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Sports: Ahmad Hardy Shot; NCAA Tournament Greed, and More 

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(HARDY)—Missouri’s  record=breaking running back Ahmad Hardy was shot in the left leg at a concert at a biker club in Laurel, Mississippi early Sunday morning. He’s undergone emergency surgery and is in stable condition.

Missouri is three months away from opening the 2026 football season. ESPN reports there is “optimism” that he will be able to play football again although it’s too early to establish a timetable for his return to strength.

Police say another man also was shot. Three people are in custody. Hardy is 20, a Mississippi native. He set a new Tiger rushing record last year.

Laurel police say the shooting took place during a “melee” after a rap concert. Reports n Laurel say the cause of the shooting is still being investigated.

The Tigers had been looking forward to a 2026 season with the return of its one-two backfield punch from ’25 of Hardy and Jamal Roberts.  Roberts ran for 753 yards on 124 carries last season and scored six touchdowns.  Hardy went for 1,649 yards, a new school record, with 16 TDs and was a finalist for the Doak Walker Award.

Hardy and Roberts made Missouri the only team in the  SEC with two running backs in the top ten in yardage last season. Coach Eli Drinkwitz told reporters last season that Roberts “is as good a back as there is in the country.” Hardy had been expected to go high in the 2027 NFL draft after staying out of the transfer portal. Roberts did the same thing and has two more years of eligibility remaining.

Missouri does have some depth at running back if Hardy isn’t ready by the start of the season. The Tigers picked up a couple of portal transfers in Hawaii native Va’aimalae Fonoti III, who moves over from Montana, an FCS school. He’s 5-11, 207 pounds with three years of eligibility left. He was 84/418 rushing with five touchdowns. Last season.

Also coming in is Houston Christian;s Xai’Shaun Edwards, who averaged five yard a carry for 1,019 yards last year for another FCS team. He scored a dozen touchdowns.

Missouri also will have true freshman Maxwell Warner on the roster.  Warner is from Chicago and went to the same high school that Mizzou basketball coach Dennis Gates attended. He was considered the top running back in Illinois. He also played defensive back.

(NCAA)—It’s going to be easier for our Missouri teams to get into the NCAA tournament in the future. The men’s and women’s basketball tournaments are being expanded by eight teams to 76 teams.  The plan has come under some harsh criticism but an association spokesman says none of the 32 conferences in the NCAA opposed the plan.

Ben Portnoy of the Sports Business Journal thinks the new plan gives the Power Four Conferences and their “increasingly bloated size” more dominance in college sports. In the pas five year’s tournaments, twenty teams were listed in the “first four out.” Thirteen of them were frm those four conferences.

“Let’s not kid ourselves, this is being done, at least on some level, to appease the richest and most powerful leagues in the country.” The new format opens dozens of new sponsorship opportunities and a subsequent jump in association and school revenues.

(CARDINALS)—The Cardinals have finished their toughest part of the season so far—going 9-7 in seventeen days against the Dodgers, Mariners, Pirates, Padres, and Brewers.  All of those teams are playing better than break-even ball and all are considered playoff contenders.

The Cardinals finished the week 23-17, three and a half games behind the Cubs, tied with the Brewers for second place in a division in which all five teams are playing better than .500 ball.

(WHERE ARE THEY NOW?)—Where are the major names that left the Cardinals in the last couple of years and how are they doing.

Nolan Arenado is hitting .273 with six homers and 18 RBIs for the Diamondbacks.

Sonny Gray is 3-1 with a 3.54 Era for the Red Sox

Willson Contreras, also with Boston, is batting .259 with eight homers and 23 ribbies.

Paul Goldschmidt, in his second year with the Yankees, is batting 200 with two homers and seven runs batted in.

Brendan Donovan is hitting .295 with 3 home runs and 8 runs batted in.

Miles Mikolas is 1-3, 7.44 in eight games, five of them starts.

(ROYALS)—The Royals continue working back to break even after their eight-game losing streak. They finished the week wining seven of their last ten and pulling to 19-22. The Tigers ended Kansas City’s five-game wining streak Sunday.

(FIFA)—Arrowhead Stadium as a name doesn’t mean much to the millions of people worldwide who will be watching the World Cup Soccer Tournament (or as the official soccer folks call it “football.”)  So the place will just be Kansas City Stadium when FIFA brings six pool play tournament games next month along with a match in the round of 32 and a quarterfinal contest.

The AP’s Dave Skiretta reports the Hunt family has spent millions of dollars reconfiguring the football field into a soccer field’s dimensions. The first teams to play on the redesigned field will be Argentina, the defending World Cup champion, against Algeria on June 16.  The final contest is scheduled for July 11, giving the Chiefs a month turn Kansas City Stadium back into Arrowhead.

Tickets for those games aren’t cheap. For the first four games, ticket prices will range from $140  to $410. Some seats in the nosebleed section can be had for as little as $60 but don’t expect any kind of intimate viewing experience. Round of 32 matches range from $160 to $440.

If you want to take in the quarterfinal match, be prepared to cough up $485 to $1,125. If you buy previously=sold tickets through the FIFA World cup platform, be prepared to pay a 15% resale fee.

(CHIEFS)—The Kansas City Chiefs invited 76 undrafted free agents to their rookie camp this year.  Only three were signed to contracts:  WR Xavier Loyd, DB Marlen Sewell, and OT Kahlil Benson.

Lloyd in a Kansas City native who played at K-State, Illinois State and at Missouri. He was in 12 games for the Tigers. Sewell spent five years at Vanderbilt, had 52 tackles in 45 games.

Benson played 12 of the 16 games Indiana played on the way to last season’s national championship. He allowed only 24 quarterback pressures on 382 pass-blocking snaps last season.

They’ll be part of the squad for the offseason training program that starts later this month.

(BATTLEHAWKS)—The St. Louis Battlehawks head into the last weeks of the UFL season in a three way tie for their division lead.  St. Louis, DC, and Orlando all are 5-2.  Jarveon Howard of the Battlehawks leads the league in rushing with 354 yards.  The ‘Hawks have the league’s best defense, giving up 247 yards a game, which they need because they’re last in total offense. But they’re pretty efficient. They are second in scoring average behind the DC Defenders, 30-23.

St. Louis beat Columbus 31-20 last week. There are three games left in the regular schedule, two against Houston and one against Dallas. Houston is 2-5. Dallas is 3-4.

(REMEMBER?)—Kansas Center Greg Ostertag, who played for the Jayhawks 1991-95 and then had an eleven-year NBA career, has been elected mayor of Mount Vernon, Texas, a town of about 2,500 about 100 miles northeast of Dallas.  At 7-2, he is now the world’s tallest public official.

Now: Where the rubber meets the road:

(INDYCAR)===It’s been a long time between wins for Chistian Lundgaard—47 races, in fact—but he heads into IndyCar’s biggest race as a winner.

Lundgaard finished almost five seconds ahead of David Malukas on the road course at Indianapolis, his first win since July of 2023

The race had its chaotic moments beginning as the field surged into the first turn and things got too crowded and the cars of Scott Dixon, Felix Rosenqvist, Pato O’Ward, and Caio Collett tangled, triggering a full course caution.

Rosenqvist was able to run eight more laps before retiring in 23rd place.  Dixon rallied back to fifth at the end. O’Ward and Collett finished on the leader lap but were 18th and 19th.

