Category Archives: Places

Snipers and Drones?

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Building a triumphal arch overlooking Arlington Cemetery is not enough of an abomination. Our President has not surprisingly found a way to make it worse.

Snipers???  It will house snipers????

Drones?????

Ammunition stockpiles???

What the Hell has prompted him to turn his arch celebrating military triumphs into a mini-fortress or, as he has put it, “a top grade Military Complex.”

He says it’s being done as a matter of national security (which is his excuse for a lot of stuff, isn’t it?) and after a “strong request” from the military.  Could we know who in the military made this strong request?

Will he have ICE snipers up there picking off suspected illegal immigrants as they cross the Arlington Memorial Bridge?  Will drones launched from his arch blend harmoniously into the routes of airliners on their final landing approach to Reagan International Airport?

We wonder when his demented mind will realize the arch would be a good checkpoint to make sure only American citizens of at least three generations are allowed in or out of Washington.  Additionally, officers could block anyone crossing the bridge into the city if there are signs in the back seat or trunk protesting his ongoing fevered dream of defiling the Kennedy Center by putting his name on it. That number might even be much larger these days than the number of dead legal or illegal immigrants.

If it also is to serve as Fortress Trump, perhaps it would be better located at Outpost Hegseth, the Pentagon, and where appropriately the new Hegseth Boulevard could pass through it.

The National Park Service, which one might suspect in normal times would object strongly to this idiocy, instead is equivocating.  It says the arch would affect several historic sites near Arlington National Cemetery including the cemetery’s historic district, the Washington and Lincoln monuments, the Jefferson Memorial the Capitol Mall, and others.

But NPS says it’s okay to go ahead with the arch as long as there are “mitigations,” such as an archaeological investigation before any digging is done. vibration monitoring near the bridge, and a plan so that funerals and wreath-laying ceremonies will not be disrupted—and some new interpretive web pages would help, including one that discusses “the history and significance of triumphal arches.”

We heard last week the digging had started. Forget any archaeological investigations.

There goes the idea of putting it at Outpost Hegseth.

The arch is to have three golden statutes on top of it. A big statue of Lady Liberty will be flanked by two gold eagles that are to represent national pride and strength.

At least the big statue is not of himself.

I really hope these entries are never read to him by anybody. I hate to think I would give him the idea.

The urge to suggest the eagles be replaced by Loons is something I am repressing.

Oops.

Our Bilingual Country

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My monthly opinion piece in the Jefferson City News Tribune this month focused on Canada’s recognition of its bilingual heritage—English and French—with our country’s failure to recognize our bilingual heritage of English and Spanish.

English is the mother tongue of 57% of Canadians. French is the mother tongue of 20%, most of whom live in Quebec where Canadian federal law protects the language and the culture.

About 78% of USA homes are English-speaking.  About 12% are Spanish speakers but some of our states are much heavier with Spanish speakers. Our nation, however, offers no Canada-like appreciations accorded Quebec, especially a region almost as large as that province. We’ll get to that later.

Our country language has not always been English-dominated. English was a just a minor language when our pious Pilgrim Protestant forbears landed in the late 1500s and early 1600s. There were many Native American Languages but in terms of competing European languages, Catholic Spanish predominated.

I couldn’t put this map in the newspaper, but it shows that English was very much THE OTHER language.

It is too easy for us to get all sniffy about the superiority of our Christian English ancestors (and for those who go for the “Christian nation” myth, we will only suggest that most would not have wanted to live in such a place where the religious freedom concept applied only to THEIR religious freedom, dissenters such as Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson being exiled for questioning some Puritan tenets. There are, however, more than enough today who want no questions about their version.).

We are becoming more bilingual or even multi-lingual but we show no signs of being like Canada in respecting the original language of others. American Community Survey data from 2024 shows 43-45% of the population of California is non-English home speakers. Texas is about 36%. New Mexico is 34%. Various estimates put Arizona at 30-30%.

Quebec, by the way, is about the same size as Texas. California, and New Mexico combined.  Texas and New Mexico do not have English official laws. President Trump has taken care of that with an executive order declaring English the official language in all of our states.

We’ll have more in a later entry about the languages of our states.  You might be as surprised as I am about what the second and third languages of Missouri are.

In the newspaper article I cited Walt Whitman’s letter refusing to write a poem for Santa Fe’s 333rd anniversary:

We Americans have yet to really learn our own antecedents, and sort them, to unify them. They will be found ampler than has been supposed and in widely different sources. Thus far, impressed by New England writers and schoolmasters, we tacitly abandon ourselves to the notion that our United States have been fashioned from the British Islands only, and essentially form a second England only—which is a great mistake. Many leading traits for our future national personality, and some of the best ones, will certainly prove to have originated from other than British stock. As it is, the British and German, valuable as they are in the concrete, already threaten excess. Or rather, I should say, they have certainly reach’d​ that excess. To-day, something outside of them, and to counterbalance them, is seriously needed.

Thus seething materialistic and business vortices of the United States, in their present devouring relations, controlling and belittling everything else, are, in my opinion, but a vast and indispensable stage in the new world’s development, and are certainly to be follow’d​ by something entirely different—at least by immense modifications. Character, literature, a society worthy the name, are yet to be establish’d​ , through a nationality of noblest spiritual, heroic and democratic attributes—not one of which at present definitely exists—entirely different from the past, though unerringly founded on it, and to justify it.

