LIGHT

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Just in time—–

The Christmas Cactus is blooming.

It’s called a Schlumberia in formal language.  The story is told of a Jesuit missionary, Father Jose, working Bolivia to convert the natives but failing.  He could not convince them of the Christmas story but as he was praying on Christmas eve, he heard them singing a hymn he had taught them, the children coming toward him with a plant with beautiful flowers that they gave him to decorate his altar.

It is summer in Bolivia now, in the southern hemisphere.

We checked the weather in the northern hemisphere, Bethlehem on the West Bank of Israel to be precise, a couple of day ago and we learned that it’s going to be in the upper 50s and lower 60s there today.  December is the third coldest month of the year there—generally damp and mild with highs of about 59 and average lows of 43.

Okay, that’s not bad.  A baby probably would be quite comfortable in a stable and many people in those days lived in the same house with their animals anyway.

We don’t know exactly when He was born; some celebrate it on December 25 but others celebrate it on January 7. In fact, there are those who study ancient history who think he was born in 4 BCE.

That’s an archaeological term that doesn’t try to pin things down too exactly in a time when there were no calendars from the bank or the insurance company or the university hanging on the wall. “BCE” is an archaeological term that denotes periods, not exact dates. It means, “Before the Christian Era,”  a secular starting point that lacks specificity but defines eras when events happened.

So, Jesus—some calculate—was born four years before the start of the Christian Era. BCE, therefore is a way of dating things in a way that works for Christians, Buddhists, followers of Shinto, the Hindus—whatever.

To most of those who peruse these lines, today is December 25, 2024, according to the Gregorian Calendar that we use, introduced in 1752.  In adjusting away from the Julian calendar, which dates to 45BCE, some days had to be eliminated—ten of them. We won’t go into all of the explanation except  to note the Gregorian Calendar is a more accurate way to measure the time it takes us to go around the sun.

But today, as it as well as we can determine, it’s 24 Kislev, 5785 on the Jewish calendar and Jumadal Akhira 16, 1446 AH on the Muslim calendar.

Scientists looking at other recorded events, Biblical references, and seasons suggest the birth happened in  mid to late September. The conception, they calculate, is what happened about now in the Jewish month of Kislev.

But really, it doesn’t matter, does it?  This is the day we celebrate the birth.

Have you noticed the days are getting longer now?  The winter solstice has passed and it’s getting lighter…..at the time we celebrate the birth of Him who is called “the light of the world”  There are more than 35 verses in the Bible using that phrase or something akin to it.

We celebrate His birth as light coming into the world.

Perhaps some time today there will a minute or two to think about that.  And about how His followers themselves can be lights to others.  Every day.

(photo credits:  Bob Priddy. The candle is a painting done by Sara Elizabeth Priddy for her Grandma Priddy a long time ago.)

Sports: Basketball and Football and a Little Baseball

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZBB)—It boiled down to Kaspara Jakucionis hitting his basket with 28 seconds left and and Jacob Crews unable to hit his three-pointer to go down for a tie as the clock ran out.  Illinois 80. Missouri 77 in the annual game that doesn’t need all the hype it gets to be a great rivalry.

It was a game of surges with Missouri erasing a 10-point Illini late lead but missing key free throws and being unable to stop Illinois when it mattered made the difference. Missouri is 10-2 now with one pre-conference game left. (ZOU HAVE YOURSELF A GOOD HOLIDAY BREAK)

(CHIEFSFB)—What sprained ankle?   Patrick Mahomes played a pretty normal game Saturday against the Texans and led the Chiefs to another one-score win, although  the ne score would have required a two-point conversion to get a tie. It’s the sixteenth one-score win this year, extending the Chiefs’ own record.

Patrick looked pretty much unfazed about his high ankle sprain,. He ran it in for a touchdown from 15 yards out. He threw for 260 yards.  Kansas City was 7/13 on third downs, 3/4 in the red zone and the defense picked off a couple of passes that resulted in scores.

Kansas City is 14-1 and facing a short week before playing the Steelers tomorrow, but a win would lock up a by week in the first round of the playoffs and home field advantage.

(MIZFB)—Look for an intense competition for the quarterback starting position in Spring football at Mizzou.  The Tigers have picked up Penn State transfer quarterback Deau Pribula, setting up a three-player fight to be the one replacing Brady Cook, who has gone 25-13 as the starter and has become only the third Tiger quarterback to run and throw for more than 10,00 yards. Only Chase Daniel and Drew Lock have more total offense at quarterback than Cook has.

Missouri signed Penn State transfer Beau Pribula Sunday.  He has two years of eligibility left after serving as a backup in Happy Valley for two years. He’s 6-2, 203 pounds and is described as a powerful runner, averaging more than six yards per attempt. He’s accounted for ten touchdowns. His arrival sets up a test for Drew Pyne, who as the backup this year, and Sam Horn, who’s coming back from Tommy John surgery. Horn also plays baseball, which might complicate or compromise his work in the Spring.

As of Sunday, Missouri ad picked up a dozen transfers and they’ve taken a big one away from Iowa, Kansas, and Wisconsin—Langden Kitchen a 6-foot-7, 270-pound defensive end who played for Northwest Missouri State this year. He had 21 tackles, 5.5 acks and 8.5 tackles for loss in eleven games this season.

It’s been a pretty good portal year for Coach Drinkwitz, who also has added Defensive End Nate Johnson form Appalachian State Michigan offensive lineman Dominick Giudice,

standout running back Ahmad Hardy from Louisiana-Monroe, who rushed for 1,346 yards and 13 touchdowns as a true freshman—the best of all freshmen in the country—defensive end Nate Johnson from Appalachian State, Michigan offensive lineman Dominick Giudice, wide reeciver Kevin Coleman from Mississippi State, Nebraska linebacker Mikai Gbayor, Northern Illinois safety Santana Banner, punter Connor Weselman frm Stanford,  safety Mose Phillips III from Northern Illinois, and West Virginia linebacker Josiah Trotter.