The race turned for many competitors when Alexander Rossi’s car quit because its hybrid power system failed and he rolled to a stop on the main straightaway. He fumed, ““It’s pretty annoying to have failures on the car because of a product we didn’t ask for that doesn’t improve the racing.”

Rossi sat in the safety of his stalled car as competitors roared past at racing speeds before a full=course caution came out.  He finally climbed out and walked across pit lane where he told an interviewer, “The fact that it took that long to throw a full-course caution when the cars on the front straight were going by at 170 miles an hour also seems insane when they don’t let us drive in the wet yesterday.” Qualifying had been called off  the day before the race because of unsafe conditions caused by rain, although IndyCar has run races in the rain several times.

David Malukis finished second after leading the most laps but giving up the lead to Lundgaard        and Graham Rahal claimed the last podium slot.”

Qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 will be next weekend. The race will be on the Sunday of Memorial day weekend, May 24th.

(NASCAR)—Shane Van Gisbergen’s historic drive to the win on the Watkins Glen board course already is considered an epic.

The acknowledged master of NASCAR road courses (he’s 7-1 in the last three years) came out of his last pit stop in 26th place, 29.2  seconds behind the leader with 24 twisting laps ahead. .

He overhauled all of them and pulled away for a 7.3 second lead at the checkered flag.

His win leaves him only two short of Jeff Gordo’s all-time NASCAR Cup Series record for road course victories. Van Gisbergen has yet to win on an oval.

Connor Zilisch, a rookie in the Cup series, appeared to be the only driver capable of keeping Van Gisbergen in sight until a tire let go. He finished 20th.

NASCAR’s next points race will be Sunday night, May 24th, the annual 600 miler at Charlotte. Next weekend it will hold its annual All-Star Race, this time at Dover.

(photo credits: Hardy— Kris Sand, Columbia Missourian; Lundgaard—IndyCar; Van Gisbergen—Rick Gevers)

An 18th Century Dying Syphilitic, an Old West Killing, a Legendary Couple, and a Famous Western Song

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(Preface: I once heard the Sons of the Pioneers explain the difference between country music and western music.  Western music is about the outdoors—the trails, the mountains, the clean air; country music is about indoor stuff—fightin’ and lyin’ and dyin’)

Funny how things are connected.

A few days ago I was writing a new episode of Across Our Wide Missouri about Big Nose Kate, the girlfriend of Doc Holliday. She once lived in St. Louis and there is some story, legend, myth or whatever that while she was there in 1872 she met a fresh graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Dental School, John Holliday, who was there visiting a classmate during the summer.

What’s ahead is another example of how historians start pulling on a loose string and before long there’s a tangled heap of interconnected threads. Hang on because we’re going to unravel a whole historical sweater today.

Part of Kate’s story has her in Dodge City, Kansas working at Tom Sherman’s Barroom in some capacity or another. She already had a reputation of selling her services, if you will.

In the vicinity was a young Iowa native named Frank Maynard, who wrote poetry to keep himself occupied in slow times.  His poetry isn’t bad. One of his works reminded me right off of the writings of Robert W. Service who authored the great poems of the Yukon—The Shooting of Dan McGrew, The Spell of the Yukon, The Land God Forgot, and the Cremation of Sam McGee:

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

I cremated Sam McGee.

One of Maynard’s poems begins:

There’s a wild and rocky canyon

Where the panther rears its young

And where somber, gloomy shadows

By the Cedars are flung.

There’s no signs of human presence

How e’er closely you may scan.

Yet within its dark recesses,

Dwells an exiled, ruined man.

Sorry, folks, one of the dangers of researching and writing is how easily one is distracted.  That’s one of the joys of doing research—and one of the frustrations because sooner or later you have to get back to what you came for.

Tom Sherman was a great big guy, even in our times—six feet-six or seven—and apparently at times as mean as a snake—as on the day that he killed a man named Burns (first name maybe Charley) at his bar in Dodge City, Kansas.

Young Frank Maynard noted the incident briefly in his journal for March 13, 1873 and later wrote in his memoir, “I could see some fellows gathering and I could discern a man down and moving his legs & arms. Possibly he may have had consciousness enough to feel that he was fleeing from his pursuer with whom I almost collided. This was Tom Sherman, a big blubbery fellow, who ran with a limp. He had a large caliber revolver in his hand which he was emptying into the boy that was down…Tom, panting for breath, said to those gathering, ‘I’d better shoot him again, hadn’t I boys?’ He stepped at once to where he lay struggling, stood over him holding the big revolver in both hands, aimed at his forehead and fired. The bullet went a little high and scattered his brains in his hair…All I could learn was that Sherman had killed a friend of Burns and thought it would be safer to have him out of the way.”

The incident led to the creation of a poem that became one of the most famous songs to come out of that frontier era.

A few years ago, Maynard’s memoir and his poems were put into a book by folklorist Jim Hoy, an English Professor at Emporia State Univeristy and published by the Texas Tech University Press.

Maynard was an Iowa City, Iowa boy who headed west of the Missouri River when he was sixteen and wound up in Towanda, Kansas, a town then of fifty people or fewer southwest of Kansas City (just off I-35 today).  He soon was a buffalo hunter and later he and his father (the rest of the family had moved to Towanda) ran a freighting business between Emporia and Wichita. He became a real “cow boy” in 1872 when he was part of a crew that drove a herd of horses from Kansas to north central Texas. When he went back to Towanda, he became one of the drovers on a cattle drive.

Three years later he witnessed the killing in Dodge City.

In 1876, Maynard was wintering a herd of horses on the Kansas-Oklahoma border until the Wichita market opened. “I had often amused myself by trying to write verses, and one dull winter day in camp, to while away the time, I began to write a poem which could be sung to the tun of ‘The Dying Girl’s Lament’ in which a dying young woman says her lover did not tell her he had syphilis.” It began:

When I was a young girl I used to seek pleasure

When I was a young girl I used to drink ale.

Out of the ale house and down to the jailhouse

Right out of a bar room, shown to my grave.

Its 18th century antecedent, perhaps dating back as far as 1740, was The Unfortunate Rake, an English folk song about a young soldier also dying of venereal disease. It began:

“As I was walking down by the “Lock”  (the hospital)

As I was walking one morning of late,

Who did I spy by the own dear comrade

Wrapp’d in flannel, so hard is his fate. “

In one version the rake tells his friend:

“Get six jolly fellows to carry my coffin

And six pretty maidens to bear up my pall.

And give to each of them bunches of roses

That they may not smell me as they go along.

Muffle your drums, play your pipes merrily

Play the death march as you go along

And fire your guns right over my coffin

There goes an unfortunate lad to his home.”

Maynard explained to young newspaper reporter Elmo Scott Watson for the Colorado Springs Gazette and Telegraph edition of January 27, 1924, the poem, called “The Dying Cowboy” that he “sang it to the boys in the outfit. They liked it and began singing it. It became popular with the boys in other outfits who heard it and after we had taken our herd to market in Wichita the next spring, and from that time on I heard it sung everywhere on the range and trail.”

It began:

“As I rode down by Tom Sherman’s bar-room,

Tom Sherman’s bar-room so early one day,

There I espied a handsome ranger

All wrapped up in white linen, as cold as the clay.

‘I see by your outfit that you’re a ranger,’

The words that he said as I went riding by.

‘Come, sit down beside me, and hear my sad story,

I’m shot through the breast and know I must die.”

The chorus was:

“Then muffle the drums and play the dead macrhes;

Play the dead march as I’m carried along;

Take me to the churh-yard and lay the sod o’er me,

I’m a young ranger and I know I’ve done wrong.”

