Which WOLF are You Feeding?

I'm enjoying a very pleasant start to my 68th birthday and later will partake of some beautiful friendship and fine food.  At the day's end, I plan to sip a little very special Single-Malt Scotch (yes, in capitalized initials due to my love of these amazing spirits), because my son & family sent me a gift card usable only at a store that specializes in a wide array of liquors including dozens of single malts.  I will stop there during my travels today!  I can already practically taste the smooth flavor of fine Scotch to come later.

But one of my emails this morning carried this forward and I simply had to address it:

Native Americans have a story of a grandfather walking with his grandson.  The boy asks the old man why there is hatred, evil, violence and broken promises in the world.

The grandfather replies. "The answer is within.  Deep inside each of us is a fight between two wolves.  One is evil.  He is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt.  The other wolf is good.  He is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.  This fight between the two wolves is going on inside of you and inside of everybody."

The grandson thinks for a moment and then asks his grandfather "Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one that you feed."

It occurs to me that there has rarely been wisdom such as this passed down to youth, much to our shame and gradual decline in character as a species.  

Hopefully we can all feed our good wolves today; mine is hungry.   

Well, I Did It!

Somehow I'm filled with the thrill of accomplishment when all I did was to remove an irritant from my daily life.  But let's face it, how often do we manage this kind of positive step?

My previous post was about fanaticism and on the spur of the moment I tossed out a simple thought while speaking of my disgust with a contact on my facebook account.  That thought was "just un-friend the whole website."

So now you might call me a fanatic also, but all I am is old and cranky, easily frustrated by a few things - such as daily email messages to check this or that notice that is pending.

Today I did it!  Over the year (or maybe three?) that I was a participant in that "social" media, I found it useful not at all and quite often the notices in my emails and some of the posts I did eventually see were downright irritating.  I suddenly asked myself the straight-forward question: Why would I invite and encourage a daily irritant in my life?  Aren't there enough of these that we cannot control?  While musing on my thought of un-friending the website, I tried to recall a specific unquestioned benefit I had realized from my having joined the facebook world.  Couldn't do it.  Oh, it was nice being able to look at the photo album of a grand-niece's wedding, to which my brother had to guide me to locate.  But he could have sent me a direct email with a few pictures attached and his sharing this highlight of family life would have been just as well served. 

What I began to realize, aside from the fact I was forever deleting the incessant notices that I was expected to rush to check out, was that the whole social media claim itself was a little weak for my taste.  Much of what began to be shared was anti-social behavior, and whenever I decided to respond to anything - even when I could figure out what was worth it and how to reply - it was usually something that mildly upset me to deal with.  I am not by nature confrontational and so many entries on that site needed rebuttal if they deserved attention at all.  It finally just got to be much more exhausting than I had the energy to address.

So not to be stymied like the cowboy in Brokeback Mountain, I looked at that mass of comments and questions, entries from far-reaching places and many folks I've never met, and said, Facebook, I CAN quit you!  And forthwith, I deleted my account.  Took me a while and quite an effort because as many observers know, I never was completely capable of navigating that confusing site, but I found the right place to click and I clicked.  Now I feel a weight has been lifted!  My world is lighter because it is less demanding of my personal attention to someone's birthday or another new baby somewhere, or to someone's goofy little cry for attention, to someone else's proverbial slap in the face that needed a return jab that hopefully might "slap some sense into him," and so much else that made that site, to me, not very sociable.  More irritant than entertainment; more demand than delight; more revolting than refreshing.

So long, Facebook - Hello sense of relief!

FANATICISM

My first heading for this was to be, Right-Wing Fanaticism, but it is a simple truism that those folks don't hold the entire franchise on fanaticism and I repudiate fanatic tendencies in general.

Facebook has become a bit more of a pain for me recently, though I still have almost no attachment to the site and rarely check in there.  Some near-acquaintance from my youth sent a "friend" request some weeks ago and I, as usual in my non-discriminating manner, accepted.  Since then, I haven't opened my profile without seeing piles of political crap directed toward our president and I notice that other former friends and/or acquaintances of mine are shown to have "liked" the bullshit.  Today I finally cracked and wrote a simple comment stating that I don't appreciate the filling of my pages with that fanatical trash and I'm sorry if anyone or everyone else I know happens to "like" it; I emphatically do not.  I do very much hope this man "un-friends" me.  Good riddance!  Or perhaps I will simply un-friend the website itself.