(CARDINALS)—Paul Goldschmidt has left the stadium.  He’s signed a one year deal with the Yankees for $12.5 million.  The Yankees declined Anthony Rizzo’s $17 million option. They paid him $6 million in going-away money. He’s 35 and on the free agent market. Rizzo hit .228 in a season highlighted by injuries. Goldschmit is 37 and finished the year with a .245 average after a very slow start.

(ROYALS)—It’s bonus time for three members of the Kansas City Royals.  Bobby Witt Jr., got about $3.1 million for making his first All-Star game, winning a Gold Glove, and a Silver Slugger in 2024 and finished second in the MVP voting. He had a 9.4 WAR.  Also getting a bonus was pitcher Cole Ragans, who led the team in pitching, was fourth in the Cy Young voting, and had a 4.9 WAR, which resulted in his bonus of more than $1.6 million. Backup catcher Freddy Fermin got almost $233,000 for hitting .271 with six homers and 36 RBIS and posting a 3.0 WAR in 111 games.

(AND TO WRAP UP, THE NEXT FOOTBALL SEASON)—It started March 28 and the St. Louis Battlehawks are starting to assemble the team. Coach Anthony Becht says the signing of a couple of guys is “huge” for the UFL team—Anthony Isabella and Denzel Mims.

Isabella was an All-American receiver at UMASS in 2018 when he averaged 141.5 yards a game. He spent four years with the Arizona Cardinals, then with Baltimore and Buffalo. He was signed to the Steelers practice squad last week but that doesn’t affect the ‘Hawks rights to him.

Mims was All-Big 12 at Baylor in 2020, was drafted by theJets and lao has seen service with the Lions, Steelers, and Jaguars.

Becht has known Mims for several years, having called many of his games for ESPN when he was an All-Big 12 player at Baylor for ESPN. In 2020, Mims was drafted in the second round (59th overall) by the New York Jets and caught 42 passes for 676 yards in 30 games. Mims then moved on to the Detroit Lions, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Jacksonville Jaguars.

Also signing on is outside linebacker Kemoko Turay, who was a freshman All-American at Rutgers, was drafted by the Colts in 2018, and also has spent time with the 49ers, the Falcons and the Panthers.

The team cut ties with quarterback A. J. McCarron in the offseason and has signed three potential replacements: Chevan Cordeiro, Manny Wilkins, and Max Duggan. Wilkins was McCarron’s backup for the last three seasons.

Cordeiro was a first-round pick by St. Louis in the UFL College draft. He was undrafted by the NFL coming out of college and spent a few days with the Seahawks before being cut.  He was all All-Mountain West  player his last two years at San Jose State, where he assed for more than 12,000 yards, rushed for 1,600 more and scored 113 touchdowns.

Duggan got a look from the Chargers, who took him in the seventh round in 2023. He bounced back and forth from the practices squad.  Duggan was a runner-up for the Heisman Trophy in his last year at TCU where he racked u more than 11,400 yards in total offense and scored 101 TDs.

The Battlehawks’ parting with McCarron was an acrimonious one. McCarron has bounced around in the NFL with Cincinnati, Houston, Oakland and Atlanta. He would like to sign with another UFL-XFL division team, he says, so he could beat St. Louis.

Notes from a Quiet Street

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(Comments on affairs of our world that do not reach the umbrage level necessary to result in a full blog).

This is sooooo bureaucratic—from someone who wants to reduce the bureaucracy.

President Trump has set up a Department of Government Efficiency.  DOGE to those who speak Bureaucratic.

Think about that for a minute.  Trump’s first step in making major cuts to the federal bureaucracy is to establish a new bureaucracy.  We’ll be watching to see how many employees it takes to be efficient.

It’s not really a “department” that is part of the cabinet. So far it’s just two rich guys who’ve never been inside government, hired by a third billionaire.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are the two guys.

We will watch to see if adjusting the tax code for themselves is as important as axing programs for those farther down the economic ladder.

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Many of us are surprised to learn that Canada is such an evil country, right up there with Mexico.  One of the reasons the incoming president has given for big tariffs being put on products from those two countries is that they facilitate the entrance of Fentanyl into this country.

It’s always easy to do tariffs.  Let’s see what the administration’s plan is to reduce consumption of the drug in this country. Money follows the consumption of a product, whether it’s fentanyl, superhero trading cards, gold tennis shoes, allegedly fancy watches, or even red caps.  Right?

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And, of course, making Canada our 51st state—-hear that, Texas and Alaska, who will be dwarfed by this new state—will solve all that problem.

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How about making Panama our 52nd state?

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And maybe we can revive talks about trading Puerto Rico for Greenland, or just buying Greenland, too, and keeping Puerto Rico!!

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How much will the Billionaire Boys have to cut out of the budget to pay for that little shopping spree by someone who is unlikely to have ever bought a ten-dollar shirt at Sam’s club?

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Lt. Governor-elect Dave Wasinger has hired Katie Ashcroft as his Chief of Staff.  She needed the job as she looks toward being the sole breadwinner for the family when her spouse gets laid off   in January.

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Wasinger is the first person who to preside over the Missouri Senate as the Senate President (one of the roles of the Lt. Governor) with no experience in elective office at any level since Kansas City lawyer and Democratic Party activist Hillary Busch, who served from 1961-65 under Governor John Dalton.

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It is such a relief to open our mail at this time of year and hearing from people who have a personal relationship with us to donate more than $19 a month—or to dispense with parts of my children’s inheritance.

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But then again, we’re not getting automated phone calls from people wanting to counsel us about Medicare enrollment.

In the space of 24 hours our caller-ID told us we had gotten calls from Elgin, Missouri; Laddonia, Benton, Lewistown, and Jefferson City. Most left no messages but a few times when we answered and a human was on the other end, we asked, “Where are you located?”  One person would only say, ”I’m calling from a remote location.”

I thought we were on the Attorney General’s no-call list.  I would call him to ask, but he’s too busy working on national issues, probably, to talk about why it doesn’t seem to work very well.

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One day last year, our caller ID said the call was coming from our number.

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It oughta be illegal.