Maynard’s ranger was a cowboy who rode the range tending and herding cattle.

He wrote that other trail herders changed the lyrics over time and replaced “Tom Sherman’s Barroom” with “Streets of Laredo” and the song evolved into the more familiar version we hear and sing today.

In 1949 Ray Evans and Jay Livingston wrote a version as a theme song for a motion picture, Streets of Laredo¸ starring William Holden, McDonald Carey, William Bendix and Mona Freeman.  The three were outlaws who rescue Freeman’s character from a racketeer.  Two of them later joined the Texas Rangers while the third continued his outlaw ways. The movie ends in a big showdown in which, as one source put it, “loyalty, love, and vengeance collide.”

Doc Holliday died at in Glenwood Springs Colorado at age 36 in 1887. He and Kate never got together again. It is said that when he died, he had a derringer given him by Kate later acquired for a large sum of money by the Glenwood Springs Historical Society.  But its authenticity has been seriously questioned and the society offered to give back donations used to buy the weapon.

Big Nose Kate died in 1940, within a few days of her 91st birthday.

As for the young cowboy poet—

Maynard was “weary of the hardship and the tragedy incident to life on the plains” when he headed home to Towanda in 1877. ‘it is not to be supposed that I had wandered all these years heartwhole and fancy free, for I had had my dreams of love and home that ended with a rude awakening, and now at the age of twenty-four I was growing cynical and I had often exultantly declared to myself, ‘I will die as I have lived, a wild free rover of the plains.’”

But he was invited to a party and found “one pair of eyes that held a strange fascination for me. They seemed to wear a far away expression, and in their luminous depth there seemed to be a touch of ineffable sadness. Somehow the thought came to me, ‘Here is a woman that I might love, that might save me from the reckless life I have been drifting into.’”  Her name was Flora Longstreth.

However,  “When I finally screwed up my courage to put the question, which would have such a bearing on my future, I did not get a direct reply.” When she refused his invitation to a party, he wentt back to cowboying in the spring of ‘78, finally concluding the relationship would never work. He wrote her a farewell letter and spent the season herding cattle, fighting a prairie fire, and having some brushes with Indians unhappy with the encroachments on their lands.

But he never forgot Flora and eventually he  convinced the girl with the faraway eyes his cowboy days were over. They were married April 24, 1881, moved to Colorado Springs six years later where Maynard made a good living as a Carpenter. He probably started compiling his reminiscences about 1888. He died March 28, 1926.  Hoy notes the headline on his Denver Post obituary read, “Plains Bard and Pioneer of Earliest Cowboy Days is Dead.” Flora, born three years after Frank, outlived him by five, dying in 1931.

Frank’s reminiscences include his early days as a buffalo hunter, days in which hundreds of the animals were killed for their hides. He wrote without pity about those times although by the end he laments to the fate of the buffalo and the people who relied on them for so many purposes.

Names of people who are now legends drift in and out of his thoughts and his life; Dave Rudabaugh once was a herder with him and later a member of Billy the Kid’s gang in New Mexico.  Bat Masterson, Bill Tighlman, and the Earps are part of the narrative as are Buckskin Joe, Colorado Bill, Prairie Dog Dave and Tiger Bill, whose barroom murder he likened to the death of Wild Bill Hickock; the Northern Cheyenne chief Dull Knife and many others forgotten or only words in history books were part of his world. .

He wrote of the ending of his era:

On Boot Hill they’ve built a schoolhouse

And the W.C.T. U.

Holds an annual convention

Where once corks and stoppers flew;

There are sermons, there is singing,

Where was pistol rack and flame.

Dodge, the erstwhile wicked city,

Has built a better name,

And the lamb now skips and gambols

Where was heard the grey wolf’s wail,

The survival of the fittest,

Marks the ending of the trail..

As with so much of the story of Doc and Kate, the real story of the free range west is part of legend and Western myth and preserved history.   The only thing that seems certain is that a young cowboy named Frank Maynard witnessed a killing on a Dodge City street at a tavern where Kate once worked and he wrote a poem about it. It was included in a book of his poems published in 1911. His poems and some other writings are in the Texas Tech book.

One of the joys of studying history is the people you meet along the way, the people who kept diaries or wrote memoirs in which we see how those we see in movies or on television really were—just people in a gritty time when law was tenuous and life sometimes was cheap.  But in those writings, they’re alive in their time with never a thought of being  a legend.  Good or bad, they become real and the mental images of their days carry with them new understandings of the humanity of our ancestors.

One string leads to another and to another, and one beyond that and maybe more.  And in the end, a historical sweater of many colors becomes a pile of string.  But oh! What fun the unraveling has been!  And how richer we have become in the unraveling.

(Photo credits: Kate and Doc: Tom Kollenborn Chronicles; saloon—facebook; Book—Barnes & Noble; album Tower Records; Flora—the book)

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Sports: Lots of Chiefs Draftees and Other Things.

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(TIGERSDRAFT)—Here’s a sign of the times for college football.

Six Missouri Tigers were chosen in the NFL Draft for the second time in three years.  That ties a record for most draftees from a single class since the league cut back to seven rounds of the draft in 1994.  Six Tigers from the 2009 and 2015 teams—Gary Pinkel was the coach then—established the record.  The only other time in school history this has happened under current circumstances was two years ago.

These six raise the total NFL draftees from Missouri to fifteen, the most for any three-year period since the NFL merged with the AFL in 1970.

In 1981 when the NFL went twelve rounds, seven Tigers were picked.

None of the six in this draft was a home grown Tiger.  All six were NIL carpetbaggers.

The top Mizzou draftees, defensive end Zion Young and linebacker Josiah Trotter went in round two, Young to the Baltimore Ravens (45th choice) and Young to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (choice 46).

Two other guys were drafted in the third round with Green Bay taking defensive tackle Chris McClellan and the Rams taking right tackle Keagen Trost. They were choices 77 and 93, respectively.

Day three saw wide receiver Kevin Coleman Jr taken in the fifth round (#177) by the Dolphins and cornerback Toriano Pride Jr., (#220) by the Buffalo Bills.

Missouri has had seven draft picks in a class before. In 1981, when the NFL Draft lasted 12 rounds, the Tigers sent seven players to the NFL as draft picks.

(RELATED)—A lot of people, Tiger fans included, were surprised that Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia, a runner-up for the Heisman Trophy, didn’t get drafted. He certainly look pretty Heismanish when the Commodores played our Tigers.  He’s the first Heisman runner-up to go undrafted since nobody wanted Iowa’s Brad Banks 23 years ago. He’s the first Heisman finalist since Jordan Lynch form NIU in 2014 to go undrafted.   Both buys wound up playing in Canada.

(CHIEFSDRAFT)—The Kansas City Chiefs went aggressive in the NFL draft, trading places to get the people they most wanted.  They haven’t had a first round pick 2017, they year they took Patrick Mahomes.

The Chiefs went shopping for a cornerback in the first round, trading with the Bears to move up from 9th to 6th in the first round. They snagged LSU cornerback Mansoor Delane. They hope he’ll plug a hole created by the losses of Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson to the Rams. With their second pick in the first round, they went to Clemson DT Peter Woods.

Round two:  They took Oklahoma edge rusher Mason Thomas, a choice that surprised some analysts, one of whom forecast the choice could “go down as one of the biggest surprises in recent Chiefs draft memory” because he is “an undersized, bendy defensive end,” the kind of guy defensive coordinator Steve Spagnola likes.