Ever notice that radicalism - fanaticism - does fall more readily into the hands and minds of right-wingers?  As I stated earlier, they aren't alone in this capacity, but I am absolutely confident that there are millions more bad jokes and cruel slurs aimed at liberals by conservatives than is the reverse phenomenon.  Can you recall a constant stream of invective and brutish jokes being hurled at the previous resident of the White House?  I don't think there were many at all, in comparison.  And if anyone ever deserved ridicule while in office, it was that imbecile who was an embarrassment to our nation.  Much worse, he was destructive to all that this great nation had come to stand for, from our founding until 2001.  Even Tricky Dick Nixon was far to be desired over that sorry excuse for a political leader, yet most of us who felt that way quietly suffered for eight years without constantly throwing verbal grenades at the clown.  Today I will bluntly say anything a damn well please about the ignorant prick, but for eight years, all I could do was rush to grab the remote whenever his impudent face came on the television screen.  At least muting him was a slight relief to me.

It occurs to me that many of the folks who are labeled "Liberal" and "Progressive" are a bit more educated, perhaps more intelligent, certainly more civil in their beings.  Conservatives seem to me to have one over-arching concept of living in society: Get mine while I can, however I can, wherever I can - the rest be damned.  And anyone who doesn't think my way isn't worth the air he breathes. 

Yes, I do know some people precisely like this.  Pity.

Prophecy for Fun

The very concept of prophecy has long been relegated to my misguided youth, but today I just felt the desire to use the term once more.  I will make a prediction - a prophecy - that I can check back on for the next five to six years and enjoy my long-haul approach to fantasy sports.  My way of seeing the fun, anyway.

Many of my golfing buddies have varying slants on the career of Tiger Woods and many of them adjust as the seasons roll by.  Occasionally someone has to eat crow due to his past loud personal statements made at this time or that of Tiger's amazing six years as the top golfer in the world or during his three years of struggle on and off the course following his marital difficulties.  My own assumptions have always been (since the phenom first began to dominate the game about fifteen years ago) that he is already the greatest player of the game and will almost surely be recognized as such by practically everyone at some point.

I was sure in my own mind (and said so publically without being loud and bellicose) during his worst times in the last few years, that Tiger was far from finished winning tournaments and would return to the top spot in the world rankings before he moves over to the Champions (senior) Tour after turning fifty.

Following the most recent tournament ending last Monday, Tiger is in second place in two categories of measuring professional golfing success: he is seven behind Sam Snead in total career tournament wins and four behind Jack Nicklaus in winning what we call Major tournaments.  (Only four of these are played each year.)  The majors are the most watched and seem to define a golfer's true measure of strength and prowess; Jack is considered by many fans to be the greatest ever to play the game.

My prophecy:  Tiger Woods (now 37 years old) will be number one in the win record before he turns 40 years of age and will surpass Jack Nicklaus to become the number one Major winner by the time he is 43.

So there.  Check out my predictions over the next few years.  And one day, probably all will have to admit that Earl Tiger Woods is the best golfer ever.  And I doubt anyone will overtake him in my lifetime.


On another topic - Why has MSNBC's Hardball commentator Chris Matthews not taken advantage of this highly unlikely coming spectacle of brother meeting brother in coaching the Superbowl football teams, by at least one time adjusting the opening line of his show to:  Let's play Harbaugh!

Long Live Our President

Watching on television the second inaugural of President Obama fills me with two vastly competing emotions.  Even more emotional strings are tugged, but the two overwhelming tugs are these:  Pride in our nation for having the capacity to elect a man of high intellect and the potential for true greatness; Fear that this man of our people may not be allowed to fulfill his great work ahead.

My thorough enjoyment of seeing this leader in action is always guarded because of the theft of my innocence on a November day back in 1963.  No one can ever feel completely safe in our society.  So much hatred and misguided zeal come into play and weigh on the unbalanced minds of some of our fellow citizens.  One madman can destroy much of what otherwise could be a beginning of the powerful rebuilding of our nation.  Shades of Lincoln accompanied so much of our President's speech on Monday, but my mind couldn't totally shake the foreboding that also creeps in when thinking of what greater good Mr. Lincoln could still have done for our Union, had not a madman stolen life from this great leader.  We probably would not have been hampered for a century in our development of civil rights, and we may not have had to witness the death of yet another strong leader at the hand of another madman in 1968.  And still another in that same year.