To that composite American identity of the future, Spanish character will supply some of the most needed parts. No stock shows a grander historic retrospect—grander in religiousness and loyalty, or for patriotism, courage, decorum, gravity and honor. (It is time to dismiss utterly the illusion-compound, half raw-head-and-bloody-bones and half Mysteries-of-Udolpho, inherited from the English writers of the past 200 years. It is time to realize—for it is certainly true—that there will not be found any more cruelty, tryanny, superstition, &c., in the résumé of past Spanish history than in the corresponding résumé of Anglo-Norman history. Nay, I think there will not be found so much.)

Then another point, relating to American ethnology, past and to come, I will here touch upon at a venture. As to our aboriginal or Indian population—the Aztec in the South, and many a tribe in the North and West—I know it seems to be agreed that they must gradually dwindle as time rolls on, and in a few generations more leave only a reminiscence, a blank. But I am not at all clear about that. As America, from its many far-back sources and current supplies, develops, adapts, entwines, faithfully identifies its own—are we to see it cheerfully accepting and using all the contributions of foreign lands from the whole outside globe—and then rejecting the only ones distinctively its own—the autochthonic ones?

As to the Spanish stock of our Southwest, it is certain to me that we do not begin to appreciate the splendor and sterling value of its race element. Who knows but that element, like the course of some subterranean river, dipping invisibly for a hundred or two years, is now to emerge in broadest flow and permanent action?

We are living in a time when diversity in language and in so many parts of life is a living presence among us but an official target of disrespect from a president who has never lived outside his small cultural bubble.

I concluded in the article, “Language might separate us culturally one from another, but we should learn from better-taught history not to allow it to divide us as Americans.  We are one out of many. This is a time to understand and honor that sentiment, not ignore it.

Canada can teach us an important lesson about tolerance and respect.”

(map from appswm.com)

What’s Left After Contempt and Concession 

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Records in the State Supreme Court Historical Society indicate Secretary of State Denny Hoskins’ contempt of court case is the first contempt case before the court since 1878 and might be only the fifteenth in state history, none of which involved a statewide office holder.  All of the old cases were appeals of lower court contempt holdings. This could be the first time someone was held in contempt of the Missouri Supreme Court itself.

In my sixty years of reporting in Jefferson City, this is the first contempt of the Supreme Court case that I have ever seen.

Shortly before the court was to return with its finding Thursday afternoon, Hoskins buckled to the inevitable and notified local election officials that the congressional district map approved by the legislature in 2022 would be used in the November election.

His earlier notice said that the Republican gerrymandered districts adopted to please President Trump would be used—although other court rulings had blocked that usage.

The tricky issue of deciding a proper penalty for violating the court’s earlier order forbidding use of the gerrymandered districts was thus avoided.  Chief Justice W. Brent Powell noted that Hoskins could purge himself of his previous statement and orders and that he had done so with his letter to election authorities. The contempt ruling stands but there will be no punishment from the court. Whether feelings of voters when Hoskins is up for re-election in two years will take their due is something we’ll have to wait for.

There might be many bottom lines from this series of actions.  Legislative Republicans are 0-for-3 on major public policy decisions this year with two really hot issues on the ballot in November—

Amendment 3 prohibits abortion in most cases, and blocks gender transition procedures for people younger than 18. The amendment would overturn a more pro-choice amendment adopted by voters in 2024 after a petition campaign generated enough signatures for a ballot position. It got about 52% of the vote.

Amendment 6 says the legislature cannot change a law proposed by a petition and approved by voters without 80% percent of the voters agreeing with the change.

The other proposition is the one that upholds the gerrymandered redistricting plan, proposition A. What all of this fuss and feathers has resolved is that voters still can approve the new districts by adopting proposition A, which will make the districts available in the 2028 elections but not useful in protecting President Trump from a House and/or Senate controlled by Democrats after November’s election.

Republicans could go 0 for 6 this year on ballot issues if the People Not Politicians movement maintains its momentum or, with these court rulings, picks up strength.

There still remains one piece of absurdity in this ugly worship of The Donald.

A few hours before the court’s hearing and its ultimate ruling on contempt, fourteen members of the legislature threatened the court with impeachment.

The seven judges didn’t even blink when hearing of this threat.  They not only went ahead with the hearing and found Hoskins in contempt.

So now what?

The only thing goofier than the threat would be for these fourteen Republicans (and their colleagues) to file articles of impeachment in this week’s veto session. The court’s lack of interest in their threat gives them a choice: Look foolish for filing the threat or look foolish for going ahead with it.

How would they go about impeaching and convicting the court—all seven members?

Guess who conducts the trial of an impeached state official?   The Supreme Court, that’s who.  Impeaching one at a time leaves the other six to run a trial of a colleague, a pretty goofy idea. Maybe they could import the supreme court of a surrounding state to do it.

Goofiness seems to be the order of the day.

Will their threats generate votes for them and their party in November?  It’s hard to see that it will because of national surveys showing that President Trump’s behavior as a political bully isn’t going over anymore and in fact is turning people off, way off. .

What we have here, folks, seems to be that too many Republicans are lowering the anchor of the ship of state, not realizing the chain is wrapped around their own ankles.

The Republicans have handed Democrats wheelbarrows full of campaign issues that the D’s can use in the next two months or so to pound on R’s.

And in two more years, when the Governor, Attorney General (who represented Hoskins), and Hoskins come up for re-election along with legislative Republicans seeking re-election or election to a higher office, the Democrats still will be well-armed.

