Wed

Sunday AM, I woke to 36 degrees and heavy frost, if not ice!, on the windshields of our cars.  Without gloves or hat, my running partner said, "You're a far braver man than I, Gunga Din."  It was chilly.  This AM, about half an hour earlier than my Sun run, it was 70 degrees, with near 100% humidity.  The air was so close/thick and we did have some brief thunder dunders before noon. Michigan is known for its quickly changing weather, but this seems odd even for the Great Lake State.

I've written about Thomas Sowell in the past. The man is not only brilliant, but filled with common sense.  Of course, he'll never get any accolades like Pulitzers, etc.  He's a black man who doesn't fit the norm. He's critical of things like Black Lives Matter, Affirmative Action, etc.  I'm not sure he's a conservative, but he's certainly not a liberal.

He had a great quotation a while ago.  "There are two vacancies on the Supreme Court."  This was after the death of "the great Antonin Scalia" and before the appointment and confirmation of Neil Gorsuch.  Sowell continued, "The other [vacancy] is Anthony Kennedy."  What a scathing criticism!  And it's right on the money most of the time.

I read a mass e-mail from a college president who was critical of education today.  Of course, much of his finger-pointing was at teachers.  It's not a secret I am critical of many teachers, who, frankly, should not be teachers or should be taught how to teach.  But I found it very rich, indeed, to read this guy making almost $1,000,000 a year criticizing teachers who make $40,000 or $50,000.  That he doesn't see the disconnect in that, the the rationale behind salaries, tells me the guy isn't quite as sharp as some folks think he is.

Here's a link to an article everyone should read, esp those kneeling NFL players and their sycophant (bobble head) owners and coaches.

https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2017/10/03/blacks-vs-police-n2389488  (You may have to cut and paste the link into your browser.)

It's by Walter Williams and, as usual, is brilliant and really can't be criticized, not rationally.   Here's a wonderful question he asks, Why are Trayvon Martin, Freddie Gray, and Michael Brown held up as heroes to so many people?  It needs to be answered, I think, and is at the root of much of the issue. Williams' training as an economist makes him almost immune to criticism, at least in rational discourse, one that is based on facts.  Thomas Sowell, as noted above, is the same.  That is, unless facts no longer matter.

Emerging from the Las Vegas tragedy is yet another example of "sloppy thinking" by many in this country.  Of course, the yelps and cries about Trump's restrictions on immigration from eight (Is that the number now?) majority Muslim nations were loud and omnipresent.  "We can't punish all Muslims for the terrorism of a few," the critics howled.  That these eight nations actively sponsored and harbored terrorists is/was not considered.  Still, it's some of the same people who now want to ban guns after Las Vegas.  Wait, I have a question to ask these who howled at Trump's restrictions.  Aren't you doing the same thing, punishing 99.9% of law-abiding gun owners for the actions of a very small deluded minority?  I know, I know......  "But that's different."  Of course it is; it always is.

I think I wrote about "Third Graders" the other day.  Maybe I give these television personalities too much credit, assigning them to third grade.  Today one of the talking heads (I don't watch enough television to know who it was) said something like this.  "I find it interesting that all or at least most of these shooters stop shooting after six or seven minutes," adding, "because he's killed or kills himself."  Hmmm......  Maybe he was just punch-drunk from being on the air too much the past few days.  Or, maybe not.