They had no choice in the third round but in the 109th player picked, in round four, was Oregon small cornerback Jadon Canady who also can play safety. Nebraska running back Emmett Johnson was the fifth-round pick (#161). He also catches passes. A second choice in the fifth round was WR Cyrus Allen of Cincinnati who, some analysts think, has some special teams talent.

Nothing doing in the sixth round so their final choice (#249) was LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier, who is considered a “developmental pick.”

“This is the first time the Chiefs have picked in the top 10 since dealing up for Patrick Mahomes in 2017, and the first time they’ve gone into a draft day with a top-10 selection since Andy Reid’s first year in Kansas City (’13), when they held the No. 1 pick,” Breer wrote. “That, to me, is why GM Brett Veach has been so active looking at both moving up and potentially moving down. This is a rare opportunity for the Chiefs that might not come along again for some time. I think if Kansas City moves down, then Oregon tight end Kenyon Sadiq will be on the radar.”

UDFA: Houston Cornerback Zelmar Vedder, Sand Diego State CB Bryce Phillips, Oklahoma RB Jadyn Ott, Louisville OT Pete Nygra, Iowa Safety Xavier Nwankpa, Miami LB Wesley Bissainthe, Wyoming TE John Michael Gyllenborg, Cincinnati WR Jeff Caldwell, DT Cole Brevard of Texas, CB D’Arco Perkins-McAllister from Louisiana-Monroe, Duke edge rusher Vincent Anthony Jr., LSU guard Josh Thompson, and Toledo LB Anthony Dunn.  Other UDFA signings: Virginia Tech RB Terion Stewart, Iowa DL Ethan Hurkett, Michigan DT Damon Payne

The Chiefs also are going to look at several guys in their spring rookie minicamp: Temple receiver Kajiya Hollawayne, Montana CB Kenzel Lawler,  Pittsburgh OL Jeff Persi, safety Desshon Singleton of Nebraska, Washington WR Omari Evans, WR Jacob DeJesus of Cal, Charlotte LB Shay Taylor, USC WR Jaden Richardson, three guys from UConn—Punter Connor Stutz, LB Donovan Branch and TE Louis Hansen—and Tennessee Tech S Tim Countras, Washington kicker Grady Gross, Rice DL Blake Boenisch, LB Colby Taylor of West Florida, K-State S Gunner Maldonado, Liberty DB Brylan Green, three guys from Pitt: CB Rashad Battle, S Javon McIntyre, TE Justin Holmes; Eastern Kentucky DB Jaheim Ward. An offensive tackle from the International Player Pathway program, Felix Lepper, has been invited to the camp.

One other UDFA—in an intriguing move, the chiefs picked up E. J. Smith, who played for Stanford and for Texas A&M.  His four-year college stats are nothing to write home about: 207 total carries,  969 yards, nine TDS. He also caught passes for 470 yards and another touchdown. Sometimes it’s the pedigree more than the statistics that makes someone worth a look. E. J. Smith is the son of Emmitt Smith, the NFL’s all-time rushing leader.

He has a tough row to hoe if he ever gets to see much playing time. The Chiefs, remember, signed Kenneth Walker, the star of this year’s Super Bowl.  They drafted Nebraska running back Emmett Johnson and picked UDFA Jadyn Ott from Oklahoma.

For most of these guys, this is just a cup of coffee in an NFL locker room. A few might make the practice squad. Most will hope for a long shot chance with another team. Look for some of these names on the UFL rosters in the next season.

Speaking of the UFL:

(BATTLEHAWKS)—The St. Louis Battlehawks, who had split their first four games of the season, went on the road to play the undefeated Orlando Storm last weekend—and dominated the Storm in the first half, storming to a 25-0  lead. The defense held Orlando to just 29 yards of offense as Orlando went just 3 of 14 on third downs.  Orlando got 14 points in the third quarter and a field goal in the fourth, but St. Louis emerged with a 25=17 win.

The Battlehawks played without former Mizzou kicker Tucker McCann, who aggravated a quadriceps injury during warmups. Punter Ryan Sanborn was the fill-in. He got a couple of field goals in the first half but missed a couple of PATs.

The Battlehawks are 3-2 now although they have been outscored 112-116. Orlando and DC lead the league at 4-1.  St. Louis plays Louisville Thursday to wrap up a three-game road trip. Louisville is 2-3.

(MIZZPORT)—Missouri hasn’t seen the last of T. O. Barrett.  They’ll have to deal with him at least twice in the next season when they play Vanderbilt. Ant Robinson II has signed with Florida State. Jacob Crews and Sebastian Mack are still waiting for calls and Jevon Porter hasn’t heard if he’ll get a redshirt.

The portal closed on the 21st with Missouri still having three slots to fill.  As of now, six players from the last season will be back: Trent Pierce, Trent Burns, point guard Aaron Rowe, forward Annor Boateng (whose season ended early with an injury), forwards Luke Norwether and Nicholas Randall

The Baseball.

(CARDINALS)—The St. Louis Cardinals spent last week sinking back toward .500 and started this week 14-13 after wasting an outstanding pitching performance from Michael McGreevey. The offense got him two runs but the bullpen couldn’t hold the lead.

The crusher came from Seattle’s Rob Refsnyder, who challenged a called third strike and got it overturned—-then ripped a JoJo Romero pitch 412 feet over the fence to give Seattle the 3-2 win.

The Cardinals have not been below .500 this season.

(ROYALS)—The Kansas City Royals scored six runs in the last two innings, with Lane Thomas’ walk-off three run homer in the ninth to snatch a win away from the Angels 11-9 Sunday. The win completed a sweep of the Angels and upped their record to 11-17.

Joe Caglianone had tied the game in the ninth with a two-run shot. The Angels got a run in the to of the tenth before Thomas ended it.

Starter Seth Lugo had a rugged outing. He went 6.1 innings but gave up seven earned runs on 14 hits.

The Royals started the week having climbed into a tie with the White Sox for last place in the division. They were only one game behind the Twins in their bid to escape the cellar in a competitive division in which the leading teams are only one game above break-even—Cleveland and Detroit are only 15-14.

Movin on to Moving On Sports—

(NASCAR)—-What to talk about after the first race of the year at Talladega?  The “big one” that involved 26 of the forty cars in the field?  The continued criticism of this generation of race cars?  Carson Hocevar’s first Cup win?  His victory celebration?

The wreck was not the biggest of the big.  The record is 28 cars that got tangled up in October of 2024.

Carson Hocevar’s first Cup win is memorable not only because he survived racing at Talladega and the way he held competitors at bay for several closing laps, but especially for his unique way of celebrating.  Hocevar, one of the tallest drivers in NASCAR at 6’4” tall, figured out how to work his clutch and throttle while sitting outside of his window, waving at fans.  Some folks worried he was endangering himself but NASCAR apparently liked it.

Hocevar has a ton of charisma, is a 23-year old Michigander who was the rookie of the year in the Cup series in 2024. He’s been racing since he was twelve.

He got through the big wreck without damage to his car, drove into contention in the third phase of the race, dueled with Chris Buescher, for the last 37 laps.

