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Did you know that Arkansas has joined Florida in removing the AP course on black “history” from its schools? No? Its because its governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders is not running for president and considered a threat to Joe Biden’s reelection. I am waiting for the NAACP to issue a travel advisory for Arkansas. Obviously, its governor has created a hostile environment for black people by not adopting Critical Race Theory and queer black history. I am also waiting for the National “Educators” Association and the American Federation of “Teachers” to blast the decision as trying to eliminate black history. Will black organizations cancel their conventions in Arkansas? Imagine no longer being able to partake in the charms of Little Rock or visit Bentonville, the home of Walmart.

Arkansas stated that the AP African American studies course was not a history course but rather an exercise indoctrinating liberal woke ideology. When Ron DeSantis said the same thing, the progressives wailed and gnashed their teeth. The Arkansas “Education” Association did say that the decision is of “grave concern” to its members and worried about “the abandonment of teaching African American history and culture”. The president of the NAACP intoned that state-level attacks on Black history are undemocratic and regressive. But no travel advisory? I really don’t understand the “undemocratic” and “regressive” nature of the bans. So please explain. 

What Arkansas did was to pass a law that prohibits the teaching of certain topics including gender, sexual orientation and Critical Race Theory. I personally think that these are best left out of school curricula. Rather, schools should concentrate on teaching basic skills like reading, math, science and language. That teachers’ associations, school boards and school administrators have veered off into liberal ideology is likely due to their miserable failure to teach basic skills. Student proficiency in math and reading is pitiful in virtually all public schools in the country. Arkansas had aggressively moved to rectify the poor education received in its schools.  It passed – over the usual objections of the education establishment – an education reform bill that enacts a universal school choice program. I wonder if such a program is “undemocratic” and “regressive”?

The left is always going to contend that the right is trying to suppress the teaching of black history which is a blatant lie. As Arkansas (and Florida) noted, the AP course was not a course in history. When Florida replaced the AP course with one that really was about history, the left pounced on one statement that said that some slaves learned skills that were helpful when they became free claiming that the new curriculum stated that slavery was beneficial. However, the same statement appears in the AP course which the left endorses. However, they fail to see the contradiction and have no shame.

Angel Hernandez, almost universally considered as the worst umpire in major league baseball had the audacity to sue MLB claiming discrimination. In his suit, Hernandez claimed racial discrimination and complained that he had not be named a crew chief and had not been named to work the World Series because he is Hispanic. The courts rejected his suit twice first in district court and second on appeal. Actually, Hernandez is lucky to have a job at all. If he were not Hispanic, he would have likely been fired for incompetence. Google his name. You will only find his bad calls. He has the distinction of having three calls at first base overturned during the same game. During a recent game, when he was behind the plate, he had at least 15 missed calls and was criticized by the announcers for both teams. One writer wrote “Umpire Angel Hernandez Continues to be an Embarrassment for MLB After Laughably Bad Game.” Another wrote “Angel Hernandez is the Worst Umpire in the History of Major League Baseball.” He actually may be worse than Eric Gregg. Hernandez crying racism reminds me of a comedy routine by the great Dick Gregory in which a friend said that he had applied for a job but was turned down because he was black. Dick’s friend had a severe stutter and when asked what job he applied for, he stuttered “r-r-a-a-d-d-i-u-o a-a-n-n-o-u-c-e-r.”

