The Angry White Marty

"Nothing like people creating a strawman of your positions and who you are, and then declaring you "disgusting", "anti-woman", "racist", "xenophobic", and "homophobic" based on that false idea of your beliefs."

I copped this statement from my son Charles because he hit the nail on the head. I am thoroughly disgusted that so many friends and family apparently believe I'm a demon when I'm not. I am a principled, albeit imperfect human being (most everyone is), who simply believes my philosophy best for everyone, as most everyone else does about theirs if they are intellectually honest. I firmly believe that principled American conservatism is good for all: women, minorities, homosexuals; every single one of us. And I want the best for every single one of them.

If you want to engage me, engage me. But name calling however indirectly is not engagement. It is insulting and nothing more, and degrading even to your own beliefs.

I am an educated middle class aging white male who voted GOP. I am not a demon. Stop calling me one.

Election 2016

Well, I cast my vote. I suppose that means in some quarters that I support World War III. Tonight I will substitute in a curling match in Canada, a game which I agree to play last week.

Right after my friend asked me to play, he then remarked that he hadn't thought of it being Election Day here in the States. I replied that I didn't mind curling for him as the distraction would be nice.

I do wonder if the border will be slow this evening. I intend to be home by 10 or so, and will likely watch a lot of the elections returns. Don't expect any live blogging; I don't intend to pay that much attention.

Who will win? I still believe that Clinton will win the White House but the GOP will keep Congress. I can live with that.

I'm just glad it's all coming to an end. Tomorrow will finally be just another day.

Two golf balls

Life does change. Once I had one golf ball to keep all my life. Now I have two.

The first one is from my only birdie. The Eighth hole at Dearborn Hills with Zeke, my Uncle John. August 1991. On the green, 180 yards, with a 4 iron. Then one putt, a hard left to right, about 25 feet. Drained it. Still have that ball.

Yesterday I earned my only other keeper. I hit it off the tee and it drove hard to the right. Way to the right, so that it flew into the next fairway over. My buddy Ron yelled, "Fore!", as he should have. The ball landed, took a hard bounce, grazed the brim of my friend Kevin's hat, whistled by my other friend's (yes, I have two friends) Scotty's ear, and landed in the basket of the golf cart they were in.

But the story does not end there. I ran over to them, apologizing profusely. Then I asked for my ball. Hey, those things cost, like, three bucks apiece. I wanted it back.

They said they left it off the fairway behind them. Jerks. So I walked back to the spot where it lay, and picked it up. And carelessly written on it, in indelible ink, was a message. It read: 'Nice try Marty, but we're still alive. Scott and Kevin'.

I'm keeping that ball.

All stove up

There are things which folks say which I never understood. Pops used to say, when disgusted at some tool or whatever, "Whoever invented that ought to be beat through Hell with a beefheart". O-kay.
Grandpa Joe used to talk about being all 'stove up' I never got that one either. Until recently.
What he meant, speaking in general terms, was that when you had been active for a while and then sat for a while, your muscles tightened up. You became stiff and sore; achy. It might take a few steps before you were walking comfortably because your joints weren't limber.
Well, after curling the last two days I came to realize exactly what Grandpa meant. Immediately after each game I felt okay, but well after each game as I stood up from the table after a pint and a bit to eat, my back was tight, my shoulders sore, my knees aching, and it took about 15 steps to walk fully upright comfortably. I was all stove up.
Sometimes you just have to experience something to get it.

The Cubs, the Tribe, and the Lions

I'm happy for Cubs fans, and sad for Indians fans. Baseball has a way of playing the fates; as most of you probably know. Chicago and Cleveland respectively were the longest without a championship in their league. Now the Indians own the distinction of longest drought in the game. I was personally rooting for the Tribe. Now I content myself that, just maybe, they'll begin to get the attention that the Cubs and earlier Red Sox held for so many years.

At least the Tribe made the big show this year, and the Cubs had been the team to go the furthest without even appearing in their sport's championship. Now, unless I'm miss my guess (I'm being too lazy to try and look it up) are our own Detroit Lions. They haven't been in a Super Bowl at all, and last appeared in the NFL Championship in 1957. That's the year my parents got married. I blame them.

