My Children's 9/11

     This is Pearl Harbor. This is the JFK assassination. This is 9/11.

    And what exactly is this? I'll let Congresswoman Liz Cheney, the number three Republican in the United States House of Representatives speak: "We just had a violent mob assault the capitol in an attempt to prevent those from carrying out our Constitutional duty. There is no question that the President formed the mob, the President incited the mob, the President addressed the mob. He lit the flame."

    For only the second time in U.S. history -- and the first since 1814 -- a heavily armed violent mob invaded our nation's capitol. The first time, the British did it, and they burned much of the federal district. This time, American citizens brought violence, breaching and desecrating our seat of government, forcing the Secret Service to ferry away Vice President Pence to safety, and driving the entire House and Senate into hiding.

    Did BLM or Antifa mobs wreak such havoc today? No. Another prominent Republican, 2012 Presidential nominee Mitt Romney, Senator from Utah, put it similarly when he said, with remarkable succinctness, "What happened at the U.S. Capitol today was an insurrection, incited by the President of the United States."

    Mob. Insurrection. These are strong words, wielded by sober leaders only under extreme circumstances. And Cheney and Romney did not direct them toward radical socialists, communist revolutionaries, or other leftwing boogeymen. Just as the entire legislative branch and a major player in the executive branch of our government had had to flee as potential targets, they now pointed their ire at the incumbent President of the United States, the leader of the Republican party, Donald Trump, and his followers.

    Or, rather, his cult. Trump, having lost what (suddenly) outgoing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R - KY) described as an election that was "not unusually close," urged his more rabid followers to come to Washington, D.C., on January 6, the date assigned for the assembled houses of Congress to ratify the results of the electoral college. 

    Trump promised the cult a "wild" protest on this date. When the protestors arrived, he addressed them, repeating baseless claims that Joe Biden, RINO's, or the "Deep State" had stolen the election from him. "We will never concede," he bellowed, encouraging the cultists on toward the capitol, where they swarmed and then invaded.

    Proclaiming themselves "Patriots," the MAGA invaders waved Trump flags, including one that they raised on scaffolding after they removed the American flag from the pole. They also paraded around carrying Confederate flags, which the United States Army had never allowed into the Capitol during the bloody American Civil War. Even Nazi emblems made an appearance.

    With various members proclaiming loyalty to the Confederate States of America, the Third Reich, and Donald Trump, the cult identified themselves forever with a trifecta of losers whom patriotic Americans have eventually defeated. And make no mistake: those who love our Constitution and our republic must never mistake these losers for patriots, for they are not.

    Amazingly, only one person, a protestor, appears to have died today, and not many more face arrest. Given the many "selfies" taken during this seditionist stunt, more arrests should follow. More yet will likely lose jobs and friends back home once more people learn of their perfidy. Some will regrettably gain new friends among their armchair followers.

    As I type these words, the Senate has just finished the roll call in response to the objection to Arizona's electoral votes. The measure has failed, 93 - 6, with a good half dozen senators who had announced their support retracting it. 

    Six senators, however, maintained and voted for their opposition to accepting the duly elected Arizona slate. Among the six were 2024 presidential prospects Ted Cruz (R - TX) and Josh Hawley, (R - MO). New senator Tommy Tuberville (R - AL), the former Auburn University football coach, and three others joined them.

    Cruz and Hawley must next face their voters in 2024. Hawley may have bigger problems before then, however. Shortly before the riot began, Hawley posed with his fist raised in support of the mob. This gesture earned Hawley the ire of his local newspaper, which declared he had "blood on his hands." 

    Expulsion from the Senate is not beyond the realm of possibility. Hawley deserves it. He has brought dishonor on his cause, his party, and his state. Patriotic Republicans must denounce his refusal to slough off his habit of caving to the cult by ostracizing him and stripping away any plum committee assignments. They may also refuse to let him rejoin the caucus in the new congress. 

