11.23.2025 – when no leadership

when no leadership
there are no rules, no rules there
are no boundaries

When I was a kid there were college athletic conferences that were set up regionally across America.

They had to be regional as the teams would travel to wherever the colleges were located for games.

In the early part of a college football season, you might see a team from up north play a team from down south or out west but once the season got underway, the focus was on your team and your conference and those other teams in your conference.

At the end of the season, the best teams were invited to holiday bowl games that were the highpoint of local festivals.

And when it was all over, sports writers would get together and select a mythical best team in the nation or ‘National Champion’.

This provided the fans with a chance to argue out the selection the entire off season.

This allowed fans to exult or complain.

This allowed for some really great football in the late fall.

But the grown ups got involved.

The idea of a mythical national champion was horrific to some folks when it was so obvious that it could all be settled on the field.

It worked for the NFL.

With its 32 teams, 2 conferences, and its 4 divisions and set schedule.

And it worked for state high school playoffs with, in the state of Michigan, its 8 classes, and 8 divisions (and the fact that schools started playing a week before labor day so a nine game schedule and 5 game playoff led to championship games on Thanksgiving weekend).

So why not college?

Why not?

The plan that worked in the NFL and in High School would only work if the existing college platform was blown up.

But you can’t do that as the fans won’t like it.

So why let’s just have the final top two teams selected by the sports writers play a game and be done with it?

But you can’t do that as the fans won’t like it.

So why let’s just have the final top four teams selected by the sports writers play a game and be done with it?

But you can’t do that as the fans won’t like it.

So why let’s just have the final top twelve teams selected by the sports writers play a game and be done with it?

Okay lets try this, how do you select that top 12?

That’s were we are.

And this is what sports writer, Matt Hayes wrote in his USA Today Article, It’s blowout city in mid-November. And I blame the CFP anarchy:

“... because no one knows what in the world the College Football Playoff selection committee wants. Or how it works. Or what it takes to earn one of the coveted seven at-large spots in the 12-team field.

The committee chairman (whoever it is this week) says things like strength of schedule, game control, efficiency, net rate success and any of the many other nonsensical metric garbage it feeds the breathless looking for answers.

The whole point of this selection committee exercise was to eliminate decades-old crutches used to pick the national champion, or the teams who play for the national championship.

Yet here we are, stuck in the past, with the same tired process shrouded in something called game control. And net YPP (yards per play).

And any other nonsense they can shovel at us to avoid admitting there’s no leadership. No rules, no boundaries.

And apparently, no need for the head-to-head metric. Or the one metric that should be used, but isn’t: Who have you beaten?

With one week to go in the season and teams fighting to for their win lost records we got watch games that included:

Georgia 35, Charlotte 3
Texas A&M 48, Samford 0
Alabama 56, Eastern Illinois 0
Auburn 62, Mercer 17
South Carolina 51, Coastal Carolina 7

Oh boy!

Did anybody ask if the fans would like it?

I am told I am old or older and not with it with what the young football fan’s want.

Did they enjoy this weekend?

Do they enjoy an endless chatter of talking heads offering up as many opinions as any political talking head offers up about the current state of affairs.

Do they enjoy the clouds of data and numbers thrown up in a gray fog.

This has all made the sport MORE enjoyable, watchable, embraceable by the fan?

I am reminded of the quote of General Patton in the movie where the actor George C. Scott says the line, “God, how I hate the 20th century.”

I am also reminded of an old quote about Little League Baseball attributed to Hall of Fame Pticher and Manager, Bob Lemon, when he said, Baseball was made for kids, and grown-ups only screw it up.

11.22.2025 – that time of year when

that time of year when
yellow leaves, none, or few, hang
shake against the cold

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare.

If you traveled the length and width of Beaufort County, South Carolina you might be hard pressed to find more fall color then is this little patch of trees near where I live.

Beaufort County is 40 miles long and 10 miles deep and covers the coast of South Carolina from Savannah to Charleston.

At high tide, 50% of Beaufort County is underwater.

The salt is in everything and there is not a lot of color you can get out of salt.

Growing up in Michigan, the local forests are a poor player for fall color.

Having lived in Atlanta for years, the local forests are just as lacking for spring color.