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It’s been so nice not wrapping a bunch of presents and not digging out all of the Christmas decorations and planning a big meal for the extended family.  Instead of wrapping things, we’re packing things.  We’ve given ourselves a great big present—a new mailing address.

But the blog is not moving.  It’s going to stay right here.

(image credit: Executioner—Reddit)

 

Some Children See Him—

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One of the first pieces of Christmas music heard in our sanctuary during Advent was played on the piano  by Ken Kehner during communion. It’s one of my favorites, from one of my favorite Christmas albums—This is Christmas by the Voices of Jimmy Joyce. It’s called “Some Children See Him.”

The album is sixty years old this year, which is the seventieth year since the death of composer Alfred S. Burt Jr., a preacher’s kid from Michigan. His father, Episcopal Bishop Bates Burt, began sending family members and members of his church Christmas cards each year (beginning in 1922) with original Christmas carols—words and music.

When young Alfred got his music degree from the University of Michigan, dad asked him to take over the music-writing for the annual family carol.  He wrote his first one in 1942 while in the Army. His last collaboration with his father was in 1947, shortly before his father’s death. After that, he composed the music and the organist at his father’s church, Wihla Hutson, wrote the lyrics.

When Alfred Burt died of lung cancer in 1954 at the age of 33, only one of his songs had been performed in public. But he knew his songs were being recorded by an all-star cast of singers at Columbia records because he was well enough to conduct the choir in the recording session. He finished his last carol two weeks before he died.

The Jimmy Joyce Singers album was the first album that had all fifteen of his carols.

Most of the carols are gentle harmonies. But “Some Children See Him” is my favorite. Here are Wihla’s lyrics:

Some children see Him lily white,
the baby Jesus born this night.
Some children see Him lily white,
with tresses soft and fair.

Some children see Him bronzed and brown,
The Lord of heav’n to earth come down.
Some children see Him bronzed and brown,
with dark and heavy hair.

Some children see Him almond-eyed,
this Savior whom we kneel beside.
some children see Him almond-eyed,
with skin of yellow hue.

Some children see Him dark as they,
sweet Mary’s Son to whom we pray.
Some children see him dark as they,
and, ah! they love Him, too!

The children in each different place
will see the baby Jesus’ face
like theirs, but bright with heavenly grace,
and filled with holy light.

O lay aside each earthly thing
and with thy heart as offering,
come worship now the infant King.
‘Tis love that’s born tonight!

(38) Some Children See Him by Alfred Burt – The Colorado Choir – YouTube

The Alfred Burt Christmas card tradition was revived in 2001 by his grandniece, composer Abbie Betinis. She introduces her new carol each holiday season on Minnesota Public Radio.

If  you are not familiar with the Alfred Burt carols, Youtube has the complete Jimmy Joyce album and various other renditions of his carols. Please consider them my gift to you this year.

(38) Jimmy Joyce – This Is Christmas: The Complete Collection Of Alfred S. Burt Carols in 4k (1964) – YouTube

 

Sports: Chiefs Strange Season Stranger; Thanks and Goodbye

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by Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(CHIEFS)—Kansas City has started its toughest three-game schedule of the year and the result is good news, more bizarre news, and potentially some bad news.

Good news: Chiefs beat the Browns 21-7 to equal a record set in 2025.  The game wasn’t as close as the score might indicated. Winning against one of the worst teams in the NFL this year seemed easy compared to the Chiefs’ usual M-O.  They took a 14-0 lead and even scored in the third quarter.  It’s their first winning game without a field goal since they beat the 49ers 28-16 on October 20.  They had no field goals in their loss to Buffalo on November 17.

Harrison Butker was back and made all three of his extra points.

But here’s the kicker to our story, so to speak.  The Chiefs have not exceeded 30 points all year. They’ve gotten to 30 twice, that stopped there.  CBS Sports says the last time an NFL team won 13 games in a season was 1925 when the Frankford Yellow Jackets did it.

The Chiefs appear to be headed to the playoffs but Frankford finished sixth despite winning 13 games in 1925.  They were part of the American Professional Football League, which eventually morphed into the NFL.  The Chicago Cardinals were declared the league champions with an 11-2-1 record, ahead of the Pottsville Maroons, who were 10-2.

The Detroit Panthers (8-2-2), the New York Giants (8-4), and the Akron Pros (4-2-2) finished ahead of the Yellow Jackets who were 13-7.  Final standings were based on winning percentage.

There are only four teams in the NFL this year who have not scored more than thirty points at least once—the Chiefs, the Patriots, the Giants and the Raiders.  The other three teams have only seven wins among them so far.  7-34, in fact.

The NFL schedule-makers seemed to have their own sense of weirdness this year.  The Cleveland game was the first of three games in an 11-day stretch. The Chiefs play the Texans next Saturday and then have a Christmas day game against the Steelers. They get a long week to heal before their last regular-season game against the Broncos on January 5.

(CHIEFS-MAHOMES)—Not all of the news is good for Patrick Mahomes.  He left the game late in the fourth quarter Sunday with what appears to be a high ankle sprain.  He said afterward that he could have gone back out with his ankle taped but there was no reason to do it.

Word on Monday afternoon was that the sprain is not serious.

Although his backup is no Mahomes, he’s a capable QB.  Carson Wentz finished the game for Kansas City and completed both of his passes for 20 yards. Wentz has started 93 of the 97 NFL games in which he has played. He has hit almost 63% of his passes during his NFL career. His career, however, has been interrupted by injuries.

Before Patrick Mahomes left the game in the fourth quarter with an ankle injury, he set a new NFL record for most passing touchdowns before the age of 30.  He picked up two against Cleveland to move past Payton Manning, with 254 TDs.  He’s done it in 75 regular season games. Manning needed 128 games.

Mahomes won’t be thirty until September 17 next  year.

(CHIEFS)—The NFL’s Special Teams Player of the Week last week was Kansas City’s second-replacement kicker Matthew Wright.

But his story is one of the “penthouse to the outhouse” stories.

On the same day Wright was recognized, the Chiefs opened a three-week practice window for Butker and on Saturday before the Cleveland game, Wright was released and Butker was activated.