    During the insurrection this afternoon, several networks called the final of two Georgia United States Senate races that went to January runoffs, declaring  Democrat Jon Ossoff the winner. This election, in my home state, will elevate Charles Schumer to Senate Majority Leader and hand the gavel for every committee to a Democrat.

    Sending Josh Hawley into senatorial exile, if not expelling him, will take a step toward restoring the reputation of the Republican party. The 42 Republicans who voted against the objection he would have sustained took an important step tonight. Expulsion would be another and, with the Governor of Missouri a Republican, would not cost the GOP the seat.

    A graver, more immediate problem lies in the damage lame duck Donald Trump can still do in the two weeks he has to quack or whine or bellow. Ambitious Republicans, non more so than Ted Cruz, have lived in fear of Trump and the MAGA cult for four years. That must stop.

    The executive and legislative branches have two potential solutions at their disposal, impeachment and conviction and the 25th Amendment. Our entire country's safety and our political future will be more secure if the Vice President, the cabinet, and the congress remove this demagogue from office tomorrow rather than January 20.

    Patriotic Americans will be watching. And the only flag we'll wave will be Old Glory.

    

Phil Niekro, 1939 - 2020

 Atlanta Braves fans from the 1970's have not only long memories but also many regrettable ones. The 1979 Braves, with 66 wins and 94 losses, continued a miserable streak of finishing dead last in the old National League West. Every 1979 Braves pitcher with more than eight decisions had a losing record, including closer Gene Garber's atrocious 6 - 16 mark.

If you were thinking about attending a home game, you could be excused for checking the projected pitching matchup for the evening. Odds were almost three in four that the Braves' starter would be one of the six not named Phil Niekro who would combine for only 29 victories that year.

If 38-year-old manager Bobby Cox could figure out a way to run 40-year-old starting pitcher "Knucksie" Niekro out to the mound, he would. Who could blame him? Gripping the ball with thumb and fingernails, Niekro started 44 games, finishing 23 of them, facing 1,436 hitters and winning 21 while also losing 20. 

No pitcher since has started as many games, faced as many batters, or lost 20 while winning 20 or more. Pitching for a team that led the National League in errors committed, Niekro even won the Gold Glove for fielding. He defined the term workhorse. 

The 1979 season was not typical for Niekro or anyone else, for that matter, but it is illustrative. Pitching for mostly bad team in Milwaukee and Atlanta, Niekro compiled 264 of the his eventual 318 victories, now 16th all time, that eventually took him to Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Not every Braves team that employed Niekro was bad. The Braves managed to win the National League West twice during his tenure, in 1969 and 1982. Niekro's combined record for those two seasons was a splendid 40 - 17, a winning percentage of 70%. 

During the final week of the 1982 season, when the Braves edged the Los Angeles Dodgers by a single game, the 43-year-old Niekro threw consecutive shutouts at San Francisco and San Diego, even contributing his seventh and final career homerun during the 3 - 0 victory against the Padres. He then carried a 1 - 0 lead into the fifth inning of 1982 National League Championship Series Game 1, before the rains came and helped wash the Braves right out of the playoffs.

When Niekro's skills finally diminished, at age 48, to the point that he was no longer a major league pitcher, the Braves signed him to a contract for the final game of the 1987 season. The last time Knucksie wore number 35 for the Braves, the fans would have advance knowledge and would turn out to cheer, an option fair weather fans had too often declined during his remarkable career. 

That early fall Sunday afternoon, Niekro tossed the final three of the amazing 5404 innings he threw at baseball's highest level. No one in the past century has pitched more.

As long as Phil Niekro pitched, a full three decades at the professional level, including 24 in the Major Leagues, it seemed as if he should stick around forever. This remarkable man, born (appropriately for a knuckleball pitcher) on April Fool's Day of 1939, succumbed to cancer at 81, yet another casualty of 2020.