The simple pond in the picture has the very real chance to be home to both alligators and water mocassians but it sits in the middle of housing development surrounded by an lawn that invites you to bring a picnic lunch and sit and enjoy your surroundings.

If you do that and aren’t bother by the alligators or snakes, either the fire ants or the sand gnats will eat you alive.

So why do I live in this salt marsh swamp?

That one line there captured by Big Bill.

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold.

Its the end of November.

It is forecast to be in the low 80’s and we are off to the beach.

Now my favorite fall colors are the numberless shades of blue in the sky and in the water of the Atlantic Ocean.

In me thou see’st the twilight of such day

This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,

11.21.2025 – dead voters stolen

dead voters stolen
fraudulent ballots secret
computer servers

Federal investigators have been interviewing multiple people who are pushing unfounded claims that Venezuela helped steal the 2020 election from Donald Trump, the Guardian has learned.

While there were a variety of conspiracy theories that helped fuel Donald Trump’s 2020 “Stop the Steal” movement – dead voters, stolen, fraudulent or forged ballots, and secret computer servers in Germany – the purported influence of Venezuela was always a central claim. It asserted that electronic voting in the US was secretly controlled by the impoverished regime, both by President Nicolás Maduro and his deceased predecessor Hugo Chavez.

Not only was it bizarre on its face, but a judge in Delaware ruled it false in 2023, and Fox News, Newsmax, and OAN later paid a total of hundreds of millions in total damages in defamation claims. At heart, the theory was that Smartmatic, which had the contract for electronic voting machines in Los Angeles, and Dominion, which ran voting in many other parts of the country, had been created or influenced by Venezuela to fix elections.

From the story, Trump’s DoJ investigating unfounded claims Venezuela helped steal 2020 election by Aram Roston in the Guardian.

On the day when I left home to make my way in the world, my Daddy took me to one side.

‘Son,’ my Daddy says to me, ‘I am sorry I am not able to bankroll you to a very large start, but not having the necessary lettuce to get you rolling, instead I’m going to stake you to some very valuable advice.

One of these days in your travels, a guy is going to show you a brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken.

Then this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the jack of spades jump out of this brand-new deck of cards and squirt cider in your ear.

But, son, do not accept this bet, because as sure as you stand there, you’re going to wind up with an ear full of cider.

Damon Runyan from his musical, Guys and Dolls.

Of course, I have to consider, had the current guy in office won in 2020 … he wouldn’t be the current guy in office today.

Never would have heard of the current VP.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Also growing up in the shadow of Chicago and the original Mayor Daley, I am reminded of the joke of how Daley was in boat with 2 guys and the boat was sinking and there was one life jacket. The three guys vote and Daley wins by 7 votes.

11.20.2025 – telling myself, I

telling myself, I
was impressed, had to be some
impression in it

Impressions of Sunrise over Hilton Head, 11/20/2205

Impression I was certain of it. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it — and what freedom, what ease of workmanship! A preliminary drawing for a wallpaper pattern is more finished than this seascape.

Louis Leroy’s review of the painting, Impression, Sunrise, was printed in Le Charivari on 25 April 1874.

Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise (1872)

According to Wikipedia, While the movement and the painting initially garnered controversy, Monet’s Impression, Sunrise gave rise to the name and recognition of the Impressionist movement, arguably exemplifying more than any other work or artist the Impressionist movement as a whole in style, subject, and influence.

Driving to work this morning I could see the sunrise.

I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it.

11.19.2025 – dolphins had always

dolphins had always
believed far more intelligent
for the same reasons

Sunrise over Skull Creek with dolphins mucking about unseen – but I know they’re there.

Adapted from the passage:

“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”

From The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams (New York : Pocket Books, 1985).

I had a ride to work this morning so instead of defending myself from drivers who are intent on killing me, I was able to look out the window.

When you ride to work in the Low Country of South Carolina you get to look out the window at water.

You get to look out the window at water and look for dolphins.

Sometimes you spot one or two or more as they muck about in the water having a good time.

They have such a good time that just to see them makes you feel better.

And sometimes, when I get a ride to work I can look out the window and see dolphins.

There are worse places to ride to work.

I got to thinking about dolphins.

They do not labor or spin.

They spend the lives not knowing about borders, taxes, politicians, jobs or NFL Referees.

You know what?

I do believe that they ARE far more intelligent than man.