Huh? What?

Well, that’s a heckova way to start a new week. WordPress has gone wonky on my machine, so I guess I got some work to do.

Let me know if it’s goofy or not on your device, cause it’s ok here on my phone.

1. Thanks, see you soon, I hope!!

 

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Sometimes the Good Die Young

It’s funny how our lives develop. When I was in sixth grade, dad asked me out of the blue, whether I wanted to continue in the township school I was attending, or switch to the new consolidated one, next door. He didn’t attempt to influence my decision in any way, although he did mention that they were going to have a football team. 🙂

Well, if you looked at me, even then, it was pretty obvious that basketball wasn’t my sport, but football might well be. That’s what I saw in the mirror as well. It was a pretty easy choice, really, and academics did enter into it, new chem labs, and all new stuff in the shop (that I would only manage to find 6 weeks for in high school).

But football was important too. The striving to be the best, the physical conditioning, and especially the teamwork Intermural sports are probably one of the best features of American education.

Then that fall, dad came home on Friday with three tickets to a Purdue Game. Then, as now, Purdue was kind of a spotty team. Any given day, they could beat the best in the nation, but you could be pretty sure this was not that day. Len Dawson was long since graduated and Bob Griese was a few years in the future. (Yep, I saw him play four times in college).

And that is how I became a Purdue fan and has a fair amount to do with how I became a Purdue Alumni, as well. My grades weren’t bad, and a fair number of people said I was smarter than the grades indicated. That’s certainly possible, high school bored me silly. So I did the sensible thing, I applied to the school my sisters attended, Valparaiso University, the one my brother in law attended, Purdue, and another local school, Notre Dame.

Rather a bit like kicking the can down the road, all accepted me. Purdue won, not least because it was affordable, being the Indiana Land Grant college. My BIL, a Purdue civil engineer, said I could do the work of an engineer, but would never make it through school. Truer words were never spoken. I didn’t, and I’ve done the work for 40 years.

Probably a lot of stories much like this, about Purdue, and other Universities, all over the world. I’m nothing special, after all. But some are.

If you watch college football, you likely saw the Purdue – Ohio State game last fall, where Purdue ran all over the number 2 team in the country. If so you heard something new. Purdue base chant for more or less ever has been “IU Sucks” always appropriate given our feelings for that place down south. It wasn’t heard that night though, it had changed to “Cancer Sucks”. All due to one man.

That man was Tyler Trent, he was a twenty-year-old sophomore, who had to withdraw from his beloved Purdue, and died shortly after Purdue’s bowl game.

Hammer and Rails says it this way:

Coach Brohm also stopped by that evening, and even though Tyler was in the middle of his second cancer fight, his story took off from there. In 15 months he would participate in the Iowa Wave, work for the Exponent covering Purdue’s NCAA Tournament run, continue his fight against cancer, and inspire a nation. When Purdue stunned Ohio State in October it was Tyler’s night. He nearly did not make it to that game, but I am convinced that the energy of that night lifted him these last two and a half months. It sustained him past what his doctors thought. Unfortunately, cancer sucks. Hard. Tyler fought, but now his fight is over.

In the last 15 months the nation has gotten to know Tyler. What amazed me throughout was that it was never about his own fight. When Tyler would tweet it would rarely be about his condition. He only gave updates when they were major, like when he was forced to withdraw from school. Instead, he wrote about about what he could do for others. Here was a young man that knew his time was limited, but he spent every second doing what he could for others. He inspired others. He encouraged others. He strengthened them. His upcoming book is about pulling off an upset of cancer even though it will not physically benefit him. He spoke of how he was encouraged that samples of his tumor might lead to a cure someday, ignoring that meant there was no cure yet for him.

I was always in awe of his humility and his desire to serve.

Mark 10:45 says: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” This is the example we are called to follow, and Tyler knew what it meant to serve. Even though his body was failing him, his final tweet from two days ago was about that service:

Thank you to everyone that has purchased my book. I’m humbled you have joined the movement to UPSET CANCER. You being #tylerstrong gives me joy. Once you purchase the book, tag me & I will do my best to like your post & retweet as a thank you. https://t.co/xEKOvBBhQ1 pic.twitter.com/8LafN4BWez

He’s entirely correct, and it says much about the Big 10 that after the ESPN Interview, at the Ohio State Game, all year both sides joined in the chant: “Cancer Sucks” It does, and its not often that the President of one of the great American Universities takes time to remember a sophomore who has died. But Mitch Daniels did

And so he’s gone, but we of Purdue, and many others will always remember him, and try to emulate him, for I suspect that this is a lesson that John Purdue would teach us as well.

The funeral service will be held on Tuesday, Jan. 8 at 6 p.m. at College Park Church in Indianapolis. It will be live-streamed here.

#Tyler Strong, indeed, and Rest in Peace for your mission here is done.

That Sucks!

I had something in mind for today, but since my internet is down, it’ll have to wait. Have a good day, see you tomorrow, I hope.:-[

Once more into the breach, dear friends

And so, we made it to another one. 2018 was decidedly different, and likely 2019 will be too, but hey, it sure beats the alternative, doesn’t it?