So the long cold winter begins. To quote Rogers Hornsby, the old baseball great for among others, the Cubs, commenting on the offseason, "People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring."

I hear ya Roger.

The minority vote

The minority vote is taken for granted by the Democratic Party. That's a shame, when you consider how badly that group has played minorities over the years.

Democrats want to take credit for all the advancements in civil rights in recent times, indeed for any and all forward movements on civil rights in our entire history. Yet at the least, the GOP deserves more consideration in what it has done in that area over time.

It was a Republican President, Dwight Eisenhower, who sent federal troops to insure that minorities were allowed in public high schools. Going back much further, a Republican, Abraham Lincoln, did the most to free the slaves. Say what you want about what he said at the time, his actions were what ended slavery.

How quickly too we forget the Dixiecrats, Democrats who opposed civil rights legislation. They opposed the many rights which minorities now, rightly, have. It is interesting to note that Republican support of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was actually stronger than Democratic support. As a Party, the GOP voted for the Act by about an 80% - 20% margin; Democrats, while overall in favor of it, voted at about a 62% - 38% figure. Indeed, not enough Democrats in the Senate voted for the measure to have passed it on their power: only 46 Democratic senators voted aye. That means that it would not have passed the Senate without Republican support at a time the Democrats were the majority party by a tremendous number in that chamber, 67-33.

Why don't we hear about this in schools and the media? Because it's not history that they like. It's not the narrative they want to drive. It makes conservatives in general and Republicans in particular look too good. So much for the objectivity of the journalists and educators.

When you throw in the fact that many minorities are social conservatives, one cannot help but conclude they need to rethink their ties to the Democratic Party. But when the race card gets played, well, we'll see who's actually played.

Curling: the good sport game

Living in Detroit, it's hard not to develop an appreciation for things Canadian. One of those things for me is the sport of curling, which I learned to love while watching it on the CBC (that's the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for you neophytes) when I was in my teens. I've played for years now. It's not merely that the game itself is grand, but in playing I've discovered that, of all sports, curling is the most sportsmanlike and curlers are great people. At all levels.

As an example of this, I'll never forget a curling tournament in Windsor, Ontario I had quite a thrill: I was lucky enough to meet David Murdoch, a Scot who has now been the World Curling Champion twice: in 2006 and 2009. He was walking right past me and I said, somewhat stupidly I'm sure, "You're David Murdoch!" He replied, with huge grin, "I am! And who might you be?" We went on to talk for several minutes about curling as a friend snapped a picture of us. Too cool.

Though he was the only one I was fortunate enough to meet up close and in person, it demonstrated that virtually every curler at virtually every level is very approachable. The reason is simple: every curler is an ambassador for the game, and even the top ranked ones know and accept that. They are sportsmanlike on the ice yet, more importantly, sportsmanlike off the ice.

Murdoch could blown me off. He unfortunately had a poor tournament and there's a degree to which I would have cut him slack had he been terse in our meeting. His team had been eliminated by that point, and at 11 PM on a Friday who could have blamed him if he simply wanted a pint or two to drown his sorrows, as many of us may want at the end of a bad week ourselves. Yet he wasn't short or snippy. He was quite gregarious, and generous in giving my friend Ron and I the ten minutes of his time that he did.

Curlers are ambassadors for the sport. I'm not saying that there aren't athletes in other sports who think likewise and approach their game that way. Yet it certainly is a feeling which could be more widespread, and it certainly doesn't seem as ingrained in others as it is with curling and curlers. But the bottom line is this: in promoting the sport we are promoting the attitude which goes along with it. We are promoting the attitude of sportsmanship and fair play and proper consideration of others.

Curlers are a brotherhood, sisterhood, sorority and fraternity all in one. If we can promote that among ourselves it might eventually spread to everyone we come in contact with in our daily lives. It's hyperbole in this case, perhaps, but what's so bad about that?