Standard Standard

 If you were to listen to James Brown, you would believe that "It's a Man's Man's Man's World."*

Then again, if you had never heard of James Brown, you might reach this same conclusion. One need only look at the sports pages to get a sense of just how correct the Godfather of Soul really was. 

Dianna Russini, a sportswriter, was photographed holding hands with the head coach of the National Football League's New England Patriots, Mike Vrabel. 

Big deal? Well, to hear Page Six, the celebrity gossip column of the New York Post, tell it Ms. Russini and Mr. Vrabel who are both married to other people, may have been canoodling with one another shortly before those photos were taken. Or shortly after. Consenting adults, but consenting adults the public might recognize. 

At least Coach Vrabel, anyway. 

One could make the supposition that this indiscretion was a way for Ms. Russini to give herself a share of the spotlight that comes with the aforementioned canoodling with the coach of the NFL's second place team from last year. 

But would it be worth losing your job? 

Dianna Russini resigned from her position at The Athletic, the New York Times' sports magazine. Those in the know, which seems to be quite a few individuals given the nature of this story, suggest that she resigned just ahead of being fired after a rather abrupt investigation into the alleged canoodling. 

You can bet that the NFL got straight to work investigating their employee, but you would lose that wager not unlike the way the Patriots lost the Super Bowl back in February. After what seemed like minutes of consideration, the powers that be at the National Football League chose to send the following message regarding Vrabel's conduct: "None of our business." 

How and why is this not the very same issue for both individuals? I need only point to the Godfather of Soul.*  The picture painted here is not a pretty one. But it is very familiar. 

Sadly. 

Necessary Trouble

 "Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence, and hence our form of government." And so began Clarence Thomas' speech to students at the University of Texas this past week. He continued, "In my view, we must find in ourselves that same level of courage that the signers of the Declaration have so that we can do for our future what they did for theirs."

Historical note: forty-one of the fifty-six signers of that Declaration owned slaves. This ratio improved somewhat by the signing of the Constitution, with just under half of the fifty-five delegates keeping other human beings for their servitude. There were no black signers of either document. 

In 1967, Lyndon Johnson appointed the Thurgood Marshall  first black man to the Supreme Court, paving the way for (checks notes) Clarence Thomas. What I am about to suggest is not a truly revolutionary statement, but I believe that Clarence was a DEI hire. 

Not that there is anything wrong with that. I believe that our country has spent most of its history trying to live up to its ideals. The fact that our nation was thirteen years shy of its one hundredth birthday before the slaves that were owned by those who could afford them were freed. It would be another hundred years before a civil rights lawyer named (checks notes) Thurgood Marshall argued a case in front of the Supreme Court called Brown vs The Board of Education that the flawed notion of "separate but equal" was unconstitutional, paving the way for integration of our public schools. 

Lots of paving going on in these here United States. 

That paving has been done thanks to progressive voices for the past two hundred fifty years. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." You know who wrote that? A slave owner.  Some would argue, myself included, that this promise is still unfulfilled, especially for women, who are still waiting for some sort of constitutional mention of their rights being equal. 

So Clarence Thomas believes that progressivism is a threat to America? I suppose he might want to sit down for a heart-to-heart with Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first African-American woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court. I would expect this would be a lively debate. 

Keep fighting those good fight, and remember the words of John Lewis: "Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America."

Broken

 The village was strained last week. 

Returning from Spring Break with our principal on sick leave made us all step up our game. The expected brain drain that occurs in teachers and students alike had to be ignored so that we could push on into the last two months of school. 

The first day back was calm enough to give us all hope. A number of key student absences gave us confidence in what lay ahead. 

By Tuesday afternoon, we had discovered that we were facing a larger challenge than we might have expected. Behavior that had been quietly suppressed on that first day came pouring out in what we can only assume was a reminder to us all that we are teaching expectations. Therefore we cannot expect those expectations to be embedded. 

Not yet. 

For those of us who believed that we might just slide into our time-tested routines and start preparing our little darlings for that big push called standardized testing, fate had something different in store: Business as usual. 

Fourth graders who had a week to forget their primordial feuds reignited their petty conflicts primarily for the purposes of missing class time. Kindergartners who had mastered the art of waiting in line returned to their habit of making a swirling mass of arms and legs, unable to move without screeching or touching one another. A wave of amnesia struck most of the school when it came to remembering one another's names as well as those of staff members who were tirelessly attempting to maintain some order in the chaos. 

By Friday, everyone had used up most of their best selves. Many had stuck around for the Thursday night STEM gathering, with parents, teachers and students celebrating those science-y things that look like fun but carry hidden learning. Catapults. Paper airplanes. Robots. The Eat, Learn, Play Bus rolled onto our campus at lunch on Friday, and it was all we could do to get our young charges lined up to receive their bag of books and vegetables. 

But we made it. 

Hopefully the weekend will be kinder to us all heading into next week. 

It's elementary. 

Faith

 Business as usual. Three more people were killed in a US strike on an alleged "drug boat" in the eastern Pacific. The more colorful description came from our Department of War: This operation was “a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations, (T)hree male narco-terrorists were killed during this action.”

Congratulations to those of you who had 177 on your dead alleged narco-terrorist bingo card, a number that have been killed since this administration has started their policy of shooting first and looking for survivors later. 