Wright’s field goals have been the difference in the previous two Chiefs’ wins. He scored 26 of the team’s 38 points, the last one a game-winner against the Chargers. He’s built some pretty impressive credentials that might bode well for his future in the game.

Butker is 19/20 in field goal attempts this year and 24/25 in points after.

(TIGER FB)—The home folks are going to see a lot of their Tigers next year.  The SEC has released its conference schedule for 2025 giving Missouri six straight home games and eight overall. SEC games at Faurot Field will be against South Carolina, Texas A&M, Alabama and Mississippi. They’ll open against Central Arkansas, will welcome KU back in Columbia for the first time in ages, and then take on Louisiana-Lafayette.

They’ll play Auburn on October 18, their first road game. Vanderbilt, Oklahoma and Arkansas will be their other road games.

Their bowl game is now less than two weeks away.

(TIGER ROUNDBALL)—Missouri plays Jackson State tonight and then goes against the University of Illinois five days later in St. Louis. Illinois is unranked but gave top-ranked Tennessee all it could handle before the Vols got a late basket to win 66-64.

(BASEBALL)—Neither of our MLB teams have generated anything exciting in the last week.

—and the engines are silent on the race tracks.

Soooooo, we’ll see you in this space next week.

 

Let the Ethnic Cleansing Begin—Part Two

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We painted a rather pessimistic view in our last entry of our retread President’s plans for the largest deportation effort in our history. We looked at a Mother Jones article from a few months back that tried to gauge what the difficulties would be if he carries through with his plan.

The article displayed concerns about grave economic consequences of deporting 11-million people. Most of the adults in the group would be forced to leave their jobs behind, producing a crisis in the chicken plucking, roofing, and agricultural industries.

Here’s how to deal with this:

During his campaign, the incoming President asserted that these brown people from the south and the (probably) predominantly white people form the north—all of those thieves, killers, rapists, robbers, insane people, and major drug carriers, you know—were taking jobs away from Americans. Late in the campaign, speaking to a special group, he emphasized that these jobs were “Black jobs.”

You might remember from his June debate: “They’re taking Black jobs, and they’re taking Hispanic jobs, and you haven’t seen it yet, but you’re going to see something that’s going to be the worst in our history.”

Hispanics taking Hispanic jobs?   We’ll let him try to make that logical some other time, which might be one of the few times he has done that.  But what about “Black jobs?”

If I were an African-American, I might take great offense at his assumption that there are certain jobs set aside for Black people. I thought our civilized America had pretty well gotten beyond that, but maybe he was too busy bankrupting his latest business venture to notice.

Incidentally, did he ever check the citizenship status of the cleaning staff at his hotels, clubs, and other properties? And what color were those jobs?

Well, not to get toooooo snarky—

The Hispanic people that he seems to have a hate/love relationship with do the farming, roofing, hotel cleaning, and healthcare jobs that include, as one source put it in our last entry, “emptying bedpans.” But if we export the Hispanics despite them having “Hispanic jobs,” then Black people seem to be the correct substitute, especially since those folks took black jobs to begin with.

But before we jettison all of these brown rapists, drug smugglers, etc., we can make them build the wall on our southern border that Mexico was supposed to pay us for building. We’re still waiting to hear that the check has cleared.

NBC had a story this summer reporting that Black workers often are overrepresented in government and health care work. There are eight Fortune 500 companies already headed by black executives, and Black people cause a problem for this scheme elsewhere. Under the first Trump administration, black unemployment dropped to 5.3%–in September 2019.  Under Joe Biden, it dropped to 4.8% in April 2023.

But that’s good news because the Army and the National Guard won’t have to round up a real big bunch of people to fill vacancies in Black people’s Black jobs. That’s good news because he won’t have enough federal military or state national guard units to round up all of the Black people who will be told to fill in for the rounded-up Hispanics.  Federal law tends to oppose that sort of thing anyway—-although the Trump Supreme Court might refine that provision.

Oh, wait! We DO have enough troops to do all of this. We just bring home soldiers helping protect our NATO allies and our sailors whose ships are protecting Israel from Iranian rocket attacks, and sailors from the ships protecting Taiwan, and troops keeping peace or holding enemies at bay in other places.  He doesn’t seem to think many of them belong out there anyway, so that’s not an employment gap he needs to worry about filling.

But then, who will replace all the Black people who are going to replace the Brown people thrown out of the country?

The solution is too easy.

Round up all the homeless people and make them fill in for all the Black folks who will regain all the jobs the brown people took away from the black people who will get their jobs back when we get rid of the Hispanic people who risked everything to come to this country to get jobs, many of whom sent some of their earnings back to other people in their home countries .

Now, all of those people who sent money home from America will be no longer sending money back home that helps their national economies. Instead, they will become a burden to those counties that we consider our allies.

Getting back to the homeless—

There are studies that show many of the homeless have mental problems but they can’t be treated because Ronald Reagan killed President Carter’s Mental Health Systems Act that continued funding federal community mental health centers. In a matter of weeks after he took office, Reagan changed things to give states block grants which haven’t made up for the loss of the Carter program. So we have a lot of mentally-ill homeless people among us and it’s easier to complain about them than do something about their problems.

But if we can take these folks, even those with mental health issues, round them up, get them off the streets and then distribute them out for mental health care duties now handled by Hispanic and Black people, everything’s fine.

Elon Musk wants to slash government spending by billions of dollars so don’t look for any mental health help for the homeless folks that will be rounded up to complete this restructuring of our economy.  The buck has to stop somewhere.

But who is going to help those who have taken the remaining job openings that have trickled down after the Hispanic deportations?

Simple.

Our retread President tells all those countries for which he wants to inflict tariffs that if the armies in those other countries round up enough of their people and make them emigrate to the United States, we won’t have a problem.  Unfortunately, our immigration people might be so busy getting people out of the country that they won’t have time to check the legality of those coming in.

But there it is.  All the bases are covered.  America will be great again.

No charge.  No awards expected.

A lingering issue remains, though.  Will the Army and the National Guard be committed equally to rounding up Canadians, Frenchmen, Italians, Germans, and Swedes—among others—who probably are in this country illegally, too?

