Music of the Day: A. Ray Fuller, Free Spirit

While munching on this morning’s bowl of Special-K, I was watching the replay of the 1978 women’s final match at Wimbledon between Chris Evert (who lost) and Martina Navratilova and I was struck by a couple of things.

Most notable was the absolute quiet of the match—no grunting, no squealing, no shrieking during the points. None! Just shot-making, running, hitting, retrieving, putting away volleys, and knocking off winners. It sounded just like a tennis match, not a boxing match between heavyweights.

The second most notable thing was the speed of the points, games, and the match itself—not the speed at which the ball traveled, which compared to today’s tennis was pedestrian. The players today, both women and men, hit the ball so much harder, with so much more power, but the play today is so much slower. Actually, I should say that it take so much more time between points—the players dawdle, and towel off, and adjust their hair, and their clothes, and their earrings, and they take little bouncy-steps, and adjust their strings, and then they start the point. It takes for-freakin’-ever.

Right after the Evert-Navratilova match, the 2000 Wimbledon final between Pete Sampras and Pat Rafter was replayed on the tube. No grunting. No tugging at one’s pants before every point, no constant yanking on one’s socks or the re-tying of one’s shoes. And, most importantly, before the serve Sampras bounces the ball once and starts his swing; Rafter bounces the ball twice and starts his swing. Some of today’s players bounce the ball 15 or 20 twenty times before starting the service motion and, of course, now almost everyone grunts or makes a loud exhalation during every groundstroke or service or volley.

Eight years down the road from the Sampras-Rafter final, the pace and weight of shot might be faster and heavier, but the quality of the play isn’t necessarily better and certainly today’s game is noisier and slower. I wrote about this before in this fine space, way back in January of 2007, but all that really means is that I am still, pun intended, disgruntled about this. . . .

On the positive side, I spent about an hour on the court this afternoon against my toughest opponent, the Ball Machine; despite the 95 degree heat, it felt good to mash a few over the net and I even managed to hit the machine five or six times--once well enough that the ball got wedged in the opening where the rotors spin to spit the ball out, causing the machine to grind to a halt. Take that, technology!

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM’S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.

Music of the Day: Kim Waters, Got to Give It Up

I stopped at a local pizza joint today for a quick slice before heading back to the ranch. In between bites, and paragraphs from the book I had with me, I eyed my fellow pizza-consumers. Everyone looked happy and normal and, eventually, sated—except for the one guy at a corner table who was reading what appeared to be flash-cards of some kind. I know he was reading them because he was moving his lips. And he was wearing a Che’ Guevara t-shirt. ‘Nuff said.

Today, Friday June 20, was the first day of summer. It was hot today, about 95 degrees. I wanted to complain to someone, anyone, everyone, but then I thought back to the not-too-distant past when I complained to anyone and everyone, friend or stranger, about how cold it was. There’s just no pleasing some people. . . .

Some kind soul told Dear Old Mom about an assistance program for the blind, and the nearly-blind, in her state; she has been visited by some “very nice” bureaucrats who have explained the program to her and now she’s thrilled to be reading again. I’m thrilled, too—even if she is a regular reader of Newsweek, that scurrilous rag. Anyway, she has received three large-print books and some sort of device that helps her see regular print; what’s amazing is that she has some of the old zip and excitement in her voice again.

So, who was Che? He was a Marxist totalitarian of the pro-Soviet variety who established the firing squads that killed thousands after the successful revolution in Cuba and he also established the GULAG-like system in Cuba that housed, and still houses, dissidents, AIDS victims, homosexuals, and others. Why are people like this still revered by Americans on the Left?

I love an athletic or sporting contest as much as the next guy, but I have no intention of watching any, and I do mean ANY, of the Olympic games broadcast from China. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. The bozos who run the Olympics have again chosen a totalitarian society to host the 2008 summer games and this is one viewer who won’t view or support any Olympic sponsor in 2008.

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM’S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.

Music of the Day: Michael Lington, Fragile

Before I permit today’s eruption to make its way onto this fine space, I want to mention a couple of other things that filled my heart with gladness and joy.

First, MLB is on the road with her sisters to assorted locations and climes around the nation, but she calls me two or three times every day and that makes my heart feel good. She’s enjoying her low-key travel and sisterly shenanigans and I’m glad for that, but I’m more glad that she keeps me in her heart and her thoughts when she travels.