Make no mistake, the eventual history of our society will treat our sitting President with the glowing terms he so richly deserves.  It simply frightens me that so often, true greatness is feared, hated and sometimes cut short by the myopia that surrounds us.  Fortunately a cutting short of this man's time in office was not done at the ballot box, but there are so many radical people who would feel that a high calling could be fulfilled at the point of a gun.

So my great hope is that the security details are all completely effective and that Mr. Obama will be ever cognizant of his need to take as few chances as necessary in doing his important job.  It is my further hope that one day this statesman will be as effective and as active in his post-elected office position as is our former President Clinton today.  So much more accomplishment could be ahead for Mr. Obama and for our nation's betterment if he is allowed to continue using that amazing intellect until he is quite elderly.

Long live Barack Obama.

Assault Indeed!

On January 19, I can offer another Happy New Year to you, however for me it is still a guarded re-entry to the land of the living and active.  Even today, my internal jury is still out as to whether I should chance going out tomorrow for a relaxed eighteen holes of golf in 80 degree warmth here in California.  Reason for "guarded" re-entry?  I felt well enough after a five-day cold and sore throat in December to get myself up and out for a quiet and brief new year's celebration; then beginning January 2nd, my body rebelled in all respiratory related areas and only yesterday was I able to speak clearly with enough volume to be heard a few feet away.  Still today, if I break into a laugh, I will certainly break into another fit of coughing that racks my body almost as strongly as it did a week ago.  And for many of those days and nights, my cough was dangerously close to causing long-term damage to my system.  On the worst night, I came to a partially awake hallucination that I had died during the previous attack, so it was thoroughly frustrating that I was still able to suffer another!  Soon I will go in for a physical and will discuss with my doctor the concerns I have for that potential damage.  (Yes, I will consider a shrink, too!)

'Nuff of that stuff - I'm here today to say, "I'm here today!"

The heading of this post was not a reference to the cold/flu assault on my body, but on the same assault all Americans are dealing with right now - the assault on logic and common sense.  Our national political leaders have acted truly in a strong leadership role to ask all citizens to be reasonable and sensible about curbing violence perpetrated by gun-wielding mass murderers in our midst.  Yet the radical elements among us want to press for the right under the second amendment to have any and every type of weapon available to anyone who wants to arm himself.  Can anyone actually see this as logical?  Reasonable?  I'm pleased that polls show that something north of three quarters of our citizens say, "No."  (And I don't even want to meet anyone who says, "Yes.")

The real assault being waged now is on our national peace and integrity by those aforementioned radicals.  I was noticing the chinks in the armour of the NRA that are being revealed by the polls and the highlighted words of Bush-41 who ceremoniously resigned from membership in the NRA over their harsh stances back in 1995, and the strong appeal by the GOP's god, Ronald Reagan when he supported the ban on assault rifles.  So I began to think perhaps there exists an association of more reasonable gun owners who can live with the idea that protecting the right to bear arms includes living within sensible guidelines.  And perhaps this kind of organization could launch a concerted campaign right now to pick up new members who are sick of the way their NRA national representatives are going so far to the radical side that their words and actions mis-represent their base membership.

Good luck with that!  My Google search revealed only (so far) groups who sound even crazier and promise to be "not so compromising" as the NRA!

Radical fools are committing the ugly assault on the whole human species.  Even being a pacifist, I must admit that it occurs to me that all such radical fools should be invited to move into a walled (with bullet-proof dome) playground called Rad-Land, equipped with an unlocked free arsenal of every type of hand-held weapon ever devised and an unlimited supply of ammo. 

HNY

Yes, it would be logical to assume I would have posted something since Dec, 23rd.  The fact is, since the 26th, I have been connected to my bed and crawling to the bathroom.  Can't eat, can't cough - though every fiber of my pain riddled body makes me try to cough - can't sleep; just cover it all: I CAN'T.

My desire has been to post something in the worst way, and this appears to be covering that!

At least the rest of 2013 has to be a fabulous improvement - unless I get better soon and die peacefully.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, everyone!