And then once we’ve got all of immigrants out of the country, who’s going to protect the rest of us from the Wampanoags, whose lands were taken by the Pilgrims who came here seeking religious liberty for themselves but not for Baptists and other unacceptable people who they considered the equivalents of our rapists, drug smugglers, criminals and crazy people, when the Wampanoags and other nations demand the interlopers get out of places such as Mar-a-Lago?

Let the Ethnic  Cleansing Begin—Part One 

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Our retread President has promised that deportation of 11-millon undocumented aliens will be started on his first day in office. A number of economists or economy-watchers say the consequences could be severe. But that is immaterial to the incoming Commander/Demander in Chief of our country.  Others have raised serious humanitarian questions about the policy. But nobody has ever accused our incoming President of having any humanitarian interests except for his own, which are closely tied to his personal wealth.

Today we are going to start describing a plan that will mitigate any economic or diplomatic damage resulting from this deportation efforts. We expect no recognition from the incoming administration for these helpful ideas. However, if an invitation were extended to attend the State of the Union speech during which it would be announced that our necks soon will be decorated with a Presidential Medal of Freedom, we would not object.  Much. We are offering this advice at no cost, something that will please Elon Musk, the wealthiest man in the world who seems to have a plan to reduce government spending no matter what the cost.

Some might find this plan slightly off-the-wall. Or entirely so. But somebody has to provide some insight into how to deal with this issue and your faithful scribe will jump into the breach.

Mother Jones magazine, which some people dismiss as a liberal rag, took a hard look at Trump’s proposal a few months ago.  The incoming president has blamed foreign drug cartels and gangs have “invaded” the United States and have established a foothold at an apartment complex in Colorado, a claim contested and/or debunked by the town mayor and residents of the apartment complex in much the same way that leaders of a town in Ohio deny there’s any cat-eating going on there. Regardless, the “invasion” deserves a forceful response from this country.

The incoming President also has asserted that brown people from Venezuela and other countries that have emptied their prisons and lunatic asylums are killers, rapists, fentanyl importers, and probably don’t wear clean underwear every day.

Mother Jones describes a lot of problems with 47’s plan (actually he’s the 45th person to be President. He’s the second one to have two different administrations):

The magazine  says it’s going to take 95,994 chartered flights to get the 11-million people out of the country and going to wherever they will be  unloaded.  Projected costs, spread through 20 years because you can’t do this in two weeks would be $300-Billion.

Who would profit?  Private prison companies such as CoreCivic and the GEO Group were paid $1.5 billion by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to run immigration detention centers in 2022. They’ll improve our economy by building new facilities and hiring a lot of people to guard the women and children—and men—at new lockups.  A GEO Group subsidiary, BI Incorporated, got a five-year deal to produce ankle monitors and phone tracking apps worth $2.2 billion to ICE and will do quite well making 11-million more of these shackles. CSI Aviation has a $128.3 million contract for daily transport flights that they’ll have to increase, again pumping more money back into economy.

And this business expansion will offset the loss of jobs elsewhere in our economy.

There probably will be inconsiderate and ungrateful lawyers who will sue the government if the 1798 Alien Enemies Act is used to justify the deportations.

This might be the time to invest in a critical industry: hardware and home improvement companies. All of those detention camps will require a lot of posts and poles and wire and plywood buildings for the large facilities for undesirable Canadians, Mexicans, etc. A spokesman for the American Immigration Lawyers Association likens such camps to Soviet Gulags.

If there aren’t enough people in our regular military services who are guarding Taiwan, and South Korea and other pressure points in the globe and a decision is made not to lessen those protections, then nationalizing the National Guard is a possibility, he says. Fine and dandy but the Posse Comitatus Law forbids the National Guard from doing civilian law enforcement jobs.

Let’s face it, establishing military guard posts at every road in and out of all of our states is going to take a lot of people making sure no undocumented aliens can seek safety in a different state from their illegal homes here.

The article suggested we brace ourselves for big increases in food costs, decreases in important segments of the workforce, cuts in housing development, and cuts in some health programs.

The magazine quotes an agriculture and economics professor at the University of California-Davis who estimates food prices for hand-picked products will go up 21% because the deportations will eliminate half of the hands doing the picking. The survey also estimates 25% of the people who process our chicken, turkeys, pork, and fish are undocumented aliens. And it says we can look for a doubling of the price of milk if the people doing the milking are shipped out.

Illegal migrants are not eligible to collect Social Security. But they pay about $13-Billion a year into it. Undocumented immigrant households paid $35.1 Billion in state and federal taxes in 2022. That’s a pretty big economic hole. We’re waiting to see the plan for dealing with that.

It’s estimated about 350,000 undocumented immigrants work in health care, two-thirds of them in providers or in supporting positions. Rebecca Shi, who heads the American Business Immigration Coalition says, “They are the people that pick our crops, prepare our foods, clean our hotel rooms and empty our bedpans.”

This roundup also could affect the roofs over our heads. A study indicates one third of the crews that are whizzes at installing new roofs on our homes and businesses are potential deportees.  The construction industry already is short an estimated half-million workers.

But don’t worry.  The incoming President knows who will replace all of these workers.  If he doesn’t, we’re going to tell him in our next installment.

It might seem bizarre and crazy.  It isn’t.  It’s just the new normal.

What’s Next: Part Two—The Looming Threat

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Greg Olson is a terrific historian from Columbia who has a deep interest in the 12,000-year history of the people who were here long before the Europeans showed up for commercial, more than religious, purposes to exploit, conquer, and subjugate them.  His newest book is a voluminous report on Indigenous Missourians; Ancient Societies to the Present. He presented part of his research in the July, 2021 issue of the Missouri Historical Review, the quarterly publication of the State Historical Society of Missouri.

He points out something few of us realize. When what is now Missouri became American Territory with the Louisiana Purchase Treaty, the United States did not really get very much. He wrote, “When Missouri was admitted into the Union in 1821, only three Indigenous nations, the Sacs, Foxes, and Osages, had ceded rights to any property inside the state. In all, it would take thirty-four years of negotiating twenty-two treaties with thirteen different Native nations before the United States finally established clear title to all the land inside Missouri in 1837.”