Hocevar took the lead from Buescher on lap 151 of the 188 lap race. Buescher took it back on 156 but gave it up to Hocevar for laps 1570169 before surging back into the lead for 151=165. Hocevar held it for 166. Buescher was in front 167-172 before Hocevar led two and Buescher took the led for lap 175. Hovercar led two, Buescher one before Hocevar led two more. Buescher was in control for four laps before Hocevar pulled ahead for two laps. Buescher got his last lead on 187 but Hocevar got him at the end and won by .112 seconds.

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(MODRIVERS)—-Missouri drivers in NASCAR have been hard to find in the last few years, but two drivers we’ve followed are going to be putting on the helmets and strapping into cockpits this summer.

Joplin native Jamie McMurray and sometime Missourian Clint Brawner (who hails from Emporia, Kansas—just across the border from Missouri–has had a place at the Lake of the Ozarks, thus earning him consideration as an adoptive Missourian) will each drive a truck race for Kaulig Racing this summer

Kaulig is bringing Dodge back to the sport under the Ram pickup truck label.  Bowyer will drive the truck at Dover on May 15. McMurray will be in the truck at the inaugural road race at the San Diego naval base June 19.

Both Bowyer and McMurray at part of the FOX sports broadcast crew that covers Cup races.  Bowyer won ten Cup races in his career and likes the short tracks. Dover, he says, is “a beast—concrete, tight and unforgiving.”   McMurray has seven Cup victories including the Daytona 500 and the Brickyard 400 in the same year, 2010. He has road racing experience, co-driving the winning car in the 2025 Daytona 24-hours.

(INDYCAR)—The Indianapolis 500 is guaranteed to have the traditional 33 starters this year with an entry from A.J. Foyt’s team to be driven by Katheirne Legge who will make her fifth start in the race.

Legge brings back her sponsorship by a cosmetics company and has new support from General Motors, one of the two engine suppliers for the series. Legge’s best start in the 500 is from 29th. Her best finish is 22nd.She’s the tenth woman to compete in the race and holds the one-and-four lap qualifying records for a woman driver, more than 231 mph.

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IndyCar runs on the Indianapolis Speedway road course next weekend then begins the buildup for the 500.

An Old Testament Story for Our Times

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With President Trump, some of his cabinet members, and his evangelical supporters finding Bible verses from either testament to justify what has been going on since he resumed office, we thought we would offer an Old Testament story that should be a cautionary tale for our situation.

We have enjoyed several of Malcolm Gladwell’s perceptive books (and are likely to enjoy more) one of which carries the title of the story from the Bible that gets to today’s situation in the Mideast.

Here’s Malcolm telling the story.

The unheard story of David and Goliath | Malcolm Gladwell

Our President is learning that being big is no guarantee of being superior. We are sure, given his statements about his favorite book that he has read the seventeenth chapter of First Samuel. We wonder, therefore, being the student of the Bible that he claims to be, why he hasn’t connected the dots.

There’s a cease fire as we write this. It’s a great chance for the Iranians to stock up on more stones.

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A Noisy Awakening 

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Nancy’s newest birth anniversary was last Friday. I took her out to eat and then to see a movie.

Kind of the way things were back in our courting days.

We went to our GQT Capital 8 Theatre and we bought our popcorn and our sugar-free soft drink and sat down in some nice roomy seats.  Just as the pre-movie trivia game was about to start for the three of us in the theatre, one of the theatre employees told us tornado sirens were blowing and we needed to take refuge in the bathrooms.

After an hour or so in what became two unisex bathrooms, the theatre folks gave us passes for some other night.

So we went back Saturday with our visiting daughter Liz, used our free passes and our free concessions tickets and settled into watch A GREAT AWAKENING.

We watched the charming young lady from Noovie host the various short word games or trivia questions and then theatre exploded with a deafening display of the latest in DOLBY sound technology.   Then the previews came on—one movie featuring real people and four or five featuring cartoon people.  All at beyond maximum volume, apparently to make the explosions that replace plots in today’s flicks more fearful.

Finally, we got to the feature. It was so loud I took out my hearing aids and even then it was so loud that I decided, as I told Nancy and Liz later, that I was eager to see the movie on TV so the sound level wasn’t so distracting as to spoil the story.  I walked out of the theatre that night feeling exhausted.

Not only that, but the popcorn was mediocre.  I get better popcorn at a convenience store on the other side of town.

Come to think of it, the best part of the experience was being able to go to the men’s restroom without some women in there, too.  It was a safe experience in the bathroom but a danger to my hearing in the auditorium.

The movie?  Pretty good for an almost-Hollywood production. Interesting story that, on reflection, lacked a little of the sophistication in story-telling and dialogue that the major studios produce.

It was produced by Sight & Sound Films, a Christian-themed spinoff of Sight and Sound Theatres, the company that has produced Biblical-themed shows in Branson for some time. In case you missed the point the movie was trying to make, the producers give it to you during the credits: “True liberty comes through Jesus Christ.” I found the statement in conflict with what I had just watched (or endured).

The movie tracks the unusual relationship between the passionate English Methodist evangelist George Whitefield (he pronounced it as if it had no “e” in the middle), who was trained as a stage actor, and the calculating and politically savvy printer, later inventor and sage who was a key to writing the Declaration of Independence and the U. S. Constitution, Benjamin Franklin, played impressively by John Paul Sneed.

Franklin realized he could profit from printing Whitefield’s sermons. Whitefield realized he could reach more people if he allowed Franklin to print and circulate his words.

(George Whitefield—The Genevan Foundation   (With his “lazy left eye” sometimes George Whitefield was derisively called “Dr. Squintum” by his many detractors)

Whitefield is portrayed by a young and handsome actor with no English accent and no resemblance to the real Whitefield an instantly-inspirational figure who spoke to thousands who quickly became “saved” by his dynamic sermons.  Franklin is the Franklin of our familiarity—a Christian, generally, who differ from those who think the only way to God is through Christ, which is Whitefield’s message.

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Monstrosity

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President Trump says he wants to build a 250-foot tall arch to celebrate this country’s 250th anniversary.  It is yet another project that wreaks of excess and of self-promotion.  Whatever its official name becomes, it’s always going to be known as the arch that Trump built. Arch deTrump, some already are calling it.

The only thing taller in the area that stretches from the Arlington National Cemetery east to the Library of Congress across from the Capitol is the Capitol itself, and by only a few feet.

Grace, beauty, and appropriateness have never been in his lexicon.  Gross, ugly, and inappropriate too often define him to an increasing number of people.  Last week, in an oval office reveal of the design for this monstrosity. CBS reporter Ed O’Keefe asked the President who the arch is for.  “Me,” he said.

The fact checkers who have built their careers on Trump’s lies had a day off on that one.

The Commission on Fine Arts refers to it as the Triumphal Arch. To be honest, the  letter “i” should replace the “h.”

The only manmade arch that we have been able to find that is bigger than this is the one on the St. Louis riverfront.

Napoleon’s Arc de Triomphe in Paris is almost 100 feet shorter, at 164 feet.  The Monument to the Revolution in Mexico City is only 220 feet. The Arch of Triumph in Pyongyang, North Korea tops out at 197 feet.

The four-sided arch that is the Pennsylvania State Memorial at Gettysburg, honoring the 34,500 Pennsylvania soldiers who fought there, checks in at 110 feet. Not far away, the National Memorial Arch at Valley Forge honoring those who wintered there 1777-78 is sixty feet high.

The top of the Memorial Arch in Huntington, West Virginia is only 42 feet from the ground. The Camp Randall, Wisconsin arch honoring Civil War veterans from that state needs only thirty feet to dignify them. The Bushnell Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch in Hartford, Connecticut is but 116 feet and the Washington Square Arch that commemorates George Washington’s inauguration in New York City gets the job done in 77 feet.