Couple this with the prayer led by Pistol Pete Kegsbreath who brought his order together this past Wednesday: So the prayer is CSAR 25:17 and it reads, and pray with me please, “The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who in the name of camaraderie and duty shepherds the lost through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother, and you will know my call sign is Sandy 1 when I lay my vengeance upon thee. Amen.” 

If you're looking in your King James for this verse, you might look for Ezekiel 25:17: “And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.” You know, from the Old Testament. It probably sounds familiar to those of you who have seen Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. Samuel L. Jackson's character, Jules, may have taken the time to memorize Sam's version: “The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord, when I lay my vengeance upon thee.”

It would seem as though Pete has been cribbing not from the Bible so much as a fictional hitman from a thirty-two year old movie. 

It should further be noted that it was just a day before that when Jaime Doucet Vance said, "I think it’s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.”

Perhaps he should stick to matters more suited to the Vatican, such as appropriating quotes from Quentin Tarantino movies. 

Sunsihne!

 So, once upon a time Jimmy Carter had solar panels installed on the White House. That was back in 1979, when the technology for solar energy was still in its early stages. “A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.”

Sadly, it didn't take a generation for judgement to be called in. In spite of Jimmy's whish that “the power of the sun to enrich our lives as we move away from our crippling dependence on foreign oil,” the guy that came in behind him in succession had the panels torn down as part of "roof repairs." They were not replaced. The tax credits initiated by the Carter administration were removed at this same moment in history. Ronald Reagan's attorney general, Edwin Meese, felt that solar panels were not an image befitting of a super power. 

Those same solar panels sat in a warehouse in Maine, where they stayed even during the "Green" Clinton/Gore administration. In 2006, one panel made it down to the Carter Library in Atlanta, delivered there, fittingly, by two students in a vegetable oil-powered vehicle. Somewhere in the middle of all that mess, George HW Bush had a nine kilowatt, rooftop solar electric or photovoltaic system, as well as two solar thermal systems that heat water used on the premises.

In 2013, President Barack Obama had new solar panels installed, with the goal of generating six kilowatts. We might call this a "nice start." The one hundred thrity-two room White House is still far from being energy efficient. 

One might imagine that the current resident tore down an entire wing of the mansion to make the People's House more energy efficient. But that would be an imagining, since the proposed replacement for that structure has a great big roof with no plans for any sort of solar array. 

For a bit of history, gasoline during the crisis point of Jimmy Carter's presidency was one dollar per gallon. Adjusted for today's economy, that would be three dollars. Most of the planet would like to see three dollars a gallon again. 

Just like most of the planet would like to see renewable energy become the path to energy independence. I don't have any evidence of a war being started because of solar energy. 

Now there's a bright idea. 

Church

 "Your flag flyin' over the courthouse

Means certain things are set in stone.

Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't"

It was this moment that I looked over at my son, taking in Bruce Springsteen singing "The Long Walk Home" for us and a few thousand of our new closest friends, imparting the words of a father to a son. I had made peace with the fact that he might spend a little time peering at his phone, but not at this moment. He was staring directly down at the stage where that beacon of hope and dreams was giving us his all.

There were tears in his eyes. 

And I felt so lucky to be there with him. 

After the show, walking with his mother and I, he explained his phone distraction. "I was looking up the songs on Wikipedia. I wanted to remember them and what they were about." 

And I felt so lucky to be there with him. 

Like those moments when we walk under the trestle in Disneyland, stepping out onto Main Street, and looking over to see his smile. In these moments, I can see our bond. I used to worry about dragging my family out to see Bruce Springsteen each time he would come around on tour. 

I'm not worried anymore. All the magic that is carried in those songs, in those words, they have been passed along. They live on in his heart and his soul. 

In the row in front of us, a younger version of the father and son dynamic was taking place. Dad was up, singing and dancing, then sitting down briefly to cajole his son into the music of this night. I silently wished them the same success I have had. 

We have had. It's gonna be a long walk home, but at least I know we'll be going there together. 

Worst

 “I will not enter into debate. The things that I say are certainly not meant as attacks on anyone. The message of the Gospel is very clear: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’” This is how the first U.S. born Pope chose to respond to the vitriolic attack by the convicted felon currently taking refuge in the ruins of the White House. 

In case you missed it, the convicted felon took to his social media to insist that “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.” This came from the same account that threatened to destroy an entire civilization a week ago, and had also included an image that depicted the aforementioned user in white and red robes with one hand resting on the forehead of a sick man while the other emanated light. 

So, first of all, posting horrendous things online is not a crime, per se, but one does wonder how it is that any respectable social media platform would allow that kind of ugliness. 

Unless the social media platform in question was being run by a thirty-four time convicted felon. Currently holding steady at twice impeached, adjudicated rapist owner of a social media platform named, as ironically as possible, Truth. 

What is Truth? Some would tell you that truth is that which corresponds to reality. Given the haphazard nature of the Orange Worst's views on the world including sharks, windmills and other living things, one could probably make a case that he wouldn't know truth if it walked up and handed him a subpoena. 

The Vice President, Jimmy Duggan Vance, is a practicing Catholic who already had the distinction of killing a Pope. He is currently trying to figure out how his eternal future will be affected by serving a boss who seems to care so little about other humans and peace on this plane. The sins of the Orange Worst are already written down, annotated and ready for release as soon as the Department of Justice starts following the law signed by (checks notes) the Orange Worst. 

Meanwhile, any actual judgement awaits for the Worst. 

Have your popcorn ready.