For the blog, it was by quite a lot, the best year we’ve ever had, up some 4000 views over the next largest year. That was 2012 when we had both the reelection of the Reign of Error to write about and our partner, Jessica, to help. So I’m pleased, and I’m convinced that a large measure of the credit goes to those who comment here.

As it always seems to, politics dominated here, I always want to write about other things, especially history, but politics always seems to suck me back in. Well, it seems it does you guys as well, and that is what is important. We will continue to write about it, I reckon, but we will also continue to try to contain the spin and give a historical slant on the news of the day. Something you won’t get on TV.

As always the great preponderance of our readers come from the United States, followed by the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

One of the guys at PowerLine commented yesterday, that a lot of blogging has moved to Facebook and such. I think he’s right, but I think this is a better medium, offering us better tools and more freedom of expression. There are some blogs that I’d love to see come back, yeah, I’m looking at you Gilia!

But that we are growing again makes me happy, not only because of the work, but because it seems that you find something here that makes it worth your time, and that greatly pleases me.

If, like me, you realize that there are customs and traditions that should be honored, well, here is one of them:

Dave Barry’s Retrospective of 2018. Always worth your time.

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Some stories just break your heart. This one does mine. That is Bre Payton of The Federalist, dead of swine flu at 26. It always hurts to see bad things happen to beautiful people, especially girls, and especially to incomparably talented ones. And her writing is how I encountered Bre, because her writing was quite wonderful, notably so for someone so young. Ben Domenech, the founder of The Federalist says this:

I hired Bre Payton right out of college. She was green. She was unknown. She had never done TV. But she had worked through her last year of college, and I respected that. I interviewed a half-dozen people for the position. We met in the coffee shop I liked that had no seats, so we were by ourselves in crappy plastic chairs in the back.

From the moment we started talking I realized she was a potential star. She was raw, yes, but that could be honed. She was eager to learn, to write, and to go places—not because of ambition, but because she wanted to change the world. She was confident. She was sarcastic. She was cutting. But she was also sweet.

High praise indeed. He adds.

We don’t seek to hire women—we seek to hire who’s best for the job. That turned out to be a number of women with great pens and humor and wit. I didn’t hire Bre to become another token woman. I hired her to eventually take jobs like mine, because she earned it.

I was a mentor for Bre as best as I could be, driving her to strive to achieve the things she hadn’t done yet. But she had that gene, too. She recruited our interns and managed them like a pro. She always made time for the aspiring younger journalists who looked up to her. She reached out with a genuine heart to those she thought needed it.

That’s always been my criterion, and it is one I admire greatly, as I do those who succeed using it. To paraphrase Martin Luther King, not the color or shape of the skin, however pleasing or not, but the content of the character. That Bre’s was exceptional showed in everything she wrote. She’ll be missed badly.

My condolences (as if they matter, really) to her family, and the people she worked with at one of my favorite websites, and to her friends, as well.

God rest her soul.

Study: Drinking Coffee and Alcohol and Being Kinda Fat is Super-Good For You

http://minx.cc:1080/?plost=378890 

I found this rather interesting. See you all tomorrow, when I should be back on my hi’puter rather than this verdamt phone.🤣

Last Saturday in Advent

As usual, I will be heading back east for Christmas, and so this will be the last post that I am live on comments. I will have posts while I’m gone, some new, and some favorites, although they are unlikely to be as timely as usual. I’m not sure that isn’t a good thing, for me and for you. I intend to uncouple to a large extent and consider just how lucky we are, not only as freemen but as the people whom God has sent his Son to save.

For today, my friends (especially Margaret Ashworth) at A Conservative Woman have been writing on the story and presenting of our favorite carols all through Advent. The series starts here, and you can click on Margaret’s name to find the rest. I highly recommend it. The music of Christianity in the English speaking world is beyond magnificent, and much of the best of it proclaims our Savior’s birth. Most of the music here is from that series.

Like everybody else, it is simply not Christmas without this. Margaret reminds us

[F]or many of us, the ultimate Christmas movie is Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life from 1946. Its affirmation of the triumph of good over evil must have been a tonic in those uncertain days after the war which had shaken the West to its foundations. The uplifting final scene with the soundtrack of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing is a guaranteed tearjerker.

But there is also this, that Jess introduced me to years ago. It too has come to be required for Christmas, and in truth, it makes a good companion to A Wonderful Life.

And my favorite carol, as it was my Mom’s and so many of ours, from King’s last year.

None of you will be surprised to learn that I love the English cathedral choirs, especially King’s. But so often our choirs sound a bit weak, perhaps a bit effeminate, as does Christianity, itself. But it’s nothing of the sort, as this version will remind you.

Since I’ll be celebrating Christmas in my sister’s Dutch Reformed Church, I think I’ll end with this.

I’ll be with you sporadically for the next week, and be thinking of you all, as we celebrate this joyful season, and then we will resume normal service.

Happy Christmas!!!