Those of us who saw Niekro at his best, cutting loose the pitch that hitter Rick Monday said seemed to giggle at batters as it went past them, will never forget how ridiculous he made so many opponents look. I can even remember hearing Ernie Johnson, Skip Caray, and Pete Van Wieren describe such moments over WSB radio. 

The Braves, for all their futility during the 1970's, did manage some great moments. Hank Aaron hit homerun 715 for them, Ralph Garr won a batting title, and future superstar Dale Murphy showed his first flashes of greatness. Only Phil Niekro played alongside and darned near outlasted all of them. 

Phil Niekro never won a ring, never won the Cy Young Award, and but for a moment of magnanimity from manager Tom Lasorda and closer Bruce Sutter during the 1978 summer class, might never have pitched in an all star game.

His credentials are Hall of Fame solid, however, and his character, endurance, and patience even more so. Every colleague who ever spoke of him offered only praise. Now, Phil and brother Joe, who combined for more wins that any other brother duo in Major League history, are having a catch somewhere in celestial fields.

And if catcher Bob Uecker is right, each waits for the other's best pitch to stop rolling before picking it up and sending it back along in fluttery flight.

"Little Richard" Penniman, 1933 - 2020

Around 2010, when I picked up my oldest son at high school, he described an assignment for American literature. He had to give a persuasive speech on a topic of his choice. I thought for a moment and said, half jokingly, "You should write about how Little Richard was the most important cultural figure from the second half of the Twentieth Century." I followed up with, "Remember: everyone stole from Little Richard," a comment the entertainer had made many times.

Notice I've said that I was half joking. "Little" Richard Penniman, born in Macon, Georgia, in 1932, may have come across as the self-described architect of rock and roll, but through the boasting, makeup, and whining emerged a towering personality and talent. Although I had long since lost the ability to think of Little Richard without envisioning Keenan Ivory Wayans's "Shut up" over-the-top impersonation from the influential and irreverent In Living Color, I could nevertheless remember praise heaped upon my fellow Georgian by Bob Dylan, James Brown, Prince, and others. He was, indeed, a seminal figure.

You have to be of a certain age to remember a time before Little Richard and his influence on music. Penniman had already achieved some fame before "Tutti Frutti" vaulted him to stardom in 1955. With respect to rock and roll, Little Richard was, as Beach Boy Brian Williams tweeted upon learning of his death, "there at the beginning." Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones added a couple of hours later, "There will never be another!!! He was the true spirit of Rock'n Roll!" If you doubt Wilson and Richards, consult your oldest relatives and ask them to describe rock music before Little Richard. They can't because it didn't exist. Not only was Little Richard there, but he laid some of the cornerstones. He really was the architect after all.

The day my son delivered his speech at school, the student before him spoke about The Beatles. This lad claimed that the lads from Liverpool were the most influential cultural figures of the age. Then, my son's turn came, and one of his points was the direct, acknowledged influence Little Richard had on The Beatles. The classmate conceded the point graciously, vicariously presenting one legendary group's homage to another even greater legend.

Little Richard had a point that not everyone whom he influenced acknowledged as much, and that may have been less larceny than ignorance. Much of what we simply take for granted in rock music came from Little Richard. I can't blame him for occasionally resenting the flowers he wasn't delivered while still alive.

"Everyone stole from Little Richard" may sound like a complaint from an aging icon. It was more than that. It was a simple reminder of Penniman's unique place in the annals of at least one musical genre. Elvis may still be "The King," but without Little Richard, there would not have been a throne for the man from Tupelo to occupy. RIP, Little Richard.

When Your Pre-Existing Condition Is Mental Illness

          We already know how anxiety and depression plague students during this pandemic. Students are not alone, however, in battling huge mood swings or even ongoing mental illnesses under these trying circumstances. Faculty are affected, too. Consider my case. 

I am a professor of English at Perimeter College, the two-year arm of Georgia State University. A 57-year-old man in good health, I have none of the pre-existing conditions, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, or lung disease, which would mark me at high risk for Covid-19.

