and entertainment finally faded away because television had become the established preference for people’s entertainment.

I was listening to an episode of “Have Gun, Will Travel,” a western drama show about a gunslinger-for-hire named Paladin (no first name ever given). Some of you might remember Richard Boone in the role on television in the early 60s.  But before then it was on radio with John Dehner, whose face you might recognize before you recognize the name) as Paladin.

Paladin had been hired to deal with an Indian chief who was reluctant to give up a white child who had been kidnapped when his family was wiped out. The chief argued that the boy was “his son.”

They finally decided the boy was white and would be returned to relatives. At the end of the negotiation, the “chief” said something that reached out of the speaker and instantly grabbed me. It was so startling and so profound (in my estimation) that I paused the broadcast and went back to get the wording correct.

“Skin is leather bag God made to hold the soul. Color of bag no matter.”  

That’s a grabber.  I’ve searched the internet to see who really said something like that and can find no reference.  It was so startling, so different from the usual dialogue written for those old radio dramas for Native Americans, that I typed it at the end of the speech—-not that I planned to use it but because I had to make sure I got it.

I don’t think I’ve ever had something—especially a non-news item—jump out of the radio like that before and instantly force me to halt what I was doing so I could write it down—and I’ve heard a lot of great rhetoric (and a lot of really lousy rhetoric, especially lately) come out of the speakers of my radio, my television, and my computer.

I think I’ll tidy it up a little bit and find a good use for it from time to time.

“Skin is a leather bag God made to hold the soul.  The color of the bag doesn’t matter.” 

Amen.

 

Bye, Bye, Bulbs 

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If you have them, use them. They’re still legal.  But once they’re gone from the store shelves, they’re gone, period.

The incandescent light bulb, perfected by Thomas Edison almost 150 years ago, is being turned off.

There are likely to be some nut cases who will say the federal government will be sending agents around to your house to confiscate all of your light bulbs.

That’s a crock.

Sixteen years ago, President George W. Bush—a Republican—signed a law that set new efficiency requirements for lightbulbs and started a timeline to phase out incandescent light bulbs.

But through the years there have been individuals and groups who have decided it is highly-profitable to convince people they are victims of government (as opposed to being thinking partners in it), and the humble lightbulb has become part of a broader conspiracy theory.

President Trump bought into that and rolled back the Obama administration’s rules phasing out the Edison bulbs in favor of more energy efficient lights. Vanity might have played a role in his decision because he once complained to Congressional Republicans, “I always look orange” under LED lights.

There has been a lot of speculation about that and lights have nothing to do with his orangeness.  Mother Jones has suggested Trump’s close friendship with Steve Hillbert might be a reason. Hilbert is the CEO of a company that makes tanning products. The magazine says they became friends about the time people began noticing Trump’s hue. (Melania reportedly got a one-million dollar contract to promote the Hillbert company’s line of caviar-based skin products).

Trump’s longtime personal doctor has suggested the coloration might come from Rosacea, a skin condition that produces redness of the skin.

Informally, we might suggest that his constant rage against those who suggest he seriously disregarded the statutory rules of public behavior might contribute to his coloration.

We have wandered afield from our intended topic.

The Biden administration’s Department of Energy reinstated the policy in April of ‘22 with a new rule that says light bulbs have to have a minimum of 45 lumens per watt. Light bulb maker Phillips says traditional light bulbs that have come down from Edison’s time produce one-third of that amount.

Lumens are ways to measure brightness. And, actually, modern LED bulbs produce 75 lumens per watt.

The rule does NOT mean you and I must immediately throw out our incandescent light bulbs—or the government will force us to do so. It DOES outlaw the manufacture and sale of them, though.

And there are several kinds of incandescent bulbs that can still be made and sold in our stores.  The Department of Energy says they are:

  • Appliance lamps, including fridge and oven lights
  • Black lights
  • Bug lamps
  • Colored lamps
  • Infrared lamps
  • Left-handed thread lamps
  • Plant lights
  • Flood lights
  • Reflector lamps
  • Showcase lamps
  • Traffic signals
  • Some other specialty lights, including marine lamps and some odd-sized bulbs

Why is the government making this switch?  Because these lights are more energy efficient and because they will lessen the human impact on climate change.  The DOE thinks these bulbs eventually will save consumers about three-billion dollars in utility bills.  The department also estimates they will reduce carbon emissions (a factor in global warming) by 222 million metric tons in the next three decades, the equivalent the carbon dioxide emissions of 28-million homes.