Republicans need to do some serious image repair. They need to pick up a major issue (or many major issues) that will sympathetically resonate with the people.

(Picture credit:  Front row (from left): Judge Fischer, Chief Justice Powell, Judge Ransom; Back row (from left): Judge Gooch, Judge Wilson, Judge Broniec, Judge Russell —Missouri Supreme Court;  Goofy—Etsy)

Chaos 

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(Two important updates to this posting occurred overnight as the gigantic mess that will be our congressional elections in November has gotten even worse)  Look for  the boldface additions in this revised–for the third time—column).  

The two people in this household are going to vote in the November election. As of today, we are not sure who we will want to be our member of Congress because we aren’t sure which congressional district we will be in.

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh might have settled it yesterday when he flatly rejected the appeal of the Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling that the old districts will be used for the election.  Kavanaugh is a Trump appointee and we would not be in this mess if Trump had not asked his loyal Republican-dominated legislature to skew congressional districts to help keep him in power.

However, shortly after that, a lower federal court judge ruled the other way.  We went to bed last night glad the day was over but knowing it is likely today will produce more political and judicial mayhem that none of us deserves but that all of us are getting, thanks to a President thinks our political system was invented just to keep him happy.

But since then, things have really heated up.

Shortly after that, the Chief Federal District Judge of this region, Stephen Clark, ruled the other way, issuing a temporary restraining order telling Hoskins to use the gerrymandered map while the case goes forward in the federal court system.  We went to bed last night glad the day was over but knowing it is likely today will produce more political and judicial mayhem that none of us deserves but that all of us are getting, thanks to a President thinks our political system was invented just to keep him happy. 

Governor Kehoe thanked the judge for providing “much needed clarity for Missouri voters and the election process.”  Since yesterday was the last day to make changes to the November ballot, he said, “the Missouri First Map will be used in the general election.”

He said, “Voters and candidates deserve consistency, certainty, and not to have the rules changed between elections,” an observation that is interesting because that is exactly what President Trump, the legislature, and Governor Kehoe have done “between elections” in 2024 and 2026. 

The scramble yesterday has left the Missouri Supreme Court, shall we say, in a state of high urinary agitation.  We awoke this morning to read a Missouri Independent report that the court has ordered Secretary of State Denny Hoskins to appear before it in person at 10 o’clock tomorrow morning to show why he should not be held in contempt of court for telling election officials to go ahead with a district map the court has forbidden him from using. It seems Hoskins had, as soon as Clark’s order came down, certified the official state ballot using the rejiggered congressional districts and sent the order, and his certification of the districts out to local election officials.  He says the Clark order, in effect, overrules the Missouri court’s order. 

The Chief Justice of the Missouri Supreme Court wants Hoskins to explain exactly why his actions “is not an affirmative violation” of the court’s injunction which has the backing of a United States Supreme Court judge (who ranks higher on the judicial food chain than Clark) and, “if he is not willing to comply with this court’s injunction, he should take no action in all things related to the congressional district map until guidance is received from a higher court…”

Chief Justice W. Brent Powell made it clear this hearing is a face-off between Hoskins and the court.  Nobody else will be allowed to intervene.  

The last time we can recall a sitting state official to answer to the Missouri Supreme Court was when the court tried and convicted Secretary of State Judy Moriarty in 1994 of committing impeachable offenses—-  

—–which raises a question about how all of this could eventually play out for Hoskins, should anyone want to make a case of it.  If the GOP continues to control the legislature, that question likely is going to be moot.

This whole ugly thing is compliments of the same political party that gave us two amendments that were stomped flat by voters in August, allowed a small number of maverick state senators to produce two or three of the least productive legislative sessions—probably since the Civil War when we had a government supported by the U. S. Army in Jefferson City and a bunch of exiles pretending to be a Confederate government based in Texas, and who so badly fumbled a chance to pass a sports gambling law that the interested parties gave us a constitutional amendment that is of grave disservice to the people of Missouri

Republicans have no one to blame but themselves if voter in November seek retribution for this craziness by promoting many GOP lawmakers back to private life. Will the majorities in the House and Senate switch in November? Probably not.  But we’ll be watching to see if the two-third majorities and the accompanying arrogance that comes with such margins disappears at the hands of voters who think these lawmakers have gone too far.

The Missouri Supreme court has blamed our Secretary of State, who was one of those maverick senators, for this mess.  And the court underlined its feelings with a unanimous vote.

The court suspended the congressional district maps drawn because President Trump is afraid he’ll lose control of Congress in November and asked the Missouri legislature to approve maps that will oust one of our senior congressmen, Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City. That would giving the GOP one more Congressman from Missouri who can protect Trump..  The legislature was more than happy to oblige him.

But then some citizens who felt such manipulation of the political system more focused on government of one person, by one person, and for one person is not exactly what this country is all about.  They went around and collected signatures of about 300,000 other dissenters demanding the new map not go into effect until the people had agreed to it.  The number of signatures was more than adequate to put the question on the ballot.

Secretary of State Denny Hoskins apparently found some wiggle room in a federal district judge’s ruling last December that the new map would be suspended if the petition had enough signatures and a vote could be held on overturning that map. The judge’s opinion noted, however, that Hoskins believed he had the power to declare the petition itself was unconstitutional.

The Missouri Supreme Court told him, twice, that he had to rule on whether the petitions had enough signatures to put the issue on the ballot.

Rather than do that before the primary election that used the questionable new districts, Hoskins waited until the primary election was already underway before proclaiming the petition unconstitutional.