            The CDC does report, however, that an underreported risk group includes people with “mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety.” Boy howdy, does this description apply to me.

            My “walking papers” state that I have Severe Depression --- In Partial Remission. This condition is debilitating enough. What is driving me crazy (not literally, but frighteningly close), however, is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder with hypochondriasis.

            OCD will eventually affect 2.3% of American adults, many of whom will interpret the slightest rash, cough, or elevated temperature as a sign of impending death. Some will race to their doctor’s office, asking to be tested for every disease imaginable.

            Cancer and AIDS have long occupied the mind of people with OCD. Consider this: a person can have cancer or HIV for years while being completely asymptomatic. These diseases lurk, hiding away inside the host’s body. A person obsessed with having scraped against a sharp surface has to wait weeks or even months before taking a reliable screening test for HIV. For some cancers, such as pancreatic, we still have no good tests.

            Now I face the coronavirus, which I can track in real time as reports of its spread dominate the news. The New York Times reports that “four out of five people known to have had the virus had only mild symptoms,” while most people who have transmitted the virus have not even known they had it.

            These numbers will comfort most. They terrify me. My OCD brain glosses over the mild symptoms and notes only those who are infected but unaware.

            If I go to the store, even when I practice social distancing, I may mingle with untold coronavirus carriers. Worse yet, I could have the virus myself and be completely asymptomatic and unaware. And even if a test would reassure me (it wouldn’t), I can’t get one.

            In my house, we don’t own a thermometer, largely because I wouldn’t be able to trust myself not to use it compulsively. Thank goodness I don’t have allergies! I can only predict with fright how the sick part of my brain might interpret them.

            I am fortunate enough to have had my OCD diagnosed nearly thirty years ago, to live largely without stigma, and to have access to excellent behavior health care. Millions with OCD don’t.

            None of this is to say, however, that if some of the worst projections about Covid-19 come to pass, my preexisting condition will not drive me to seek a much more advanced level of care than I need now or that our psychiatric facilities won’t already be overwhelmed by other sufferers. Meanwhile, I can only follow the CDC's advice on how to cope with the raging pandemic and try to reach out through means such as this article to those who, like me, face the particular risks that mental health or neurological disorders bring.

            Don’t let it be the case that if the virus doesn’t get you, the worry will. Let’s meet up, by phone, computer, or both, and help each other get through this pandemic.

Jones's Political Maxim #8

Never give (insert name of person you like) a power you wouldn't trust in the hands of (insert name of person you detest).

Matthew Warren and Matt Drudge

Matt Drudge has posted this headline:"SHOCK: Son Of CA Megachurch Pastor Rick Warren Commits Suicide..." Why does "SHOCK" belong here? Would Drudge or anyone else post "SHOCK: Son of ... Dies of Cancer" or "SHOCK: Son of ... Dies of Stroke?"

According to numerous sources, Matthew Warren suffered from a horrible, debilitating, and sometimes fatal disease, depression. We should no more be shocked when a megachurch pastor's son succumbs to this disease than when anyone else's child does. This young man died of a terrible disease, nothing more or less.

We people of faith have come a long way in acknowledging that mental illnesses truly are diseases, not character defects. Matthew Warren, may he finally rest in peace, reminds us we still have much work to do. I pray for the day when schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, severe depression, and all mental illnesses are managed, if not cured.

Matt Drudge's "SHOCK" belongs to a bygone era. At this unspeakably difficult time, the Warren family deserves our love, not a blogger's shock.

Five Stages of Male Life

Every male who lives to old age goes through five stages.

Stage One: Childhood -- My heroes are immortal.

Stage Two: Adolescence -- My heroes are heroes.

Stage Three: Adulthood -- My heroes are human.

Stage Four: Middle Age --  My heroes are heroes.

Stage Five: Old Age -- My heroes are immortal.


These stages raise the question: do children have the wisdom of the old, or do the old have the naivete of the very young?  Or are the two really the same?