“It’s going to be beautiful,” he says.  Philip Kennicott with the Washington Post offers a brutal opposing view:

It is an insult to the men and women who risk their lives to protect democracy, who have fought in wars against fascism, who have actually achieved victory rather than merely declared and celebrated it. Its symbolism is borrowed and confused, and it will block a sacred vista that connects the Lincoln Memorial to the final resting place of the Civil War dead, and veterans from every major war and conflict this country has fought.

This is a subtly that escapes people such as Trump who think symbolic as well as real sledgehammers and wrecking balls are among mankind’s greatest inventions. The arch will stand at the southern end of the Arlington Memorial Bridge, interrupting the flow of history from the Lincoln Memorial to the peaceful hillside that is Arlington National Cemetery, a cemetery on land confiscated from Confederate commander Robert E. Lee as a resting place for those who defended the Union in the Civil War.

Some critics say the planned arch will obscure much of he cemetery but will frame Lee’s mansion at the top of the hill beyond. Is that intentional?  Who knows, although Trump has expressed a fondness for honoring Confederate leaders.

Trump has said it will be 250 feet high as a symbol of the nation’s 250th birthday. As of last week, however, it is only colored drawings.  The first shovel of dirt for the project has not yet been turned and Independence Day is less than 90 days away.  As one critic put it, “If it isn’t going to be done this year, it really has nothing to do with the 250th Anniversary, and as Trump said, it’s for him.”.

Kennecott concludes, “It perverts a fundamentally American idea about war. We have fought them, we have died in them, and we have brought war to too many people who did not deserve our meddling with their politics and sovereignty.

“But no matter the cause, no matter how great the victory, we fundamentally honor sacrifice and service. We celebrate the end of wars and the achievement of peace, not victory. Roman victory arches are lovely to look at, but they were primarily political statements, assertions of personal power and propaganda by ambitious men”.

Caesar Trumpus wants his arch.

If it can’t be finished by July 4, maybe he can complete it in time to celebrate his glorious victory over Iran.

Reaching To the Stars

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They’re there.

Our “Star Sailors” travelling farther away from their source of life than anyone ever has traveled before, are circling the Moon today, four thousand miles beyond the flight of three men of Apollo 13, seeing parts of the noon only mechanical recording system have seen.

They are spending about six hours in their Orion spacecraft photographing places on the back side of the moon. And then they will sling shot back for a fiery return to our blue marble

Fifty-seven years ago, at Christmas 1968, three men from the planet earth saw what only had been seen with telescopes and the naked eye for millennia. Apollo 8’s Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders described the black and white images we saw of a gray and black world below them as they looped around the moon.

To those of us who could not take our eyes from our television screens showing us a desolate place almost a quarter-million miles away, the event was astounding. All of the science fiction we had read since we were in grade school dissolved in the reality of what we and the rest of his precious planet were witnessing along with those three men.

The men of Apollo 8 later showed us color photographs of earthrise over the Moon and the first photograph of the round blue marble as they left it behind and to which they gratefully returned.

It was Anders who is credited with seeing the entire earth at a glance who likened it to a fragile “little Christmas tree ornament against an infinite backdrop of space, the only color in the whole universe we could see. It seemed so very finite.” This image from Apollo 8 was the first time we saw what they saw—how alone we are.

The four astronauts aboard the Artemis II flight these five decades later, are the first people since December 1972 and Apollo 17 to let us see it again. To a new generation, to whom the daring dash to the Moon by Apollo 8 is only a page in a history books, the adventure is renewed.  Its goal, different from the Apollo landings, an exciting reach for humanity, perhaps re-establishes a focus on something greater than petty politics and near-constant wars.

Perhaps in these and other photographs to come will end decades of looking inward and increasingly finding the worst of ourselves and once again lift us to rediscover a time when, as one of the original Apollo astronauts said, “nothing was impossible.”

It brings back echoes of President Kennedy’s speech at Rice University in 1962 when called for this country to send astronauts to the moon and bring them back safely.

We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. 

He saw he mission to the Moon would “serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skill.”

A new generation now picks up that challenge as the last of the old generation waits to learn what “new knowledge is gained, what new rights will be won and used for the benefit of all people.”

Carl Sagan, an astronomer of another generation whose television series Cosmos explained the wonders of the universe and mankind’s place in one tiny place in the vast emptiness of space, once showed a photograph taken far, far, farther away than these from Apollo and Artemis.

The photograph taken from 3.7 billion miles from us show only a tiny blue dot.  “Look again at that dot,” he said. “That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”

The next step will be to send a new generation of Moonwalkers to make the dangerous descent,  to find new discoveries, and—we all hope—leave new footprints behind before they come home.

Geologist Harrison Schmitt was the last man to set foot on the Moon, the only true scientist to be there so far.  But Mission Commander Gene Cernan was the last man to leave a footprint on the Moon as he climbed the ladder to the Lunar Lander behind Schmitt.  He looked forward to the return and had some advice for the next people who step onto the lunar soil:

Cernan told Politico a few years ago:

There are times when I find myself almost involuntarily gazing at the moon — looking back on a time in my life that seems unreal. Oh, I’ve been there, all right, and know that my last footprints, along with Tracy’s initials, will be there forever — however long forever is. But it is not the past that any longer challenges me, but rather the future. Our destiny is to explore, discovery is our goal — curiosity being the essence of human existence. I often ask myself if we will ever go again where humans have never been before and see again what has never been seen before. The answer is absolutely yes.

In 1969, the world took a giant leap into the future as the result of that one small step by Neil Armstrong. Many more steps were to follow Neil’s, launching us into a new era of science, technology and, perhaps most important, discovery led by a new generation of young, eager scientists, engineers and educators who were inspired to accept the challenge and committed to see their dreams fulfilled. Today’s media coverage of that epic moment seems to many like science fiction. But it wasn’t. It was science fact and continues to this day to have significant impact on our lives, on our future, and, indeed, on the entire world. The benefits that have followed were hardly imaginable at the time. One of the core lessons from Apollo is that the greatest advances in science and technology happen as a byproduct of the bold steps we take when committing ourselves to expanding human knowledge and understanding. Perhaps the most important byproduct of Kennedy’s vision that took us to the moon is the passion inspired in the hearts and minds of those generations who follow in our footsteps.

We have again reached a challenge in human history. The moon, Mars and beyond — they are calling. The technology and systems to again reach for the stars are now within our reach. The benefits are there for us to claim. However, it will take the will of the American people, a sustained political commitment, and, once again, a leader with foresight and vision. Now is the time for America to recognize with pride our nation’s exceptionalism, regain our leadership in space and lead the free world on the next giant leap for mankind.

Today’s highly evolved and improved answer to Apollo is the Space Launch System and the Orion crew exploration spacecraft. Together they can open the door to the future, providing the capabilities we need, allowing us to finally reach the furthest frontiers of space. NASA and industry are making significant progress with the development of these deep space systems. American workers across the nation are making the probability of future space exploration again attainable. If I can call the moon my home before today’s generation was even born, what challenge can be beyond their reach? The driving force is the understanding that human space exploration is essential to the vitality of our nation, providing untold opportunity for generations to come.

Bipartisan support for space has remained strong since the days of Sputnik continuing to the present time. With determined leadership from the administration and ongoing support from Congress, we can enable NASA and industry to complete their work to build the systems we need to explore beyond the moon.