Knoxville Focus

August 14, 2023

I have lunch once a month with a close friend who thinks Biden is doing a great job. We agree on very little. Although we both think the education industrial complex does everything but teach reading, writing and arithmetic, he favors “teaching” critical race theory. I don’t. He opposes charter schools. He thinks climate change is an existential threat aim and cites current weather as justification. He fears for the planet. I told him that I am in the middle. I am not a denier but I am not a zealot. You cannot infer anything about climate change from today’s weather. He thinks global warming is “settled science.” I told him there is no such thing and that there is a large literature from agnostic scientists – including a Nobel Laureate in physics – who have found otherwise. Much like the Hunter Biden laptop and COVID, the mainstream press, social media and many “scientific” journals have chosen not to publish contrary opinions and research. I told him of the falsification of climate data by British scientists and how US government agencies have fudged the numbers. I mentioned that I published an econometric paper that confirmed two conflicting hypotheses using the same model and the same data set. I told him of the research that showed that over 50 percent of the scientific empirical work in several disciplines have been shown to be false. Didn’t the president of Sanford recently resign when it was discovered that his research was not original? It should come as no surprise that the scientists whose research was funded by Dr Fauci dismiss the assertion that COVID originated in the Wuhan lab. Eminent scholars reach different conclusions analyzing the same data. Dissect their models, the choice of data, the choice of data period and the statistical technique and make a decision as to the efficacy of each. My friend rejects contrary evidence out of hand.

But my training makes me a skeptic. Even if the earth’s temperature is 1 degree higher, is that a bad thing?  Certainly more people die from exposure to cold than to heat so a little warming may not be a bad thing. If the oceans rise, can’t we adapt much like the Dutch? Some have argued that more carbon dioxide is a good thing. Doesn’t the earth heal itself? Even the assertion that climate change is manmade is disputed. One thing is clear to me. I believe that China is funding the radical environmentalists like Just Stop Oil and groups like Black Lives Matter. Both endorse policies aimed at weakening western countries while enriching China. The Chinese make all the sympathetic clucking noises regarding the Paris Accord while building coal plants. The Accord will fail anyway because neither China nor India will sacrifice economic development to satisfy the global warming crowd who enrich themselves and their buddies at the expense of their citizens,

Biden’s industrial policy where the politicians pick the winners and losers will also fail. Industrial policy always results in poor choices based on political favors trying to force products down consumers’ throats. The political choices kill alternatives and result in less innovation and efficiency much like the politicians choosing catalytic converters over a simpler, cheaper, more efficient system pioneered by Honda. It is also true that “renewable” energy such as wind farms and solar panels are costly to the environment and highly inefficient. It is also true that EV batteries are more damaging to the environment than fossil fuels. Nickle and cobalt mining are ecological disasters. Windmills kill birds onshore and sea mammals offshore. Solar panels present a disposal nightmare. All the mandates coming from the Biden administration to get rid of today’s gas stoves, dishwashers, furnaces, lawn equipment, gas powered vehicles will only make us worse off economically without any net benefit to the environment. Indeed, I just read a study that said that because of the sun and axial tilt of the earth, that the one degree increase in temperature was baked in and would not change even if all of the actions of the overlords in the western world were enacted. So pardon me if I think all this climate stuff is just because politicians love imposing their dictates on the rest of us as a power grab while enriching themselves and handing out subsidies to their green donors.

Random Thoughts Yet AgainDisney’s remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has been cast with a Latina lead and six tall people plus one dwarf. Maybe it should be retitled as well as Brown Snow and the Village People. Thank goodness they didn’t cast an Asian as lead.

Saudi oil profits fell with lower output? I thought oil demand was inelastic? If so then when the Saudis cut output, price should increase and total revenue should increase as well. However, if revenues fall lowering profit, then demand is elastic not inelastic. The demand for oil must be sensitive to price changes.

That the democrats are the party of the “elites” but pretend to be the party of the people is best illustrated by their actions regarding climate change. The forced shift from fossil fuels to wind and solar will result in higher energy prices and higher cost of goods. We all know that. We also know that the result will be a significant decrease in real income for the poor making them worse off. Yet the dems persist in this anti-poor campaign and not a one complains. Where is Maxine Waters when we need her? I guess she will try to increase subsidies and handouts to assuage her constituents.

Just because a higher percentage of minorities are poor is not evidence of discrimination since there are much larger numbers of poor whites. The reasonable comparison is to see why the poor are poor and welfare dependent. The data show that regardless of race, if people graduate from high school, get a job, get married and have children in that order then they will not be poor. So obviously the government should enact policies that have been demonstrated to increase reading and math proficiency, to provide incentives to get a high school diploma and to delay childbearing until marriage. However, the government does the opposite giving incentives that reinforce and encourage poverty.