The Missouri Supreme Court said he screwed up, saying there actually are no new districts because opponents had gathered adequate signatures to have an election on their legitimacy. Unless voters approved the districts, they did not exist.

But Hoskins let the election proceed with the new districts.  So now we have candidates in our eight districts and—-

?

Justice Kavanaugh’s terse rejection of the districts is a second loud slap in the face of Hoskins and the obedient Trumpicans in our Capitol, coming after our Supreme Court’s ruling.

As we understand it these two rulings, we have no districts except the old ones and the candidates did not run in the old districts. They ran in the new ones which the court says don’t exist. The Missouri court has said rather clearly that Hoskins is responsible for any confusion the people of Missouri might have.

That’s a very heavy load of responsibility.  Hoskins will be up for re-election in 2028. Missourians are likely to be reminded of these events.

Out of this complicated embarrassment so far, however, is something vitally important. The Constitutional right of Missouri citizens “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”     to enact laws through a petition process and to overturn offensive laws enacted by the people who are supposed to represent us has been upheld. The court decisions have upheld Missourians’ right to initiative and petition in overwhelming numbers. (Next year will be the 120th anniversary of the adoption of initiative and referendum in Missouri. We need to have a big celebration.)

Hoskins disputes the Missouri court’s ruling that he’s the one to blame.  He seemed to argue in a radio interview (KFTK) that the Trumpian map should be valid for November because voters used it in the primary election.

—although the State Supreme Court says they (we) voted in illegal and therefore nonexistent districts.  Justice Kavanaugh obviously didn’t buy Hoskins’ arguments either.

We must confess that we are as befuddled as most people are and we’re not convinced we understand all of this folderol or if we have explained the situation correctly.

If the districts were not legal, then there actually was no congressional primary election, right?   And those of us who voted were just rehearsing for the real thing. Can that be correct?  Are we headed to November with candidates nominated in a non-election?

And since the petition issue gathered enough signatures to merit a vote and no districts, old or new, will be established until voters have decided on the petition issue, how can we vote for our congressional delegation in November?

If it turns out that one of the winners in August is not a resident of the old district that might be in effect in November—-

Well?

I feel as if I am wading in the dark through an endless swamp of mashed potatoes and the legislature led me to it.  Lawmakers are back at the Capitol for a day or two next week to consider overriding any of the Governor’s vetoes from the spring session.  Can they, will they, do anything to restore some orderliness in our state political system?

To paraphrase an old saying:

“To err is human. To really screw up things you need a politician.”

I am now going to take some aspirin and lie down and hope this all passes.

(picture credit: Demotivators)

 

Notes from a Quiet Hill (Geography Edition)

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Saw this pop up on the internet the other day.  We always like to remind folks the founders weren’t Europeans but were the people who met them when they arrived (as Will Rogers once remarked about his ancestors).  The t-shirt is being sold on the Honoringthetribe.com, which we couldn’t reach when we looked for it.

But we appreciate the image.  Our President might not be caught wearing this t-shirt even if they had one large enough to fit him. Even if he wore it, it’s doubtful that he would give a hoot about the message.

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I used to think, “This man cannot be more absurd that this” but he quickly dissuaded me of that opinion on a daily if not hourly basis, much of it driven by childish pettiness.  In recent days he has “punished” Canada by signing an executive order renaming Lake Superior “Lake America.”  Now, most recently, he has shown a new map of New Mexico with “Mexico” crossed out and the word “America” written in.

Why don’t he end this ridiculous business and sign an all-encompassing executive order and make it “Planet Trump” and be done with it?

Would it be enough or would he want more?  You don’t need to answer that.

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From a January, 1922 Jefferson City newspaper: “It is said to be an open question whether Congress at present represents public opinion.  If not, next fall will be open season on congressmen.”

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Question for folks in Jefferson City: When was the last time our member of Congress showed up in our town? I don’t mean slipping in to say hello to the office staff, but to meet with the voters. He cannot recall any visits in recent years. Your intrepid correspondent stopped by Congressman Luetkemeyer’s office one day. The door was locked.  When somebody let me in the basic attitude was, “What are you doing here?”  I had a note for the Congressman I wanted to drop off. I doubt he ever saw it because I didn’t even get one of those “Thank your four your interest” form letters.

I think I have run into Northwest Missouri’s Sam Graves more times at the Capitol than I have heard of our own members of Congress being around except to file for election.

Our current Congressman (we think) Bob Onder is one of two GOP politicians asking the U. S.  Supreme Court to overturn our Missouri Supreme Court order reinstating non-gerrymandered district lines.

We could not do any worse by having a Congressman from Kansas City.  In fact, it’s hard not to think a longtime Methodist minister would be anything but better.

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Went to Colorado to visit the granddaughters and their parents last month. We rather like driving across Kansas because of ancestral ties that help us appreciate the Flint Hills and the Tallgrass Prairie and the rolling limestone hills that used to be the floor of the Great Inland Sea.  We even like when we get West of Hays and the upland prairie begins under a wide-open sky not obscured by billboards (there are few of them).  But once again we were reminded when we cross the state line that there still is too much Kansas in Colorado.

Your observer has often felt that a new state should be carved from the area between Hays and Burlington, Colorado, extending south to include the Oklahoma Panhandle and north to include the Nebraska Panhandle

Stopped in Bennett to fuel up. We were a little, uh, stunned.