With SLS/Orion we are ready to seek out what the heavens have to offer — it is time for our nation’s leaders to commit to a clear logical destination, a mission, a goal with a timetable, plotting a course of new discovery. It is time to re-ignite, to re-energize the meaning of American exceptionalism. It is time to recognize what it takes to inspire young minds to dream big and accept the challenges their generation faces. We have the responsibility to provide them the direction and the opportunity to once again reach beyond their grasp in leading mankind into the future of discovery.

In a later interview, Cernan said, “Their future is going to depend on what we did a half a century ago. I’d like to be here to congratulate them, to thank them, and ask them what people ask me all the time, ‘What did it feel like?’

”Enjoy. Take advantage of the opportunity. Don’t take anything for granted. Be prepared for what you don’t expect to happen, and know that you, whoever you are, can do it. Not only can you do it, but can do it better than it’s ever been done before.“

Gene Cernan didn’t make it to this day. He died nine years ago.

Those who are sharing their view of the Moon with all of us here on “the good green earth” of Apollo 8’s Christmas message are the table-setters for those who will next land. Perhaps in this new era of exploration we will rediscover a belief in ourselves that has been dwindling since those days when “nothing was impossible.”

Only four of those who walked on the Moon survive.  Buzz Aldrin is 95 and in poor health. Dave Scott is 93. Charlie Duke, the youngest man to walk on the moon at age 36, is now 90. And Harrison Schmitte, the geologist who later became a U.S. Senator from New Mexico, also is 90. A dozen other men flew to the moon but did not walk upon it. Only Fred Haise of Apollo 13 survives from that group.

Just for the record: The remaining Apollo capsules were used to send nine astronauts to Skylab, our first space station. Joe Kerwin, 94, Jack Lousma, 90, and Edward (Hoot) Gibson, 89 are still with us.

Lousma and Haise were involved in the early flights of the Space Shuttle, as was moonwalker John Young (who died in 2018 as the only man to fly in the Gemini, Apollo, and Shuttle programs). Vance Brand, who would have commanded Apollo 18 if the program had not been cancelled, took part in the Skylab and Shuttle programs. He will be 95 next month.

NASA doesn’t plan a Moon landing until September 2028. We hope at least one of this generation will be here to welcome that crew back home.

(Earth pictures: NASA; Apollo astronaut Alan Bean, the fourth man to walk on the moon, an accomplished artist who spent the rest of his life depicting that earlier era of moon flights died in 2018. His work that gave its name to the title of this entry, is signed by more than twenty of the Apollo astronauts. Several of his prints are available through Novaspace.com or on various other internet sies)

 

IGNORANCE

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Any good journalist abhors ignorance, even personal ignorance. Consumers of our products in all of their forms probably have no idea of the number of stories, programs, and books that spring from seeing something and thinking “?” and then learning the answer.

Most people don’t have or don’t take the time to pursue an answer. But it’s the old “who, what, when, where and how” that defines the journalist’s mind and the journalist’s work product.

I often have told people that it is the unknown that journalist face at the start of every day that makes getting up long before the rooster crows and staying up long after the sun sets. At the end of the day we have done something that science says is impossible: We have made something out of nothing. It’s called “news,” the unpredictability of life captured and the story told, a vanquishing of ignorance—-sometimes whether you want it vanquished or not.

Ignorance is dangerous whether it is in common courtesies, traffic codes, health warnings, but especially in politics where ignorance not only is preyed upon by candidates and advocates but by those who have been given great responsibility.

We are alarmed by steps being taken to erase the unpleasant parts of our past and to be dishonest about our heritage and the responsibilities we have as citizens to conquer our baser relations with others, based on how we have overcome them in the past.

Today’s observation was triggered by the appearance of President Trump’s special envoy to Greenland, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, who recently denied to host Joe Kernan of  CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that the President’s interest in Greenland amounts to American imperialism:

“When has the United States engaged in imperialism? Never. Europe has engaged in imperialism. The reason the Danish have Greenland is because of imperialism.”

When has the United States engaged in imperialism? How about two centuries of it.  We would not be the United States if it was not for imperialism.

I reached onto my bookshelf for Daniel Immerwahr’s How to Hide an Empire, a volume Landry should read if he wants to rise above the ignorance that soaks this administration. What might we call the administration’s takeover of Venezuela and its threatened takeover of Cuba and Greenland and the earlier blabbering of making Canada the 51st state if not “imperialism?”  Added to that discussion is the frequent dismissal in this administration that Puerto Ricans are not Americans.

The administration in its efforts to cleanse or whitewash our history prefers we are ignorant of many things including that the imperialistic spirit was part of this nation from the beginning, when early explorers operating under an already-ancient papal proclamation that it was proper to seize lands from “infidels,” claimed lands occupied for thousands of years by others in the name of God and Country.

Just 55 years after the landing of businessmen the a few religious dissenters landed at Plymouth, the first war broke out between Europeans and Native Americans when the Europeans wanted to expand the borders of Massachusetts Bay and Rhode Island. It was the beginning of a 200 year-plus takeover of territories occupied by dozens of previously independent nations.

Two especially egregious examples are the subjugation of the Cherokees, a people with their own constitution and their own written language, with their own plantations is six southern states, their own capital and their own system of slavery.  They were given a new territory to occupy in the 1830s so the Europeans could have their ancestral lands.

Throughout the rest of the 19th century, similar measures were enforced with the forced movement of other nations, some of whom wound up in the same place, a place set aside for Indians. But the attraction of unassigned territory in that area created the 1889 Land Rush when 50,000 settlers roared in to take over the area. The now-“American” area was recognized in 1907 as the state of Oklahoma.  Not until seventeen years had passed did the people displaced through the decades and now disrupted by the land rush—the people of the Indian nations forced there— become recognized by congressional action as American citizens although it was not until 1948 that Congress passed the Indian Voting Rights Act.

The 1846 Mexican war made one-third of Mexico part of the United States. Fifty years later, we went to war with Spain and fought the Philippine War to claim that land.

Immerwahr looks at 1941 as an example of our imperialist holdings: Alaska and Hawaii were not yet states. But these also were NOT foreign countries: Philippines, Puerto Rico, Panama Canal Zone, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa. (Panama was Panamanian but it was leased to the United States at the time.) One out of eight people in the United States lived outside the 48-state “logo map” as he calls it.

He also notes a “stream of smaller engagements” that have bought at least parts of other nations under our control for military bases. He cites 211 times that American troops have been deployed to 67 other countries since 1945.

The book came out before Venezuela and Iran.

Immerwahr concludes the introduction to his book, “At various times, the inhabitants of the U.S. Empire have been shot, shelled, starved, interned, dispossessed, tortured, and experimented on. What they haven’t been, by and large, is seen”

Landry asked, with his ignorance on full display, “”When has the United States engaged in imperialism?”  The truth is in Immerwahr’s book should he care to read it although this seems to be an administration led by a President whose questionable reading habits and abilities have been much discussed and whose preference for historical literacy seems non-existent, a “blessing” he demands be extended to all of us in a year when accurate recall of our history should be our guiding interest.

We leave you with these cautionary words from President Calvin Coolidge:

“It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion. They are always surrounded by worshipers. They are constantly, and for the most part sincerely, assured of their greatness. They live in an artificial atmosphere of adulation and exaltation which sooner or later impairs their judgment. They are in grave danger of becoming careless and arrogant.”