Second, both of her sons called me yesterday to wish me a happy father’s day; that coupled with my daughter’s call and my son’s visit made this year’s father's day truly wonderful and memorable. My Wonderful Son (MWS) and I sat around and watched the Tiger and Rocco show yesterday and then we stuffed ourselves with Mexican food and beer and by 10:00pm we were both too tired to keep our eyes open any longer. We spent more time together today before he drove back to his tiny mountain town, with a new (old) rifle in the trunk of his Subaru, so in sum it was a pretty cool couple of days. I am more grateful for being in and having a wonderful family than I can express.

Okay, now for the other thing which is not much more than quick observation. We have all watched both the Dems and the Reps go through their primary seasons, sometimes with glee and sometimes with trepidation and occasionally with revulsion (Dennis Kucinich comes immediately to mind). Now comes the run-up to the general election in November, which will get more interesting (I suppose) with each passing day. Who will commit the biggest gaffe? Which staffer of which candidate will be exposed for what impropriety? And so forth. . . .

All of which leads me to today’s title. The Dems have already begun taking shots at Senator McCain (which they should do) and Mr. McCain has already taken shots at the stripling nominee of the Dems, Mr. Obama, which I hope continues with no let up until Mr. Obama concedes defeat the morning after the election in November. Here is what I think is interesting so far: the nomination of Mr. McCain has robbed the Dems of one of their favorite tactics vis-à-vis Republican presidential contenders—they cannot claim, as they have done previously with Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush (and of course poor Dan Quayle), that Mr. McCain is “stupid.” They might remind voters of Mr. McCain’s poor showing as a student at West Point (Ha! Just kidding! Just checking to see if you’d notice! We all know he went to the Naval Academy, all of us, except of course, the people at Reuter’s and Fidel Castro.), but that poor showing hardly seems relevant in 2008. Mr. McCain’s willingness to “reach across the aisle” to political foes in order to achieve (misguided or otherwise) compromise means that if they call him stupid, they’ve called some of their own leaders stupid, too, so I think that page of the playbook is going to have to be put on the shelf this time around. This will be a welcome change, but I suspect it will leave the Dems scrambling to find some new canard to hang on Senator McCain—keep your eyes peeled, folks.

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM’S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.

Music of the Day: Chris Standring, Love and Paragraphs

Here's the latest from the superb Charles Krauthammer. Let's hope that someone on Mr. McCain's staff is paying attention:

"Friday, June 13, 2008; In his St. Paul victory speech, Barack Obama pledged again to pull out of Iraq. Rather than "continue a policy in Iraq that asks everything of our brave men and women in uniform and nothing of Iraqi politicians, . . . [i]t's time for Iraqis to take responsibility for their future."

We know Obama hasn't been to Iraq in more than two years, but does he not read the papers? Does he not know anything about developments on the ground? Here is the "nothing" that Iraqis have been doing in the past few months:

1. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki sent the Iraqi army into Basra. It achieved in a few weeks what the British had failed to do in four years: take the city, drive out the Mahdi Army and seize the ports from Iranian-backed militias.

2. When Mahdi fighters rose up in support of their Basra brethren, the Iraqi army at Maliki's direction confronted them and prevailed in every town — Najaf, Karbala, Hilla, Kut, Nasiriyah and Diwaniyah — from Basra to Baghdad.

3. Without any American ground forces, the Iraqi army entered and occupied Sadr City, the Mahdi Army stronghold.

4. Maliki flew to Mosul, directing a joint Iraqi-U.S. offensive against the last redoubt of al-Qaeda, which had already been driven out of Anbar, Baghdad and Diyala provinces.

5. The Iraqi parliament enacted a de-Baathification law, a major Democratic benchmark for political reconciliation.

6. Parliament also passed the other reconciliation benchmarks — a pension law, an amnesty law, and a provincial elections and powers law. Oil revenue is being distributed to the provinces through the annual budget.

7. With Maliki having demonstrated that he would fight not just Sunni insurgents (e.g., in Mosul) but Shiite militias (e.g., the Mahdi Army), the Sunni parliamentary bloc began negotiations to join the Shiite-led government. (The final sticking point is a squabble over a sixth cabinet position.)

