Down and out semi poet who is down and out in the Low Country of South Carolina after living in Atlanta which is not to be confused with the south, the old south or the new south. Atlanta was a global metropolis with all the pluses and minuses that comes with that. The low country, low because it is low, 8 feet above sea level, is not Podunk but once you get to Podunk, turn left. I try to chronicle a small part of all that through my daily haiku for you.
little value in survival if traditions do not survive
The very word “secrecy” is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings.
We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it.
Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions.
Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it.
And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment.
That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control.
And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.
What I wanted was that story that said who plays who in college football and which team is expected to win.
USAToday used to help me out with a story that listed the Top 25 games as picked by their 6 college football reporters.
Each pick was shown by the teams logo.
Took a long time for the story to load online but once it popped, there were all the logos in nice straight lines, usually all matching except when someone went a little crazy and picked, you know, Michigan over OSA last year.
That used to be the lead story on USAToday on Saturdays but this week, I had to search for and it wasn’t easy to find.
Scrolling through the New York Times, I came across and clicked on the article, College football Week 8 projected scores: Model predicts every FBS vs. FBS game, thinking this would tell me what I want to know.
Who wins, who loses today.
What I got was a game by game listing of something called the XMOV, the BETMGMLINE, the XTOTAL and the BETMGMTOTAL.
Most of the XMOV scores were negative numbers.
For a sport where points are score by 1,2,3 and 6, one game showed an XMOV score of -0.5.
I have no clue what I was looking at and in the case of the -0.5 game, does the means San Jose State should win or lose?
I just don’t know.
To paraphrase Grantland Rice, Its not whether you win or lose, but how you bet the game.
Sports betting and the immediacy of the world wide web and the constant presence of the hand held device is beyond and doubt a match up devised, produced and supported by Hell.
But is new or just its overwhelming presence.
Recently I was paging through the memoirs of Alistair McAlpine, a British businessman, politician and author who was an advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
His book is titled, Once a Jolly Bagman and he relates this story of his Father, who was addicted to betting on horse racing.
Television was not much favoured by my father until he discovered that not only could you watch the racing at one racecourse, but by changing channels you could see what was happening on another racecourse at the far end of the country. Within the year my father’s bookmakers at Henley-on-Thames had installed a direct telephone line to my father and his television. Shortly afterwards (undoubtedly aided by the large sums of money my father had spent with him), Sam Cowan, a bookmaker in the then small town of Henley, opened a London office. My father was rather pleased by his telephone, for his calls to the bookmaker were free and he could also listen to what was happening on a third racecourse via the Bookies Blower and the telephone link. The idea that our family should sit over their meals and ‘make’ conversation with each other came to an abrupt halt just before two o’clock on Saturday afternoon, at which time my father moved to the sitting room where he remained, cigar in hand, until five-thirty, switching channels, a telephone tucked under his chin, with the Sporting Life laid across his knees and his head and shoulders shrouded in cigar smoke illuminated by the flickering black-andwhite light of the screen. It is not hard to imagine how much his pleasure was increased when the broadcasts began to be in colour and he could spot by the jockey’s colours how a particular horse, neglected in the race reader’s commentary, was doing.
Dating this from the description would put in the early 1950’s but then he is writing about Great Britain so maybe this was in 1980.
But sports betting and the latest media has been matched up forever.
All through history, a match up devised, produced and supported by Hell.
Witness the movie The Sting where they convince the mark they can intercept horse racing results that are sent by the latest and greatest … telegraph wire.
I just wanted to know who might win today.
I don’t understand the over and under or the xtotal or xmov or anything like that.
Who might win.
Who might lose.
I am so confused.
Some where in my mind is a memory of a Bob Newhart show where Jerry the Dentist wants to make a bet on a football game and he explains the over/under and this and that of sports betting (back in 1978).
Bob listens and finally says something like … “tell you what Jerry. I’ll bet you a quarter.“
looking where program was, is, where we want to be was no other course
“Anything this significant just doesn’t come on a whim,” Kraft said. “You have to have scenarios, and we do. How is this going to go? What if this happened? But looking at where the program was and where it is and where we want to be as a program, I just felt there was no other course.”
Penn State athletic director Patrick Kraft on the firing on the Head Football Coach, James Franklin. (Quoted in the article At Penn State, James Franklin was standing on the edge of a cliff for years. Here’s why by Bruce Feldman and Ralph D. Russo, NYT 10/17/2025)
While the statement is about football, I can find application of that last bit in so many areas of todays life in America.
As voters, if we could only say, you have to have scenarios, and we do.
How is this going to go?
What if this happened?
But looking at where the Country was and where it is and where we want to be as a County, We just felt there was no other course.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
HEY WE CAN SAY THAT!
Last time I checked, The Constitution of the United States still starts: WE the PEOPLE.
Admitted I haven’t checked today and you never know what those folks might try.