And ignorant.

 

 

It’s Time to Order Another Obelisk 

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The Missouri Veterans Memorial at the Capitol is a quiet place,  of a slow-moving cascade of water flowing into a reflecting pool around which people can ponder how much is lost to war.

And how much will be.

To the east of the pool is a shaded walk that takes visitors past nine memorial obelisks remembering the nine wars in which Missourians have fought since statehood in 1821—Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, Persian Gulf, and finally the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now, less than a year after the ninth obelisk was dedicated—after an end date of that long war was determined—it is time to plan for a tenth one.

As this is written, no Missourian has been killed in Trump’s War—-which is not what it will be called in the black granite when the tenth obelisk is installed.  As of now, it probably will say “Iran War,” but it’s too early to carve anything into stone because we don’t know what the scope of this conflict will finally be.

Nor, apparently, does the man who ordered it. He started the war and now he is whining that NATO is giving him no help.

NATO, the people he has spent the last several years insulting and threatening, seems content to letting President Trump stew in his own juice.  NATO is more about protecting Ukraine (remember Ukraine, Mr, President?) and itself than helping President Trump.

The Coalition of the Willing has become the Coalition of the Unwilling.

To refresh our minds:  then-President George W. Bush declared at a NATO summit in 2002 that if Iraq President Saddam Hussein did not disarm (he was accused of having weapons of mass destruction), that the United States would assemble a “coalition of the willing” to do it for him.

Saddam didn’t. So George Bush’s United States and troops from 48 other countries backed the plan. Four countries eventually put boots on the ground—us, the UK, Australia, and Poland). More than three dozen other countries provided some troops but not major numbers. Some don’t even had standing armies but provide other kinds of help.

The coalition did not hold and it became a topic of political ridicule (Busch had offered foreign aid to participants, a policy that one columnist termed “a coalition of the billing” and another observer considered “a coalition of the shilling.”) By mid-2009 everybody but the United States and the United Kingdom coalition had backed away.  The Coalition of the Willing was considered ended in 2010.

President Bush assembled his coalition before the fight began.  President Trump just barged right in—BOMBED his way right in—to a new war and did not ask for help until Iran fought back and closed the Straits of Hormuz. Only then did he look for friends in NATO only to find he didn’t have very many anymore.

He’s watching his foreign policy by sledgehammer wielded by amateurs turn into quicksand. He is so desperate that he has lessened some sanctions against Russia—imposed as a reaction to the invasion of Ukraine—in an effort to relieve some pressure on the oil supply which seemingly could help finance further Russian operations against Ukraine, if we understand where this policy is leading.  He’s firing missiles the way kids fire bottle rockets on July 4th while China watches our war-making or defensive armaments dwindle and also watches Taiwan. The early talk about not using troops is ominously sounding like —using troops.

Some observers have suggested that Iran is Trump’s Ukraine.

“Some people will die, I guess,” the President has said.

Order the tenth obelisk. Too bad the state can’t send the bill for it to President Trump.

A few weeks ago, my state representative, Dave Griffith, asked me if I could find how many Missourians died in the wars of the eighth and ninth obelisks (Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan).  I could not locate numbers but I did find a website that listed the names of all of the military people who died in those conflicts. I picked out the Missouri names and sent them to him.

Their names won’t be on the obelisks although the number of those who died will be someday.

Their names are on their own monuments scattered throughout the graveyards of Missouri and elsewhere, unfortunately soon to be joined by similar monuments from Trump’s War.  Here is the list from President Bush’s War, with the date of official notification.  We pray their tragic coalition will not be joined by a new coalition from Mr. Trump’s War, but we fear it will be.

Let us know if your loved one killed in these long wars is not on the list.

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The Boodle Scandal, part Two

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Monday we promised you an opportunity to see a forgotten Missouri political, one of the most sensational ones of the Twentieth Century. Muckraker Lincoln Steffens described how money can distort public policy, a common and visible public concern today.

What was this scandal about?  An innocent everyday-used substance that is part of our diet today. Steffens’ magazine article is long. As you read it, you might think, “Nothing has changed.”  We’ll comment afterward what happened to some of the participants in his historic controversy.

Enemies of the Republic

Lincoln Steffens

[Reprinted from McClures, VOL. XXIll, October, 1904 No.6]

THE POLITICAL LEADERS WHO ARE SELLING OUT THE STATE OF MISSOURI, AND THE LEADING BUSINESS MEN WHO ARE BUYING IT – BUSINESS AS TREASON-CORRUPTION AS REVOLUTION

EVERY time I attempted to trace to its sources the political corruption of a city ring, the stream of pollution branched off in the most unexpected directions and spread out in a network of veins and arteries so complex that hardly any part of the body politic seemed clear of it. It flowed out of the majority party into the minority; out of politics into vice and crime; out of business into politics, and back into business; from the boss, down through the police to the prostitute, and up through the practice of law, into the courts; and big throbbing arteries ran out through the country over the State to the Nation-and back. No wonder cities can’t get municipal reform! No wonder Minneapolis, having cleaned out its police ring of vice grafters, now discovers boodle in the council ! No wonder Chicago, with council-reform and boodle beaten, finds itself a Minneapolis of police and administrative graft! No wonder Pittsburg, when it broke out of its local ring, fell, amazed, into a State ring! No wonder New York, with good government, votes itself back into Tammany Hall!

They are on the wrong track; we are, all of us, on the wrong track. You can’t reform a city by reforming part of it. You can’t reform a city alone. You can’t reform politics alone. And as for corruption and the understanding thereof, we cannot run ’round and ’round in municipal rings and understand ring corruption; it isn’t a ring thing. We cannot remain in one city, or ten, and comprehend municipal corruption; it isn’t a local thing. We cannot “stick to a party,” and follow party corruption; it isn’t a partizan thing. And I have found that I cannot confine myself to politics and grasp all the ramifications of political corruption; it isn’t political corruption. It’s corruption. The corruption of our American politics is our American corruption, political, but financial and industrial too.

Miss Tarbell is showing it in the trust, Mr. Baker in the labor union, and my gropings into the misgovernment of cities have drawn me everywhere, but, always, always out of politics into business, and out of the cities into the state. Business started the corruption of politics in Pittsburg; upholds it in Philadelphia; boomed with it in Chicago and withered with its reform; and in New York, business financed the return of Tammany Hall. Here, then, is; our guide out of the labyrinth. Not the political ring, but big business,-that is! the crux of the situation.

Our political corruption is a system, a regularly established custom of the country, by which our political leaders are hired, by bribery by the license to loot, and by quiet moral # support, to conduct the government of city, state, and nation, not for the common good, but for the special interests of private business. Not the politician, then, not the bribe-taker, but the bribe-giver, the man we are so proud of, our successful business man-he is the source and the sustenance of our bad government. The captain of industry is the man to catch. His is the trail to follow.

We have struck that trail before. Whenever we followed the successful politician his tracks led us into it, but also they led us out of the cities-from Pittsburg to the State Legislature at Harrisburg; from Philadelphia, through Pennsylvania, to the National Legislature at Washington. To go on was to go into state and national politics and I was after the political corruption of the city ring then. Now I know that these are all one. The trail of the political leader and the trail of the commercial leader are parallels which mark the plain, main road that leads off the dead level of the cities, up through the States into the United States, out of the political ring. into the System, the living System of our actual government. The highway of corruption is the ” road to success.”

Almost any State would start us right, but Missouri is the most promising.

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