Remember that figure: thirteen different Native nations.

That’s where a possible threat to our thirteen commercial casinos could lie.

In October, 2021, the Osage Nation announced plans for a $60 million casino/hotel complex on 28 acres of land at the Lake of the Ozarks on land it claimed as ancestral lands, part of the territory covered by the Treaty of Fort Clark. An application was sent to the U. S. Department of the Interior for approval under the U. S. Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. The Osage Nation asked to transfer the land into a federal trust with tribal sovereignty rights granted, clearing the way for a casino that will be exempt from Missouri laws and regulations.

The defeat of Amendment 5 has no impact on the proposed Osage casino except that it eliminated competition from a commercial casino.

Editor Shannon Shaw Duty wrote in Osage Nation newspaper in September, 2021 that Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear already was looking for a second, similar piece of land to buy for construction of another Osage Nation tribal casinos. “Tell the people of the United States that this is our homeland, this is our legally recognized homeland. There are treaties in place that we did not fully agree with that drove us out of there and we want to claim those properties,” he said.

The American Gaming Association says the United States has 352 land-based casinos, 266 tribal  casinos, 66 boats and 50 racinos. Fourteen states have only tribal casinos. The states with the most tribal casinos are Oklahoma (140), Arizona (85), Minnesota (40), and Washington (35).

Although tribal casinos are not regulated by the states, they cannot operate without an agreement, or compact, with each state. Oklahoma has compacts with 35 tribes. Its model compact is at Microsoft Word – Model Compact.doc (ok.gov).

A summary of Arizona’s 24 compacts can be found at KNXV-TV, Phoenix’s website: https://www.ok.gov/OGC/documents/Model%20Compact.pdf

Minnesota’s compacts are at: Gambling – Tribal State Gaming Compacts (mn.gov) Washington’s compacts are at: Tribal gaming compacts and amendments | Washington State Gambling Commission.

Missouri’s commercial casino industry and other tribes likely are all paying attention to the fate of the Osage Casino at the Lake of the Ozarks. Given Missouri’s history of First Peoples occupation and the lengthy period of treaty-making with thirteen nations, it would not be surprising that success at the Lake of the Ozarks could trigger a push by other Native American Nations to build tribal casinos throughout Missouri in areas not tied to the Missouri and the Mississippi Rivers, a constitutional limit on the commercial casino industry.

Such developments, of course, would provide unwelcome competition to the existing casinos and could provoke significant developments in lesser-populated areas or other parts of Missouri untouched by commercial casino gambling. The situation is fertile for speculation.

Tribal casinos in the vicinities of Highways 36 and 61 would threaten the state’s smallest casino at Lagrange. A tribal casino at 36 and 63 would serve a large, unserved, part of north Missouri and would draw some business away from LaGrange and Boonville—which already might have lost southern constituents to the casino at the Lake of the Ozarks—and one at 36 and I35 would threaten the casino at St. Joseph. A casino at Highways 60 and I55 would threaten casinos at Cape Girardeau and at Caruthersville.

Only Kentucky and Tennessee of our surrounding states do not have Indian casinos. Iowa has four; Nebraska five; Kansas seven; Arkansas 2. Oklahoma has 143 Indian casinos operated by 33 tribes. The casino industry is considered the second-largest industry in the state. Revenues generated at Oklahoma Indian casinos is second only the revenues generated by Indian casinos in California.

How Native American Tribal casino gambling would mesh with cultural/religious concerns and regional economic needs could become a long-term storyline.

All that we have written in these two entries is entirely speculation.  But casino gambling is changing in numerous ways and the people of Missouri and those we send to the general assembly need to be aware that they will be asked to take actions of some kind—and those in the decision-making roles should understand where their responsibilities lie.

Amendment 2 might be just the start.

The Ones Most Interested  

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—and the places most damaged.

We’ve had three weeks or so to digest the results of the November 5 election.  We are going to offer some insights in the next few entries.

One of the amendments we voted this month proposed something that we’ve seen before—a statewide vote to force a city or an area to allow something the people there did not want.

That was Amendment 5, which would have forced the people living and working at the Lake of the Ozarks to accept a commercial casino in their midst.  Two areas of Missouri were involved: the area where a casino is proposed and an area fearful that it would be the next place forced to accept one.

We’re talking about the Lake of the Ozarks and Branson.

It might be instructive to see their thoughts about the sports wagering amendment and the casino-placement amendment. We looked at the votes in five lake counties and in five Branson-area counties.

Both groups wanted nothing to do with either proposal, sports wagering or a casino.

The five lake counties were 57% against sports wagering, Amendment 2, that barely passed statewide with only 50.074% of the votes (as of last night), a margin so small a recount can be justified if the losers want to pay for it.  The five Branson-area counties opposed it to the tune of 60%.

Amendment 5 was the issue that was most stark in its possibilities for these two areas and the message sent by these ten counties was more than no. It pretty much amounted to a “Hell, No.” Camden County rejected the proposal 10,621-14,375. Taney County swamped it 9,875-16,071.  Sixty percent of the voters in the five lake counties rejected the casino. In the Branson area, the rejection was even greater, 61.4%.

End result: People in those ten counties don’t like sports wagering but their people can do it if they want, but they’re sure don’t want them ever to do it in a local casino.

Both of these counties have promoted their areas as family-friendly tourism destinations.  Branson was worried that a Lake of the Ozarks casino would be the precedent-setter for a casino campaign in Branson. Amendment 5 would have forced one area to accept something the voters clearly did not want, and exposed the other area to a similarly unwelcome intrusion later.

Branson had a taste of this issue twenty years ago when voters defeated a proposal to put a casino next to the White River at Rockaway Beach.

How about counties that have casinos?  Amendment 3 failed in three of them—Cape Girardeau (46.4%), Lewis (Mark Twain Casino in LaGrange—46/7%), and Cooper (Boonville 48.5%).