A metric ton is about 205 American pounds more than an American ton.

We have several of the old-fashioned bulbs in our fixtures at our house. It is legal for us to use them until they burn out.

The United States Energy Information Administration’s 2020 Residential Energy Consumption Survey says about half of all American households are using LED bulbs already.

The changeover to higher-tech lighting isn’t done. Compact fluorescent bulbs are next on the ban list.  Last December the DOE proposed a rule saying the minimum lumen level would have to be more than 120, a move that would, in effect, ban CFL bulbs. That rule is to go into effect at the end of next year.

All of this conveniently fits into the right-wing conspiracy theory that federal agents will soon be confiscating our gas stoves.

Everything is a big conspiracy these days. It helps gin up a too-sizeable segment of the population willing to immediately believe almost anything that can be manipulated into a profitable anti-government movement.

Your light bulbs are safe, folks.  Your stoves are, too, but that’s another story for another day.

A Record Week; A Weak Record. And Some Speed

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by Bob Priddy, Missourinet contributing editor

(BASEBALL)—Time to play what you’ve been dealt.  Trading deadline has come and gone and so have Cardinals’ and Royals’ players.  Both teams will be playing out the string, seeing who develops, who has possibilities, or showcasing possible trade bait.  Our two teams went different directions last week but they’re really going nowhere for the season.  The Royals won seven in a row and are 7-3 in their last ten.  The Cardinals went 3-7.

(ROYALS)—-About that seven-game winning streak:  It was historic. And there’s a Cardinals angle to it.  It’s another example of how baseball is the playground for the figure filberts of the world.

(There are conflicting versions of who the original figure filbert was. One version refers to Al Munro Elias who The New York Times once said, “He ate, slept, dreamed and breathed baseball averages and odd records.”  He was the founder of the Elias Sports Bureau, often cited for its collection of arcane records.  The other person who is sometimes considered the original statistics nut is Earnest John Lanigan, a sportswriter and baseball historian who pioneered the gathering of statistics about games and players. He wrote the first encyclopedia on the issue.)

Pete Gratoff of the Wichita Eagle has written that the Royals last week became the first team in Major League history to have a winning percentage of less than .300 to win seven games in a row since the 1907 CARDINALS won nine straight, all against the same team—the Boston Doves, that later became the Boston Braves, the Milwaukee Braves and the present Atlanta Braves.  The Cardinals finished that year 55-101-2 and finished last in the eight-team American League.  The Doves fluttered to a record of 50-90-4, good for seventh.

The Royals now are 36-77, ahead of the A’s who are 32-80.

Who’s hot for the Royals?  Bobby Witt Jr., started this week hiting .336 since the start of July (he was at .244 through June). He has 20 homers and 32 steals, becoming the first player in baseball history to go 20/30 in his first two seasons in the Majors. “It’s just me playing the game,” he says.

Who’s not hot for the Royals?  Zack Greinke, who fell to 1-12 last week, He has given up 23 homeruns, 13 in the last ten starts. He has averaged five innings in his 22 starts. His most recent win was May 2.

(CARDINALS)—You see it happen in all kinds of situations—businesses, churches, sports—

Someone who has become an institution leaves the scene.  The person who comes in next is often unfairly compared to his or her predecessor. Sometimes that person tries to hard to BE that predecessor.  And they don’t stay long.

Wilson Contreras admits he was trying to hard at the start of the season.  Cardinals’ fans, many of them, were quick to judge him based on Yadiair Molina.  He hit .158 in May, .221 in June, and then he says he realized the Cardinals signed him to be himself.  And during the month of July he hit .429. Through the first few days of August he was hitting .313 and his season averages are close to his career averages.

Down on the farm, the ‘Birds’ top prospect, Mason Wynn, had to leave a game this past weekend with a minor glute strain. He’s hitting .284 at Memphis with 17 homers and 59 RBIs.  He’s 17-19 in stolen bases.

Luken Baker is lighting up opposing pitchers at Memphis. He leads the minor leagues with 37 home runs.  He hit .263 during a cup of coffee with the big team earlier this year.  The problem is that he’s a first baseman and the Cardinals are well-positioned (so to speak) there. And the Cardinals have a full arsenal of designated hitters.

