who speaks for reason? reason has no natural voice social media, not!
“… in the first place reason has no natural voice. Mob orators of the sort we have, the Boris Johnson sort, do not speak reason. When you get into that category, your task is to fire up the people with nostalgia, with anger. It’s almost unbelievable that these people of the establishment – Farage, for instance – are speaking of betrayal: ‘I’m betrayed by parliament, betrayed by government – I’m speaking to you as a betrayed person, and I’m a man of the people like you.’”
10 run 1st inning? grand slam in the 10th? You choose … zugzwang at the park!
Atlanta fans for once did not wake to the news that, once again, their team did not go down in flames. (Just what did Sherman start here?)
Because the Braves played at 4:30PM and it was all over by 5PM and Atlanta fans went to bed knowing what had happened to yet another pretty good baseball team.
Later that night, the Los Angeles Dodgers lost in the 10th inning on a grand slam home run.
Atlanta Braves brains considering zugzwang of Oct 9th
10 runs in the first inning or a grand slam in the 10th.
Nice symmetry of the number 10 and it is October 10th today.
This was also the 10th consecutive playoff series loss for the Braves.
Recently I have been made aware of the chess term, zugzwang.
A situation in which the obligation to make a move in one’s turn is a serious, often decisive, disadvantage.
In other words, you have to make a move but all moves are bad and most likely make the situation worse.
So many times in life fit in with zugzwang.
Almost of all sports is.
Tony La Russa once said, “There isn’t much I can do to win a ball game but there are a lot of things I can do to lose a ballgame.”
Or as one writer put it (it may have been Roger Angell), “Go to a bullpen filled with convicted arsonists?”
Zugzwang.
So to the original question.
10 runs in the 1st?
4 runs in the 10th?
Both win or go home games.
Would you rather have it be over almost before it started?
Or snatch victory from the jaws of defeat?
Give up 10 runs in the 1st?
Are you kidding?
On five hits?
Is that even possible?
Who does that?
Who can do that?
Well, besides any Atlanta team.
My Dad often said he liked his team to get a big lead and steadily pull away.
Or a grand slam in the 10th after being up 3 to 1 earlier in the game.
throughout your lifetime dollar amount, property that you have taken
Question 23 on the Gwinnett County (Georgia) Sheriff Department job application.
It reads:
23. If you had to place a dollar amount on the property that you have taken throughout your lifetime, what would that amount be? This amount should also include any theft from an employer, including, but not limited to pens, paper, other office supplies. Please provide the dollar amount below and describe the items taken. If this does not apply to you then list “N/A” as your response.
Successful candidates could receive a job offer that day, the sheriff’s office said.
Deputy sheriff jailers can start with salaries ranging from $36,451 to $41,791, depending on their education level and previous law enforcement experience.
Senior deputy sheriffs can earn a starting salary of $41,538 to $53,569, depending on the same factors.
It doesn’t say if you have to give back any of the property taken over your lifetime.
Fear as mystery unbearable to extreme immeasurable
As FDR said in his 1st inaugural address, “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.”
Big Bill wrote in Hamlet,
But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? (Hamlet Act III, Scene I)
George Bernard Shaw writes, “Fear will drive men to any extreme; and the fear inspired by a superior being is a mystery which cannot be reasoned away. Being immeasurable it is unbearable when there is no presumption or guarantee of its benevolence and moral responsibility.” (Preface to Saint Joan)
It goes far to explain today’s divisions in society.
We don’t vote for the best platform.
The best candidate.
The best plan.
We vote by what we fear.
We vote by what we are afraid of.
We vote by what we fear.
I don’t know if it was ever any different.
Whenever humans get involved with deciding the right path for human kind, count on humans to muck it up.
In his 1939 Christmas Broadcast, King George VI, the father of Elizabeth II (portrayed in the movie, “The King’s Speech”) quoted the poem, God Knowsby Minnie Louise Haskins:
And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And he replied: “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.” So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night
some thoughts, day after Jury Duty, angry bunch warning signs to see
I have been called for jury duty a half dozen times.
I have been on 3 or 4 panels but only one jury.
My co-jurors in the pool have always been good natured about our common situation.
And my co-jurors have always been VERY respectful of the process and the system we now found ourselves in.
We knew that their were rules, customs and even language that we didn’t understand or need to understand and we were all determined to see this through.
But not yesterday.
First there was an undercurrent of plain old, ‘I am in a bad mood and I don’t care’ in the jury pool room.
As the bailiffs worked to shepherd us into panels, there was little good nature as people had to move and sit tight together in assigned order.
When my panel made it into the courtroom, the mood, if anything, got uglier.
There were 21 of us to make a 6 member jury for a domestic violence case that would be held that afternoon.
During the voir dire process, some of my co jurors became, well, beligerent.
The prosecuting attorney asked for a show of hands if anyone had had an encounter with a Gwinnett County Police Officer.
All the hand shot up.
The prosecuting attorney then went one by one through the jurors asking them to describe their encounter and would it impact their decision.
It was like offering a place to take a stand and speak their minds to a bunch of people who had had no voice for too long and they had some official representatives of Gwinnett County who were going to hear what was on their minds.
When this was over, I was pretty sure the guy on trial was going to walk.
Then the prosecuting attorney asked for a show of hands of anyone who had experienced Domestic Violence in their families.
BOOM all the hands go up and again the prosecuting attorney goes one by one giving each person a moment to vent.
AND VENT THEY DID.
I wanted to cry over some of the stories.
Some were beyond belief.
Many were again indictments of a system that had failed them and these court people were going to hear about it.
Everyone had a story and never did the man in the story come out as the good guy.
When this round of answers was over, I knew that the guy on trial was going down and going down HARD.
Not to be out down, the defense attorney asked, “Do any of you feel you are a part of or know of a dysfunctional family situation?”
BANG up go all the hands and again, one by one, we get to describe why we felt that way.
By this time, bailiffs are passing out Kleenex and hugs are being exchanged between jurors.
It got to the point that the lady next to me said to the court, “Listening to all these stories, my family is nothing like that, just cussing and drinking and getting in each others business. You know, NORMAL DYSFUNCTION.”
What is Normal Dysfunction?
After yesterday, I feel I know.
And ON it went.
Somehow, 6 people were selected out this bunch and the rest of us were excused.
Outside the courtroom, tears and hugs broke out again.
I think the court was as relieved as we were to be able to leave.