This time, the casino industry spent ten-million dollars on a petition effort and an election campaign for Amendment 5.  Their efforts netted them less than 48% of the statewide vote.

In St. Charles County, the home of Missouri’s most lucrative casino, Amendment 3 got only 53.4%.

The spending on the Lake of the Ozarks proposal was pocket change compared to the huge amount invested in the sports wagering amendment. It took $41 million from the two biggest internet bookies to overcome the $14 million dollar opposition campaign financed by another bookie. The victory margin was only (as of last night) 4,360 votes out of almost three million votes cast.  The certified final results will be posted after the Missouri Board of Canvassers meets on December 10.  Presidential electors meet a week later. Congress is to certify the federal results on January 6.

The casinos will get their money back pretty fast.  The host cities of the casinos will lose millions because of the support their voters game to Amendment Two.

How much will they lose?  There are two factors.  The state tax rate on gambling (table games and slot machines is 21%.  Host cities get ten percent of that amount. In the last fiscal year, ten percent of the state gaming taxes collected provided $39,711,780 to the host cities.

But sports wagering will provide ZERO money from the state gaming tax, which will be only ten percent to begin with.  The State Auditor estimates casino revenues in the first five years will be $1,044,684,612.  The states ten percent will amount to $104,467,878, all of it earmarked for higher and lower education. None of it goes to the home cities. None.

If Amendment 2 followed current law, the casinos’ own home dock cities would split an additional $10,446,788.

But it’s worse than that.  If the tax rate on sports wagering were the same as it is on other forms of gambling—and the industry has never given a consistent answer why is should not be—the home dock cities would have split an additional $21,938,377 in those first five years.

The casino industry will recover more than one-half of the money it spent on the campaign by giving their own host cities the shaft. Permanently.

I can show you the math; the casinos wouldn’t.

The manifest shortcomings in taxes can only be remedied by adoption of another amendment. A campaign that focuses on those shortcomings and either corrects or overturns Amendment 2 might be considered, given the paper-thin margin of victory for sports wagering. It would be interesting to know the reactions of city councils in the thirteen host cities if they are ever shown these numbers. I doubt the industry, its leaders, or its supporting organizations have ever given these figures to the cities

The casino industry has never been put on the defensive at the Capitol or at the ballot box.

And maybe it should be, as we will discuss in our next commentary because what could be coming will be only worse.

SPORTS: GOING OUT IN STYLE AT FAUROT FIELD; IMPROBABILITY REIGNS IN KC AGAIN; HIGH SCHOOL FB SEASON ENDING

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(MIZ)—Brady Cook and Luther Burden III have played their last game at Faurot Field, a 28=21over Arkansas on a frigid, snowy day in Columbia. It’s the first time in recent memory that the Tigers have played in the snow. One report says there hasn’t been a regular-season snow game in the SEC since 1993. Cook and Burden scored the deciding last eight points in the game.

Yesterday, Burden announced he’s available in the NFL Draft.

The Tigers got ten points on their first two possessions but didn’t score on their next four. But the second half was different until late. Arkansas got a touchdown to go up 21-20 with 4:19 to go, leaving plenty of time for a Missouri com back, and Cook’s 30-yard bolt up the wide-open middle gave Missouri a 26-21 lead with 1:53 left.

With plenty of time for Arkansas to reach the end zone one last time and steal the win, the Tigers decided to go for two—-and Burden capped off his career catching a Cook pass for a two-point conversion.

(Cook and Burden are among eighty players named as pre-season candidates for the Maxwell Award that goes to the nation’s best offensive football player. Neither made the final three, announced a few days ago.)

Arkansas, needing a touchdown and conversion to tie, drove into Missouri territory as the clock wound down but a Hail Mary pass was knocked down with the clock hitting zero.

Missouri finishes 9-3 with a wining SEC record. Arkansas split its 12 games. Both are headed for post-season play.

(MIZBOWL)—Missouri will learn by next Sunday noon where it will play its final game of the season.  Bowl selections will be announced starting at 11 a.m., our time. The top six bowls will be reserved for the twelve teams that make the playoffs.

Here’s how that works:  The five highest-ranked conference champions will get automatic bids. The seven highest-ranked teams after that will join the field.  The top four seeds will have first round byes.

The remaining four will play on the fields of the higher-ranked team in each matchup. The six major New Year’s Day bowls will host quarterfinal games—Fiesta, Peach, Rose, and Sugar. The semifinal games will be played a week later in the Orange and Cotton Bowls. The last college football game of the season will be January 20 in Atlanta.

(THE POLLS)—Missouri’s win over Arkansas put the Tigers more solidly into the top 25, but a 9-3 team beating a 6-6 team is not worth a significant jump.  Missouri is 20th in the coaches poll and 22nd in the AP sportswriters poll.

Of passing interest is that UNLV is ranked 19th among coaches as well as sportswriters.  UNLV’s head coach is Barry Odoms, the immediate predecessor of Eliah Drinkwitz. UNLV (10-2) plays Boise State for the Mountain West Conference championship next weekend.    (ZOU)

(GOING FOR TEN)—A bowl win will give Missouri a chance to post double-digit wins in back-to-back years, something that has happened only once before. Missouri has had only five double-digit winning seasons in their 123-year history.

Missouri’s first 10-win season was 1960 when they went 10-1 although the only team to beat them that year, Kansas, later forfeited the game, for using illegal players, leaving Missouri with an 11-0 record (with an asterisk and a bowl win against Navy).  Missouri went 12-2 in 2012 and 11-3 in 2014.  Last year, of course, they were 12-2.

If Missouri wins its bowl game, Drinkwitz will move into a tie with Al Onofrio for most wins by an MU football coach. Onofrio was 38-41 in seven years. Drinkwitz is 37-24 in five years. He is only nine wins away from tying Warren Powers in fourth place. (ZOU)

(CHIEFS)—Are they the worst 11-1 team in NFL history or just in recent memory?  Or are they the luckiest 11-1 team in NFL history or just in recent memory.