The cheapest stuff was 15% ethanol. The Subaru is accustomed to a diet of 10% but we were sure it wouldn’t cough and sputter on the strong stuff.   12.2 gallons.  55 dollars.

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This is St. James’ Church in the English village of Ormside, near Appleby (hope that helps you understand its location).  The BBC reports this church is getting something for the first time in its long history. A £10,000 gift from a private trust will pay for an indoor loo, which the church never has had.

A loo over there is a bathroom.

For centuries, people in Ormside carried buckets of water from the village well to operate the primitive indoor plumbing. The BBC reports that the church hopes the improvements “will make the site more welcoming and hospitable, after attendees at weddings and funerals had previously had to rely on nearby residents homes for bathroom access.

The new toilet won’t be in the church itself. A disused hearse house will be modified for people who have to go while sending someone on their way

When we traveled across the pond a couple of years ago we visited the community of Looe, which is the case with many towns and cities, has public bathrooms. Admission, we think, was 25 pence.

The town of Looe is pronounced without the “e.”   I took a picture of the public bathrooms. I refer to it as Looe’s Loos.

 

The Home Time Capsule 

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Two or three houses ago, we sold the big 1904 uninsulated house that was the first home we bought (and found the heating bills in the dead of winter were double our mortgage payment)  sooner than we thought we would. We had put it on the market when the snow was so deep our realtor couldn’t get the “for sale” all the way into the ground.  We found another house quickly—-too quickly because the people who were selling it hadn’t bought THEIR new house. They did let us store our stuff in their basement and we rented a dark apartment with a terrible green shag rug and a one-window living room that looked out onto a parking lot while the bedroom windows looked onto High Street.

When we finally were able to occupy the new place a couple of months later (it might have been more; it certainly felt like it), and started bringing stuff up from the basement, a peculiar thought came to mind.  It was as if we were doing an archaeological excavation.  Here was the lamp table for the living room.  There was the frame of a bed for one of the children’s rooms. That box had 20th century bathroom supplies and another held late 20th century kitchen appliances.

It was different from usual moves where professionals with a big truck lug things out of one house and sets them up in the new one. These were things that had disappeared from our lives for a period of time and now were being rediscovered, if you will.

Kind of exciting.

Sometimes when we’ve been gone for a couple of weeks, I play a little mind game and try to imagine that we are entering Jefferson City for the first time.  What are my impressions?

From the west we get a stunning view of the Capitol framed by the Dix Road overpass.  From the east we drive past back yards and roadside businesses and offices as the traffic seems to funnel into an unimpressive area of concrete and traffic lights and ultimately an interchange if we want to take it. Sometimes don’t even notice the Capitol.  From the south we crest the Ellis Boulevard hill and there’s the dome dramatically shining above the trees and against the dark bluffs and from the north, there’s the view of the Capitol overlooking the great river.

And when we come home to a place that has been empty and silent (except for Max and Minnie and once a day a visiting cat-sitter, Mary), I briefly imagine we have entered a well-preserved early 21st century townhouse that appears to have been frozen in time by the people who once lived there.

The feeling dissipates quickly, of course, as life returns to normal within an hour or two.

But it’s kind of fun and it lets me see today’s world from a little different perspective. We’ve visited a lot of famous homes of notable figures or barracks rooms at 1870s frontier forts or other historic sites restored or recreated with period furnishings and in fifty years or so there really will be houses from our times that let our descendants see how we lived today.  Today’s possessions are tomorrow’s artifacts.  Today’s nick-nacks will be found in antique store sale cases.

The wonders of our age will have become museums or museum pieces.  The things we think are advanced technology today will seem primitive then.

We will be what our great grandparents are to us.

The experience can have a leveling effect on our pride of having the things we have. Maybe it will trigger some thinking about our attitudes and how they will be regarded generations hence by those who wonder, “How could they think like that?” or “How did they get along with just those_______,” or “It took a lot of work to live in those days,” or maybe just, “Isn’t that interesting?”

It never hurts to try to look at our life and times through pretend new eyes. You never know what you might see.

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A Start, A Streak, A Stumble, and a Race

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZ)—Fall camp is over at the University of Missouri. Arkansas-Pine Bluff will be the cannon fodder for the Thursday night opener.  APB is a school of 2100 students that has gone 9-27 in the last four years.

Coach Drinkwitz says Ahmad Hardy will not play. He says Hardy is “working is rear end off” but is still rehabilitating his wounded leg. Hardy has not practiced and will not be activated untoil he has completed two full weeks of practive at full speed before he will be activated.  Drinkwitz has no timetable for his return.

His replacement will be Jamal Roberts, who is hardly chopped liver.  He ran for 753 yards and six touchdowns last year, averaging 5.5 yards per carry in his three-year collegiate career,   eighteen inches less than Hardy’s career average. Teammates have voted him team captain.

The Tigers also have transfers Xai’Shaun Edwards and Malae Fonoti as backups.

Hardy’s status has not kept SEC coaches from making him one if four Tigers on the pre-season all conference team.  Joining him on the first team is LT Cayden Green. Long Snapper Brett LeBlanc is on the second team. LB Robert Woodyard Jr., is on the third team.

Missouri starts the season ranked 25 by the AP and the Coaches polls. (ZOU)

(CHIEFS)—The Chiefs are 0-2 with little sign of offense in their first two preseason games. The biggest highlight of the 16-15 loss to the Bucs was Harrison Butker’s 69-yard field goal with room to spare. The kick sent the Chiefs to the halftime locker room up 9-0.

