Disrespect. Strange. "I-Thou."

This just won't go away.  I was hoping all this "kneeling" would disappear, but I guess not.  This AM I heard someone from the NFL (I don't know if it was a player or union rep or league official) say, "We don't mean any disrespect of the flag or veterans" or soldiers by kneeling.  Oh?  Has "mean" taken a place along side "feel?"

How's this?  Let's ask these same apologists about the mascot/nickname "Redskins."  No doubt, as I know from first-hand experience, defenders will say, surprise!, "We don't mean any disrespect......"  For the record, I think the term "Redskins" is a slur, is a pejorative.  It is offensive, in its origins and its use over time.  But that's not my point here, as I also think not standing for the National Anthem is also a slur, a pejorative.  It is offensive.

I have little doubt that those who defend "kneeling" would oppose "Redskins."  And I also have no doubt that, when questioned about the apparent inconsistency, the response would be "Oh, but that's different."  Of course it is; it always is.  Apparently respect has also become relative.

I see one NFL player, whose name was foreign to me, is donating the rest of his year's salary to establish some sort of foundation/scholarship for education.  The guy has already funded two scholarships for the U of Virginia in the aftermath of August's troubles.  I'm guessing that this NFLer is not a member of Black Lives Matter.  And I'm waiting for more and more NFL players to do likewise.  How long should I wait?

I hope this is the last I write about this NFL stuff.  I really hadn't planned to add anything to my previous comments, but when I heard "We don't mean any disrespect......"  I may have written something like this before:  If thoughts can have a profound influence on the world, we should be careful how we think.

Have you read the Robert Heinlein novel Stranger in a Strange Land?  It's about a man who was raised by Martians, on Mars, and returns to Earth as a young adult.  You can imagine the strangeness.  Sometimes I feel that way, a stranger in a strange land.

It seems I often don't recognize the world I live in, from many perspectives.  The differences of my youth, growing up and with the activities of 50 and 60 years ago, vs the lives of kids today are of different worlds.  Behavior of the young and not-so-young has devolved.  Standards, all sorts of standards, have been debased.  Writing?  Manners?  Discussion?  Television?  Morality?  Where to stop?  And, yes, I'm one of those, as Karen calls me, "old coots" who doesn't think these changes are for the better.

Here's one example.  A couple weeks ago, I was at a high school football game.  Numerous announcements were made over the PA system advising students from both schools to behave.  One group, well far more than one group, chose to disregard that warning.  Two administrators from one of the schools, as well as a group of parents, moved in to quell the misbehavior.  The students in this group, instead of behaving, grew more belligerent and obstreperous.  The language, the attitude, the everything was disrespectful if not worse.  It reminded me of "my world," years ago.  On one of those pretty wasteful "career days" at the high school, I hosted a lawyer from town.  During his talk, a student was acting up a bit, quite rude.  I walked behind the kid and gave him a little thwap on the side of his head.  After the presentation, and I couldn't tell if the lawyer was put out or not, he asked, "Can you do that?" that is "thwap" students?  I just looked at him and said, "The kid straightened up, didn't he?"  I could give many more examples and maybe will later this week or next.

But it's a different world, isn't it?  ...a strange land.

I hope that there are big donors behind this and this isn't coming from our tax money.  I think college football and basketball coaches are vastly overpaid.  What they make, at least from their universities, is obscene, really obscene.  Today's newspaper cited the salaries of the baseball and softball coaches at the U of M.  Over the course of the new contracts they signed, each will be getting $500,000 a year.  That' half a million dollars!  Do you think the physics or history professors earn that much?  I know, I know......  Chemistry labs don't attract spectators.

Richard Wilbur was a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry.  He was named the Poet Laureate of the US.  He died last weekend.  I was oddly moved by his passing.  Maybe it was because he died on the same date as my mother, 24 years ago.  Maybe it was because he was an alumnus of Amherst.  Maybe it was because his poetry gave me joy.  Maybe it was all of these.

Talk about "strange."  Perhaps it's just the nerdy me.  The other day I had an actual conversation that included Martin Buber ("I-Thou"), Paul Tillich, and other 20th Century theologians.  It wasn't a particularly long talk, but they came up.  Now that doesn't happen every day.