Whatever. It’s better to be lucky than good sometimes and the Chiefs’ win over the Raiders Friday was definitely that.  Their propensity to give away leads and then to make a hairbreadth escape was on full display in that game. The Chiefs had one of the worst teams in the NFL this year down 16-3 in the third quarter only to see the Raiders take a 17-16 late lead. The Chiefs regained the lead on on substitute-substitute kicker Matthew Wright’s 31-yard field goal. He would kick the deciding fourth one in the fourth quarter; the chiefs got into the red zone five times against the lowly Raiders and had to settle for only one touchdown and four field goals.

Wright hit field goals of 25, 47, 35, and 32 yards while his counterpart for the Raiders, Daniel Castor missed from 56, 55, and 58 yards.  A three-and-out by the Chiefs left the Raiders with time to get close enough for a wining kick with the clock running out but Castor never had a chance  to finally hit a three-pointer when a premature center snap turned into a fumble by quarterback Aidan O’Conell that was recovered by the Chiefs’ Nick Bolton with the clock showing only zeroes.

Chiefs Quarterback Patrick Mahomes broke Len Dawson’s record for career touchdowns with his only TD pass of the game in the first half.  But he was again hampered by miserable pass protection from his offensive line, most notably from left tackle where the Chiefs this year have tried three guys and yanked them all during a game.  For the second game in a row, Mahomes was sacked five times. He also was pressured eleven times.

Mahomes let his frustration about the left tackle situation show in the postgame news conference although he was uncomfortable throwing anyone under the team bus. “I trust those guys to go out there and make it happen. I’ve seen those guys play, and they’ve played at high levels, and so, the coaches made a move, and I thought the guys went in there and did a good job. I’ve got to trust it—I think there was times I didn’t trust it there on that last drive, and if I can trust it and maybe make some of those throws, then we’re not in the situation we were in at the end of the game.”

Coach Andy Reid benched his latest disappointment at left tackle—Wanya Morris for the last two series of the game–and moved left guard Joe Thuney to that position and put Mike Caliendo in at left guard. He said after the game that Morris was “struggling a little bit” protecting Mahomes’ blind side. “It’s disruptive to any offense if their quarterback’s getting hit and not able to get the ball off…You’ve got to do better than what we did out there.”

Morris became the starting left tackle three games into the season after rookie Kingsley Suamataia struggled in the first two weeks of the season.

But the Chiefs, by hook or by crook, are 11-1, the first team to lock up a playoff spot, their tenth consecutive year in the playoffs. Only the New England Patriots, in the Tom Brady era, have more than that, 11.

(CHIEFS SCHEDULE)—Future Chiefs Hall of Fame Defensive Tackle has an axe to grind with the NFL schedulers and he’s going to grind it through the players association in the off-season.

He calls the schedule “awkward,” and argues teams should have a late-season bye week when schedules look like the Chiefs schedule this month:

Chiefs at Cleveland Sunday, December 15;

December 21, Texans in Kansas City;

Christmas Day, Chiefs at Pittsburgh.

After that they won’t play again until they finish the regular season on January 5 in Denver.

Jones prefers that teams facing that kind of a schedule have their bye week just before starting that kind of series of games.

(HIGH SCHOOLS)—High School Championship Weekend three days away with three games Friday and three more on Saturday at Faurot Field in Columbia. A seventh game will be played Saturday afternoon in St. Joseph on Craig Field at Missouri Western’s Spratt Memorial Stadium to decide the 8-man championship.  North Shelby (9-4) plays Archie 13-0).

Here’s the schedule for the 11-man teams:

Friday: 11 a.m., Class 4—Festus (11-2) vs. St. Louis Lutheran North (12-1)

3 p.m., Class 2—Fair Grove  (14-0) vs. Lamar (10-4)

7 p.m., Class 6—Nixa (13-0) vs. St. Louis DeSmet Jesuit (11-2)

Saturday: 11 a.m., Class 3—Seneca  (13-0) vs. Wardsville Blair Oaks (12-1)

3 p.m.,—Class 1—Adrian (12-1) vs. Hamilton Penney (9-4)

7 p.m.—Class 5—Jefferson City Helias Catholic (12-1) vs. Platte County (13-0)

The Missouri State High School Activities Association televises the games on its website.

Racing toward the end—

(INDYCAR)—One of INDYCAR’s most popular drivers is getting another chance to show his skills in a Formula 1 car with one team and might have a chance with a new American team that will join the series in 2026.

McLaren, the team he drives for in Indycar, has listed him for the last couple of years as a member of its driver development team and as a reserve driver although the team already has two young guns in its cars—Lando Norris and Oliver Piastri.  He’ll have another chance to run tests in the 2024 F1 car at the season’s wrap-up race in Abu Dahbi. Although his chances of moving into one of the present team cars for 2025, observers think he might be a candidate for the new Cadillac F1 team that starts competing in ’26.

O’Ward finished second in the 2022 Indianapolis 500 after fiercely contesting for the lead at the start of the last lap. A caution flag prohibited another charge for the lead on the final turns, leaving Marcus Ericcson in the lead at the checkered flag.

This year, he couldn’t hold off Josef Newgarden in the closing yards of the and lost by .34 of a second.

(NASCAR)—One of the next-gen drivers taking over in NASCAR says he’d like to follow Kyle Larson’s lead and run the Indianapolis 500 and the 600-mile NASCAR race on Memorial Day weekend, too.   But there’s a hangup.

Christopher Bell drives for Joe Gibbs Racing, which uses Toyota powerplants.  Toyota does not build engines for INDYCAR, although it once did.  Toyota is reluctant to have one of its drivers in a car powered by competing companies. Chevrolet and Honda provide engines for the INDYCAR series.

Toyota fielded cars in the INDYCAR and the CART series while open wheel racing was split into two warring camps. But it pulled out in 2002 after seven seasons. It has been fielding Camrys in NASCAR Cup races since 2007.

(FORMULA 1)—F1’s year comes to an end this weekend at Abu Dhabi. Max Verstappen wrapped up his fourth championship a couple of weeks ago.

(Photo Credit: Brady Cook (12)  and Luther Burden III (3) after beating Ohio State last year: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports / Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports)

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