But he missed a PAT and a potential game-winning kick near the end.

(ROYALS)—The hottest team in baseball has been the lowly Kansas City Royals, who won their 8th straight game Sunday, 11-7 against the Tigers, a game highlighted (with tongue in cheek) by a stolen base by Salvador Perez, who broke a five-year steal-less streak.  He now has seven in his career. The Royals have outscored opponents 47-27 in those games.

The streak is the Royals’ longest since May, 2024. Although they are now 16 games under .500, they are only 7.5 games out of the last AL playoff spot.

Stay tuned.

(CARDINALS)—The Cardinals have cooled off after last week’s surge and dropped back to .500 with their Sunday sweep loss to the  Phillies—a disastrous loss that resulted from the Phillies scoring six times in the ninth to snatch a 6-4 win. Kyle Schwarber his a 459 foot walk-off homer the first walk-off homer for the Phillies since he did it in July of ’23. Schwarber leads the major leagues with 39 homers.

Now, to the nation’s capital—-

(INDYCAR)—The first automobile race through the streets of the U.S. Capital was a huge hit with fans and drivers,  Kyle Kirkwood dominated the race, tightening his points chase with Alex Palou, who encountered problems throughout the race.

Event organizers counted 215,000 spectators in the two days and noted souvenir sales of almost one million dollars. Event chairman Bud Denker says the door is open for another run next year, that series owner Roger Penske and his friend Donald Trump will talk about a race in 2027. Washingtoh Mayor Muriel Bowser is upbeat.

Kirkwood’s win cuts Palou’s points lead to 31 with three races left. Christian Lundgard chased him trough the closing laps but could not get close enough to try pass. Kirkwood teammates Will Power and Marcus Ericsson gave the Andretti Global team three of the four positions.

The cost of the event—reportedly $35 million—might be discouraging for those hoping for another run next year, but the race was $25 million dollars cheaper than the UFC event at the White House last summer.

About 100,000 complimentary tickets were given away but some individual tickets cost $5,000 and rental of luxury suites cost a cool quarter-mil.  Organizers think they suffered a net loss of about $30 million because of all of the free tickets. The city thinks the race generated $100 to 200 million in revenues for it.

Regardless, the event was a major success for IndyCar, a major visibility boost for the series. And all it takes for a second one is another executive order from Roger Penske’s longtime friend.

(NASCAR)—The cream is rising to the top aa NASCAR’s regular season nears its end.  Ryan Blaney won his second straight race at New Hampshire Sunday, his third victory of the year.

Blaney is second in the point standings to Denny Hamlin, who locked up the regular season championship with his 7th place finish.  The win is his 20th career vicory,

The race started on rain tires after a heavy rain and cars were switched to the usual racing slicks during  the first round of pit stops. A two-tire change on the last stops gave him a lead he never relinquished.

Bubba Wallace chased him across the line, followed by Josh Berry, Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson, Ty Gibbs and Hamlin. Tyler Reddick, the pole winner, finished ninth, ahead of Ryan Preece.

Berry’s finish was his third straight on he podium and his fourth straight top ten, a run that his Wood Brothers team has not seen sine 1994 when Morgan Shepherd scored five straight top tens. Unfortunately for him, Wood Brothers had announced before the string began that he would be replaced in the 21-car next year.

Thirteen of the 16 drivers who will chase the championship during the next ten races are locked in. Five drivers will fight for the last three slots next Saturday night at Daytona: Bubba Wallace, Austin Cindric, Shane Van Gisbergen, Preece and Brad Keselowski.

A blown engine wiped out even the remote chance that Ross Chastain had to make the chase. He finished last, 36th.

(GORDON RETURNS, WINS)—Jeff Gordon is 55 years old now but the competitive fire still burns. 

Before the IndyCar race in Washington, the old IROC (International Race of Champions) was resurrected, using the Pontiac Firebirds used in the last years of the original IROC series that last ran twenty years ago.

Retired NASCAR champions Bill Ellott, Bobby Labonte and Rusty Wallace were joined by Indianapolis 500 winners Tony Kanaan and Helio Castroneves and road racer Tommy Kendall.   for a two-heat race.  Gordon smoked ‘em all. Both heats.  Gordon started last as the field was inverted for the second race, but he took the lead early in the second race and led the way home again.

 

 

A Little Politics We’d Like to Forget 

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Saturday nights when Liz and Rob were not taller than we are, Saturday nights had kind of a ritual to them.

At 5 p.m., I’d turn on KBIA, the National Public Radio Station at the University of Missouri, and wait for A Prairie Home Companion to come on.  I had my reel-to-reel SONY recorder wired into the radio and set at the slowest recording speed to record the two-hour program based around a mythical Minnesota town called Lake Wobegone (“a little town that time forgot and the decades cannot improve, where all of the women are strong, the men are good looking, and all the children are above average”) and the stories told by one of its former residents, Garrison Keillor.

I left the speakers off because we were still doing stuff at 5.  Dinner was usually about 6.  At 7 we’d gather in the living room where I rewound the tape and we’d listen back to the recording. Popcorn was part of the evening.  While the playback was underway, I’d turn on my cassette recorder and dub the program onto the smaller format.  There also in our house were some LP recordings of old radio programs—Jack Benny, Fibber and Molly, Suspense, Mr. Kean—Tracer of Lost Persons, Gangbusters, the Shadow, the Lone Ranger, the Green Hornet, Straight Arrow, Escape, etc.—some of which I dubbed onto cassettes before we went on long trips.