(FOOTBALL)—This might be one of those years when there’s less talk about the overlapping seasons of baseball and football and more about how great it will be when the football season starts.  The Chiefs and the Tigers (and other college teams) are in workouts now. High Schools start soon.  Here’s hoping your team takes your mind off of baseball for a while.

ZOOM:

(INDYCAR)—This is turning out to be Kyle Kirkwood’s breakout year.  Kirkwood picked up his second IndyCar win of the year, the second of his career, by holding off Scott McLaughlin on the 2.1-mile street course in downtown Nashville.

He beat pole-sitter McLaughlin to the line by about eight-tenths of a second after a late-race restart with a little more than three laps left. The race had been red-flagged after a three-car crash that left no room for racing through one of the turns. Kirkwood got a good jump on the restart and pulled away to a 1.6-second lead after the first lap. But McLaughlin and series points leader Alex Palou rallied to cut the lead in half with one lap left.

McLaughlin was disappointed to finish second in the race for the second year in a row.

Kirkwood started eighth but team strategy early in the race moved him into contention and eventually put him in front for 34 of the race’s 80 laps.

Palou’s third-place finish upped his points lead over Josef Newgarden, who finished fourth, to 84 points.  Only four races with 216 possible points remain in the IndyCar season.  Next up is a return to the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway next Saturday afternoon.

(NASCAR)—Chris Buescher, who broke a long winless streak at Richmond has made it two in a row, taking the rain-delayed race at Michigan International Speedway.  His wins and strong finishes by teammate and part-owner Brad Keselowski have signalled a return to prominence of the former Roush Racing, now Roush-Fenway-Keselowski racing. Keselowski finished fourth.

The closing laps turned into a fierce chase of Buscher by Martin Truex Jr., for the last ten laps. Truex closed with five laps left but couldn’t find a way around Buescher who took away Truex’s driving line down the stretch.

(Formula 1)—F1 is on break. It takes off most of August each year.

(Photo credit: Kirkwood at Indianapolis: Rick Gevers)

1,078

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Heather Cox Richardson is a history professor at Boston College whose “Letters from an American” daily Substack newsletter place contemporary events within a historical context. USA Today named her one of its Women of the Year honorees last  year.

Joyce Vance is a former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama and now a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer in Law (criminal justice reform, criminal procedure, and civil rights are her specialties) at the University of Alabama School of Law.

We are borrowing from a couple of things they wrote when our immediately former president was arraigned on criminal charges on August 3.

Donald Trump is charged with crimes linked to the January 6, 2021 events at the United States Capitol.  Richardson cites the federal prosecutor for Washington D. C. is observing that Trump is the 1,078th person charged with federal crimes connected to those events. And he was arraigned in the same courtroom where many of those 1,077 others have appeared, or will appear.

She also cites Yale history professor Timothy Snyder, responding to defense claims that the charges infringe on Trump’s constitutionally-protected right to free speech even if his remarks were repeated lies.  The charges, however, appear not to attack his free speech remarks but instead focus on the greater issue of his illegal efforts to reverse the results of the 2020 election.

Snyder thinks we should not be distracted from the real point of the charges: “That Trump will be tried for his coup attempt is not a violation of his rights. It is the fulfillment of his rights.  It is the grace of the American republic. In other systems, when your coup attempt fails, what follows is not a trial.”

We would add that in most failed coup attempts we have read about in our long life, what follows is a quick assumption of guilt and often a quick dispatching of what is called justice.

Richardson also notes in that day’s “letter,” that the arraignment took place on the same days that Republicans on the House Oversight Committee released a transcript of their interview with a Hunter Biden business associate that GOP committee members claim proves then Vice-President Biden was personally involved in some shady business deals involving Hunter.  She says the interview transcript undermines the Republicans’ claims although they’re overlooking that issue.

(If you want to read Richardsons full “letter,” you can find it at:

August 3, 2023 – by Heather Cox Richardson (substack.com)

Joyce Vance’s column, “Civil Discourse” says that, “Many people…have become inured to Trump’s behavior…A real problem with Trump is that there is just so much of it that he is exhausting. For some people it is easier to tune it out than it is to try to keep all of it in focus.”  But she says the people need to re-connect and follow the process by which these charges are dealt with “so they can assess the evidence and the proceedings for themselves…It is every American’s obligation to follow this process.”

