It was painful, as a Bears fan, to watch Chicago fight back against the Washington Commanders on Sunday, only to lose on a last-second touchdown via a "Hail Mary" pass. Likewise, I know Yankees fans were as disappointed in Friday's walkout grand slam by Dodgers' veteran Freddie Freeman as L.A. fans were elated.
It's always tough to be on the losing ends of these things, but you have to be glad they happen. For one thing, they might happen for your team one day. For another, they are reminders that you can never give up, right to the end.
And most of all, they are good for the game.
People will be talking about that grand slam for decades, and kids will be reenacting that Hail Mary on playgrounds at recess for a long time to come.
But not every last-ditch effort is so positive.
Kamala Harris's closing pitch to voters is that Trump is Hitler. The false Atlantic story; the hoax that Trump's Madison Square Garden rally was a Nazi reenactment; the media talking points that Trump is a "fascist" -- it's all just desperate, and a sign she believes she is losing.
It's also a terrible way to go out. Even if she wins, she will -- much like Biden with the "very fine people" hoax -- have destroyed her own mandate by calling half the country Nazis.
It's also bad for the game.
Hillary Clinton did the same thing in 2016, and poisoned the minds of her own followers, to the point where they lost their sanity when Trump won, and began tearing the country apart -- Russia collusion, 2020 riots, etc. -- for years.
If you throw a "Hail Mary" pass and you fail -- well, then, good try. But if you trash half the country in an effort to win an election, it's worst than bad sportsmanship and you really ought to be disqualified from holding public office.
The story of Noah is familiar; the details, less so.
Noah is often seen as an ambivalent figure. He was righteous -- but only for his generation. What was his deficiency?
One answer suggests itself: knowing that the world was about to be flooded, he built an Ark for the animals and for his own family -- but did not try to save anyone else or to convince them to repent and change their ways (the prophet Jonah, later, would share that reluctance).
Abraham, later, would set himself apart by arguing with God -- with the Lord Himself! -- against the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, saying that they should be saved if there were enough righteous people to be found (there were not).
Still, Noah was good enough -- and sometimes, that really is sufficient to save the world. We don't need heroes every time -- just ordinary decency.
Hi all -- as I noted last month, I'm going to be closing down my Locals page, at least for tips and subscriptions -- I may keep the page up and the posts as well, but I'm no longer going to be accepting any kind of payment.
Look for cancelation in the very near future. Thank you for your support!
An interesting weekend -- one of the last of Daylight Savings Time -- in which there is much to celebrate, much to contemplate, and a bit to worry about.
The Gaza peace deal is shaky, but holding, after the living hostages returned; the shutdown is still going on, with no end in sight; the China trade war is heating up; and the confrontation with Venezuela continues to escalate.
The "No Kings" protest was a dud, despite the media's attempt to inflate it. What I find fascinating is that the Democrats have basically stolen the rhetoric and the imagery of the Tea Party protests, circa 2009. They claim they are defending the Constitution -- just like the Tea Party did.
On the one hand, this is good. How wonderful to have a political system in which both sides, bitterly opposed though they are, articulate differences through the Constitution -- and not, as in so many other countries, outside it.
On the other, this is sheer hypocrisy for the Democrats. Not only did they malign the Tea Party as ...