SiriusXm now has a channel for those old programs (the PHC is on Keillor’s webpage) but in those days, cars had cassette players and those programs came in handy when World War III broke out in the back seat.  I’d just slide a cassette of Garrison or Jack or Fibber or Molly or one of the creepy shows into the player and peace would immediately break out behind us.

The kids’ imaginations were immediately seized by those radio shows.  The “theatre of the mind” took over and for an hour or two the miles slipped by easily and quietly.

We are not alone in thinking children today are missing that important element in their development—-imagination.  Oh, they can imagine they are great dragon fighters or world-saving soldiers on their computers.  But it’s not the same, by far.

Radio could then, and still can today if we ignore the local stations that aren’t local anymore and aren’t imaginative anymore, and are mostly forums for people whose egos are their greatest asset, expand the mind far beyond anything we can see, even on a 100=inch flat screen screwed to the wall.

(In 1965, the great radio humorist Stan Freberg did a series of public service announcements for the Radio Advertising Bureau promoting radio.  They’re all priceless but the fourth one, “Stretching the Imagination” is considered the classic:

(bing.com/search?q=Stan+freberg+who+listens+to+radio&form=ANNTH1&refig=6a8601c200594754ba45e2583e91c5c7&pc=HCTS)

The Singer is Sarah Vaughan.

Garrison Keillor is no longer doing his radio program but he does do stage shows recreating the program. He’s 84 now, writes books, lives in New York instead of Minnesota, and writes with his familiar droll humor a daily column.

A few days ago on the 17th, he offered this observation that we decided to pass along:

(7) Another modest proposal, but a good one

Yes, It is obvious that he’s a Democrat. In fact one of his books is called Home Grown Democrat. But he seems to capture the contradictory, confusing, infuriating political mess we are living through.

Saturday nights at our house aren’t so interesting anymore. The kids are all grown up and have their own families.  Sometimes, though, we do have some popcorn.  And in our cars, we can listen to Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, Gunsmoke (with William Conrad as Matt Dillon, Boston Blackie, Tales of the Texas Rangers, the creaking door of the Inner Sanctum and many more.

And the miles just slip away.

Smithsonian Museum of Un-American History 

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If Donald Trump thought he could get away with naming the Smithsonian Museum of American History something such as a Museum of Un-American History, he would already have signed an executive order doing it.

While most of us were paying attention to celebrating Independence Day, Trump’s White House Domestic Policy Council was issuing its latest accusations targeting that museum. For months his administration has been busy “reforming” our national parks, monuments, and museums to get rid of “anti-Americanism.”  He prefers to pretend that slavery was a friendly relationship between master and slave, that the Confederacy and its key figures who repudiated the United States Constitution and fought with a breakaway segment of our country openly based on protecting slavery were just advocating for state’s rights, that nothing serious happened to Native American nations, and that his White Christians are the only important religious policy setters of our society.

Last year, Trump ordered the Smithsonian to remove anti-American ideology from the 21 museums and galleries (and the National Zoo) that fall under the Smithsonian system.

The Trump Domestic Policy Council’s 162-page report refers to “thinly veiled anti-Americanism” at the history museum and accuses it of showing this country is “a fundamentally oppressive nation.”  The council accuses the museum of moving “toward an extreme political activism.”

Then it breaks down that activism as “anti-white activism,” and “illegal alien activism,” and “transgender activism.”  It is also critical of the museum for having exhibits and programs depicting slavery, race, and systemic inequality, as ABC News put it in one of its reports.

I have been to many of those 21 museums, some of them—including American history—many times.  I am a white Christian with an ancestor who settled in Virginia on a land grant given him by the first Queen Elizabeth and I can tell you the council report, as is the case with the majority of Trump’s appraisals of the general history of our nation, is pure BS.

Perhaps Trump doesn’t like to see (as if he has ever visited the place) the whites-only Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina where four black college students sat down on February 1, 1960 and politely asked for service.  They refused to leave when asked to leave, setting off demonstrations that led to eventual integration of the lunch counter and helped trigger the civil rights movement in the south and its large student base. Four years later, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act.

One of the museum’s directors, Anthea Hartig, has called the exhibit in question, “central to our mission to explore, preserve and share the complexity of our past (that would be part of the America 250 celebration)…a bold and immersive experience across all three exhibition floors of the National Museum of American History. Suggestions that the Smithsonian had planned or intended to remove the lunch counter and stools are false. Daily, thousands of visitors view and learn from these cherished objects in the national collection.”

The Organization of American Historians charged the Trump administration with trying to “coerce Smithsonian leadership to shape ​its presentation of ⁠U.S. history so that it serves the administration’s political agenda – part of an ongoing and multi-pronged assault by the Trump administration against accurate and evidence-based history in American public life.”

Trump has issued an executive order directing notices be put at the entrances to the history museum with a warning that “the exhibits in this museum were prepared by people who don’t want you to love your country.”

It is precisely love of country that makes Trump’s signs and his attacks on this and other Smithsonian museums so putrid.

This statue in the history museum by Horatio Greenough might be the symbol of Trump’s America.  Washington, all-victorious and all-virtuous, a symbol of American courage, a legendary figure whose human shortcomings are overlooked—including owning 317 slaves at the time of his death and dispatching the Army to punish Native Americans in the new Northwest Territory objecting to white settlers taking their lands (resulting in an ignominious defeat), a man who refused a $48,000 salary to lead the army and asked only to be reimbursed for his expenses that turned out to be about $450,000.