The disconnect between what Democrats are saying about Iraq and what is actually happening there has reached grotesque proportions. Democrats won an exhilarating electoral victory in 2006 pledging withdrawal at a time when conditions in Iraq were dire and we were indeed losing the war. Two years later, when everything is changed, they continue to reflexively repeat their "narrative of defeat and retreat" (as Joe Lieberman so memorably called it) as if nothing has changed.

It is a position so utterly untenable that John McCain must seize the opportunity and, contrary to conventional wisdom, make the Iraq war the central winning plank of his campaign. Yes, Americans are war-weary. Yes, most think we should not have engaged in the first place. Yes, Obama will keep pulling out his 2002 speech opposing the war.

But McCain's case is simple. Is not Obama's central mantra that this election is about the future, not the past? It is about 2009, not 2002. Obama promises that upon his inauguration, he will order the Joint Chiefs to bring him a plan for withdrawal from Iraq within 16 months. McCain says that upon his inauguration, he'll ask the Joint Chiefs for a plan for continued and ultimate success.

The choice could not be more clearly drawn. The Democrats' one objective in Iraq is withdrawal. McCain's one objective is victory.

McCain's case is not hard to make. Iraq is a three-front war — against Sunni al-Qaeda, against Shiite militias and against Iranian hegemony — and we are winning on every front:

We did not go into Iraq to fight al-Qaeda. The war had other purposes. But al-Qaeda chose to turn it into the central front in its war against America. That choice turned into an al-Qaeda fiasco: Al-Qaeda in Iraq is now on the run and in the midst of stunning and humiliating defeat.

As for the Shiite extremists, the Mahdi Army is isolated and at its weakest point in years.

Its sponsor, Iran, has suffered major setbacks, not just in Basra, but in Iraqi public opinion, which has rallied to the Maliki government and against Iranian interference through its Sadrist proxy.

Even the most expansive American objective — establishing a representative government that is an ally against jihadists, both Sunni and Shiite — is within sight.

Obama and the Democrats would forfeit every one of these successes to a declared policy of fixed and unconditional withdrawal. If McCain cannot take to the American people the case for the folly of that policy, he will not be president. Nor should he be.

Give the speech, senator. Give it now."

Please, wonderful AJ readers, also find Peter Wehner's National Review piece about the most recent decision by The Supremes--it is appropriately entitled Supreme Disgrace and you can find it at National Review Online.

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM'S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.

Music of the Day: Norman Brown, Let’s Take a Ride

We had a spectacularly beautiful day out here in the hinterlands today; while other Americans were struggling with tornados, flooding, and wild fires, we had near-perfect temperatures, blue skies, light winds, and 100-mile views in every direction. We know how lucky we are to live in a (mostly) temperate climate with fantastic scenery as far as the eye can see.

This evening is perfect; we have some very good jazz on the stereo, Max the Wonder Dog is snoring like a crazed chainsaw, and the excellent wine from the Brooks winery in the Willamette Valley had a perfect color and taste. Public thanks, by the way, to Steve for the gift of the Brooks wine—it is really very good to receive a shipment every now and then of nice wine and a hand-written note from the owners. We know how lucky we are to live in a place where peace is the norm.

MLB went back to the pulmonary specialist this afternoon and received a clean bill of health; it has been a long haul for her, with an extended hospitalization, medication that made her feel weird (and, in her opinion, made her look weird), medical leave from work (which was both appropriate and more than a bit disconcerting for someone who never, I repeat, never misses a day of work), and some concern about the possibility of long-term deleterious health implications. Now the report is good and, to stick with today’s theme, we know how lucky we are to have a goodly share of excellent health.

To get away from the theme of today’s post for just a bit, the other day, after my second cup of strong heart-starting coffee, I had an idea—this only happens every now and then, so it was somewhat remarkable in and of its own self, but it seemed like a good idea at the time (never mind what I wrote about that earlier), so I think I’m going to go with it. Here ‘tis: Average Joe plans to publish in this space (if that’s the right word) a series of interviews with better than average people. Maybe that’s what I’ll call this new section of Average Joe: Better Than Average People. Please be patient; I have to approach some of these folks, get their permission for an interview, and then begin the process of writing appropriate interview questions and writing everything up before any actual product will appear here in print. I’m enthused about this and hope that both of my loyal readers (ha!) will find the interviews, and interviewees, interesting.

As always, thank you for reading this reader’s ramblings.

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM’S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.