One subtle thing she mentions is that in court, the former president is just “Mr. Trump,” a designation that applies generally to (male) trial participants.  No matter what your station is life is, or has been, you are equal in the eyes of the law to every other person who has gone through this process…Donald Trump was treated like anyone else in his position would be. Investigation having found that there is sufficient evidence of significant crimes, he has been charged by a grand jury. He now has the same opportunity to defend himself that anyone would have.”

She explains that, “Arraignment is usually a perfunctory matter, as it was for Trump… It is governed by Rule 10 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which requires that a defendant be advised of the charges against him and enter a plea to them. The traditional plea at the time of arraignment is one of not guilty. The defendant has not yet seen the government’s evidence against him—there is no informed basis for knowing whether the government can prove what it has charged. So it is no surprise that the plea Donald Trump entered…was one of not guilty.”

But this arraignment has an unusual twist, she says. While judges normally tell the defendants not to commit any new crimes while they are free on the streets, this instruction was different. The judge warned Trump not to try to influence a juror or witnesses.  If he violates that admonition, he could find himself sleeping on government-issues sheets at night and wearing government-issued clothes.

Was Trump listening to the Judge’s admonition?  Vance thinks he wasn’t. A day after he was released on pre-trial bond, Trump went on Truth Social and said, “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”

Vance says  on X (the former Twitter) that Trump crossed the line. “Free speech is one thing, but this is over the line. As a prosecutor, I’d be sorely tempted tomake a motion to removke Trump’s pre-trial bond and put him in custody. Let him explain it to the judge.”

Newsweek reports that Trump spokesperson has belittled Vance as “a moron (who) loses sleep because she has Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

So, apparently, does former prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, the former lead prosecutor against former Trump aides Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, who says—in what until recently would be called a tweet—“Not addressing this will only cause it to metastasize with undue deadly risks.”

A Trump spokesman, not surprisingly, defended the threat as “the definition of political speech,” and then went into full Trump irrational rant, saying it “was in response to the RINO, China-loving, dishonest special interest groups and super PACs, like the ones funded by the Koch brothers and the Club for Growth.”

Forget getting out the hip boots, folks. It’s so deep that you’ll need a full body suit.

Friday night, assistants to federal prosecutor Jack Smith filed a notice with U. S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan expressing concerns Trump might improperly share evidence in the case on Truth Social. They urged the judge to order Trump to keep any evidence given to his lawyers by the prosecutors away from public view.

The judge ordered Trump’s lawyers to respond by 5 p.m. today.  When they asked for a three-day extension, she refused to let them have it—which set off another Trump tantrum aimed directly at the judge—not a wise thing even from a self-proclaimed stable genius:  “There is no way I can get a fair trial with the judge ‘assigned’ to the ridiculous Freedom of Speech/Fair Elections case. Everybody knows this, and so does she!”  It was all in capital letters, followed by more capitals announcing plans to seek a new judge and a new location for the trial.

We will be watching to see if the old saying manifests itself—Don’t poke a tiger with a twig.

The prosecution says it wants a speedy trial. Normally it’s the defendant that wants a speedy trial. But in this case, it’s to Mr. Trump’s political advantage to stretch the process as far as possible.

Both Richardson and Vance believe the most important charge against Trump is the final one—the one Vance says “tears at my heart….the conspiracy by an American president to take awy our right to vote…and to have one’s vote counted.”

Vance concludes that a dozen people in the courtroom will decide Trump’s fate but all of us are a “jury in the court of public opinion.”

“The outcome of the 2024 election really is every inch the most important election of our lives. The indictment itself is not evidence, but it lays out the narrative of the facts we saw unfold before our eyes and helps us make sense of the crimes that Trump is charged with committing. It is an important document for every American to read. Not everyone will, but that’s where we can come in, sharing details, and helping people around us, understand the procedures that begin today. It’s the real work of saving the republic.”

You can read her full Civil Discourse insights at Arraignment – Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance (substack.com)

Federal court rules do not allow live broadcast coverage of trials. But the standard is a rule, not a law and the exigent circumstances of this case, which will be a transcendant event in American history and will involve questions basic to the survival of our republic, should create an exception to the rule so that all of us canbe witnesses to these evens. It is of such overwhelming importance that our grandchildren’s grandchildren should be able to see and hear how our generation responded to this crisis.

We agree that the 2024 election will be “the most important election of our lives.”  It is far more important to all of us and to our nation as a whole that all of us pay close attention to the truth that emerges in the trial of 1708 than it is to give heed to anything the interpreters of that testimony on the left and the right want us to think.