Next thing you know, the man who thinks Mount Rushmore is incomplete without him will decide this museum needs a Trumpian figure like the one of George Washington. I’m afraid a marble image of Donald Trump without his shirt might make the museum for adults-only because the statue would be too frightening for children.

One wonders if Trump ever saw The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the great western film about a man credited with killing a dangerous outlaw who actually was killed by another man.  After telling the truth to a newspaper editor near the end of the film, James Stewart’s character asked, “You’re not going to use the story, Mr. Scott?”  And editor Maxwell Scott (played by Carleton Young) responds, “This is the West, sir.  When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

That’s Trump’s preferred history. Ignore the truth. Ignore the reality. Believe a legend—and he’ll tell you what the legend will be.

But this isn’t the West.  It’s America. Our history has had its troublesome times (including this seemingly endless period). How we overcome those troubles is a part of history that says we can always do and be better, a concept he has trouble grasping for himself as well as for the nation.

In this time of heightened awareness of our nation’s history, we cannot let the bigotry of our historically-illiterate President prevail. We cannot become a better people if we ignore the times when we were at our worst and a President who desires a return to that era should be resisted strongly by an unafraid nation.

We are likely to have more about Trump’s desire to make us as historically ignorant as he prefers to be.

(Photo credits: Smithsonian)

Secretary of Censorship 

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Let’s be clear about what I am about to discuss.  As a journalist, a writer, an author, a parent, grandparent and great-grandparent, and a long-time library board member, I will not let someone else, particularly a government official, dictate what is appropriate for me to read, to think, or to speak. Nor will I allow someone else, government official or private citizen, to tell me I do not have the right to decide what is appropriate reading material for my family.

It appears our latest Secretary of State has assumed the odious role his predecessor took on as a censor for our libraries.

Denny Hoskins has decided he has the authority to take state funding away from the Columbia Public Library because it has books in it that he doesn’t like and furthermore tells people it has them, taking it upon himself to decide that some members of the public who want to go to the public library should not make their own decisions about what they or their children can read.

Hoskkins had a fit recently when he learned the Columbia Public Library was going to have a “rainbow story time” for families who wanted to participate.  Josh Hancock of The Missouri independent reported library staff read books called “Rainbowsaurus” and “Big Wig” to the children and their parents. The first book is about a rainbow-dinosaur. The other book is, says Josh, “about a child who wins a costume contest in drag.”

The library spent all of $26 for a wig and contact paper for the event. Eighteen dollars went for the wig. Hoskins wants to withhold thousands of dollars in state library aid because the event was held.

Hoskins heard about it before the event and warned the library that it would lose all of its state and federal aid if it held the $26 event for people to willingly attend.

Then when the library, where like all libraries the freedom to read, to  think, to learn, and to form one of the most dangerous things allowed in a Democracy—ideas—are cherished held the event anyway, Hoskins and State Senator Rick Brattin threw together a news conference to announce punishment for the library’s refusal to follow their dictates.

Brattin is hoping to be a Congressman in one of the gerrymandered districts he and other legislative Trumpians drew up to protect the political interests of a president who is only interested in libraries in terms of a potential library that will preserve his greatness, and his surplus Qatar 747 that is costing a billion dollars to convert to presidential transportation.

“Unconscionable if not criminal,” Hoskins called the event. It was, he said, an effort to groom children.

Groom children? It’s a pejorative that has become popular on the Right, defined by the Cleveland Clinic as the “process of manipulation and abuse {that} can stem from what may initially seem to be an innocent relationship with a stranger or adult authority figure.”

A story time at a public library designed to foster “manipulation and abuse of children?”

These two justified their outburst with a letter from Attorney General Catherine Hanaway.  But the Independent story said that Hanaway “acknowledged the library’s right to determine its own programming and said she was prepared to act only if a program broke the law.”

It doesn’t break the law, which talks about giving pornography to minors or making a public display of sexually explicit material in public.

It’s quite a leap for these self-righteous officials to declare a rainbow-colored dinosaur is pornographic or a cheap wig as sexually explicit material.

Apparently Hoskins and Brattin have superior thoughts of such evaluations. Brattin complained the books had “a message that’s meant to sexualize” and advocated a “lifestyle” that would weaken the defenses of the children.

We wonder how the parents feel about being categorized as enablers of such behavior..

Boone County Prosecutor Roger Johnson told Columbia TV station KOMU that talking about LGBTQ+ issues is not a crime. Hoskins admitted at the ;press conference that “pornography is OK to be talked about because it’s a First Amendment right.”

The Independent says neither he nor Brattin could identify any laws that had been broken but Hoskins vowed that he would ask future legislatures “to ensure that this is illegal in the future.”

First Amendment to the contrary, of course.

One of the all-time great science fiction books is Ray Bradury’s dystopian novel about book-burning, Fahrenheit 451. Midway through story, one of those who burn books is confronted by one of those who memorizes them before they can be destroyed—

The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are. They’re Caesar’s praetorian guard, whispering as the parade roars down the avenue, ‘Remember, Caesar, thou art mortal.’ Most of us can’t rush around, talking to everyone, know all the cities of the world, we haven’t time, money or that many friends. The things you’re looking for, Montag, are in the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine per cent of them is in a book. Don’t ask for guarantees. And don’t look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore.

—Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Sometimes books do  indeed “remind us what asses and fools we are.”