Does anyone else remember the scene from Star Trek, The Omega Glory” (Star Trek: The Original Series, Season 2, Episode 23 – and when I say Star Trek, for myself, I am referring only to the Original Canon of 79 shows, broadcast September 8, 1966 – June 3, 1969) where Kirk explains the Constitution.
The society Kirk and the Crew of the Enterprise come across in outerspace is based on the US Constitution but some how the document was buried in that society’s history and the words were only allowed to be spoken by a very few revered leaders.
In a long speech Kirk grabs their copy of the Constitution and says:
“Hear me! Hear this! Among my people, we carry many such words as this from many lands, many worlds. Many are equally good and are as well respected, but wherever we have gone, no words have said this thing of importance in quite this way. Look at these three words written larger than the rest, with a special pride never written before or since, tall words proudly saying ‘We the People’. That which you call Ee’d Plebnista was not written for the chiefs of kings, or the warriors or the rich or the powerful, but for all the people! Down the centuries, you have slurred the meaning of the words, ‘We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution’. These words and the words that follow were not written only for the Yangs, but for the Kohms as well! They must apply to everyone, or they mean nothing! Do you understand?”
But looking at where the Country was and where it is and where we want to be as a County, We just felt there was no other course.
They must apply to everyone, or they mean nothing!
shrimping boats are late today swift mischief or stubborn sea lost beneath the tide
The shrimping boats are late today; The dusk has caught them cold. Swift darkness gathers up the sun, And all the beckoning gold That guides them safely into port Is lost beneath the tide. Now the lean moon swings overhead, And Venus, salty-eyed.
They will be late an hour or more, The fishermen, blaming dark’s Swift mischief or the stubborn sea, But as their lanterns’ sparks Ride shoreward at the foam’s white rim, Until they reach the pier I cannot say if their catch is shrimp, Or fireflies burning clear.
Nocturne: Georgia Coast by Daniel Whitehead Hicky as published in Poems of Daniel Whitehead Hicky by Daniel Whitehead Hicky (Atlanta : Cherokee Pub. Co.: Atlanta, 1975).
sea-born Venus, when rose from out her cradle shell wind out-blows, ’tis blue
Venus in the Morning Sky over the Atlantic Coast – You will have to take it on faith that its there, but it is
That, when I think thereon, my spirit clings And plays about its fancy, till the stings Of human neighbourhood envenom all. Unto what awful power shall I call? To what high fane? — Ah! see her hovering feet, More bluely vein’d, more soft, more whitely sweet Than those of sea-born Venus, when she rose From out her cradle shell. The wind out-blows Her scarf into a fluttering pavilion; ’Tis blue, and over-spangled with a million Of little eyes, as though thou wert to shed, Over the darkest, lushest blue-bell bed,
Except from Endymion: a poetic romance by John Keats, John, 1795-1821 (Taylor and Hessey, 93, Fleet Street: London, 1918).
I cannot drive to work without looking to my left and see Venus bright in the pre dawn sky and not relax.
Since the moment of Creation, Venus has been there as the morning or evening Star.
No one in history, whether they made the history books or not, has not, at some point in their lives, seen Venus in the sky.
Maybe they didn’t know it was Venus but there it was.
My Dad had a way of pointing out Venus whenever he saw it.
Or if we pointed out that bright star, he would correct us and say, “That’s Venus … It’s a planet”.
I do the same thing with my kids and now, my many grand kids.
And when I do, I think of my Dad and I think of the how long people Dads and Grandfathers have been doing this.
A quick look at history shows that not only has Venus been around a long time, the name Venus for Venus goes back a ways in recorded history.
The Greeks had two names for Venus:
Phosphoros (Φωσφόρος, “Light-Bringer”) when seen as the Morning Star.
Hesperos (Ἓσπερος, “Evening”) when seen as the Evening Star.
Eventually, Greek astronomers (like Pythagoras) realized they were the same object.
Later Greek writers used the name Aphrodite for the planet in line with mythology.
The Babylonians called Venus Ishtar, their goddess of love and war—very similar to Aphrodite/Venus.
Venus was extremely important in Babylonian astronomy and astrology.
For Egyptians, Venus was associated with goddess Isis and also sometimes Hathor.
Egyptians noted its dual role in the sky and had separate names for its morning/evening appearances.
In Chinese cosmology, Venus is called “Taibai” (太白), meaning the “Great White” star, it is associated with metal in the Five Elements (Wuxing).
Hard to see in the photo I snapped as I drove over the Cross Island Bridge this morning, but there was Venus.
As C. S. Forester writes in Hornblower and the Hotspur, ” Over there was Venus, shining out in the evening sky. This sea air was stimulating, refreshing, delightful. Surely this was a better world than his drained nervous condition allowed him to believe.”
I see Venus.
I think of my Dad.
I think of my kids and grandkids.
And I think, surely this is a better world than my drained nervous condition allows me to believe.
No Haiku For You 