Fixing K-12 will address most of our socioeconomic ills. But we must also recover our morals, lessen out of wedlock births and re-establish two family households. Currently, much of our culture is amoral and nonreligious. Thus, it is not that economic differences reflect racism rather they reflect poor education, poor morals and the absence of religion.

The Biden Administration has sent $2.35 billion  to the Taliban after we ceded control of Afghanistan to them. Huh? Someone has some explaining to do. Why we would send this murderous repressive regime a penny is beyond me. Where is congressional oversight when you need it?

Alpha Phi Alpha the black Greek fraternity has decided to move its 2025 convention from Orlando. The fraternity’s website announced that the cancelation was “due to Governor Ron DeSantis’ harmful, racist, and insensitive policies against the Black community.” “Alpha Phi Alpha will continue to support the strong advocacy of Alpha Brothers and other advocates fighting against the continued assault on our communities in Florida by Governor Ron DeSantis.” The projected impact on the Orlando economy is $4.6 million. I’m sure it will be missed. That the fraternity is doing this is no surprise. The surprise would have been if it had not canceled. The fraternity is composed of some really smart people (my late genius brother was a member) and are availing themselves to the opportunity of piling on DeSantis a la the NAACP’s “travel advisory.” The fraternity is part of the black bourgeoise, professionals, well educated and high income. It has demonstrated no interest in advancing the economic well being of poor blacks. Several years ago, I made a presentation on direct instruction to a group of prominent blacks and showed a chart with the poorest performing schools in their town. I got no support. The overwhelming reaction was “Thank goodness my grandchildren don’t go to those schools.” Most NAACP and Alpha Phi Alpha members probably have no interest with sexual/gender, critical race theory, queer history and the glories of Marxism taught to second graders. However, they are so deep in the pockets of the liberal donors that they would not dare but toe the party line. 

If the NAACP is serious about boycotting Florida it should encourage their members (including their president) to move from the state. They should shut down their Florida offices and Alpha Phi Alpha should close their chapters on Florida campuses. The problem is that they know its all for show. I am writing this from Flagler Beach and have encountered no hostility except I do consider 100 degree days a hostile environment. Moreover in my trip to Madeira Beach last month I was attacked by racist fire ants.

August is a melancholy month. My mother’s birthday is August 6. She would have been 105 having died April 14, 2020 at age 101. On August 6 one of my granddaughters called me to reminisce about her great grand Mom. Then there were emails from by children and my brother’s children saying that they couldn’t believe she was gone but she will live forever as long as any of us were alive. Dad’s memory doesn’t engender the same emotions. Not that he was loved less but the feelings are somehow different. He was a strict disciplinarian who tolerated no excuses. I learned to never openly disagree with him but say “yes sir” and then do or think what I thought was best. Perhaps the only time he revealed a different side to me was when he was in his 80s and said “Please tell me when I become a fool.” He was getting solicitations that he said occurred only because of his age. Obviously, those scams were working or else they would not exist. Dad said that only a fool would agree to whatever was being solicited. He never became a fool. He died on August 13. He knew that he was dying. He told me that although he wanted to live until November 19 which would be his 89^th birthday, he had changed his mind and just wanted to make it to August 30^th – my daughter’s due date with his newest granddaughter. She was born at 6AM on August 13^th and Dad died at 6PM the same day. But he knew of his granddaughter and knew that my daughter to her everlasting credit named the new addition “Savannah”. My dad graduated from Savannah State University.

Unlike Dad, Mother took an active role in all our lives. She too had a dominant personality and was generous with her advice. I would never consider living in Atlanta because I knew that I would have little peace. When my brother was living (he retired to Atlanta), they would talk several times a day. Even though he had a washer and dryer, he took his clothes over to the house to do his laundry. Several times a week, they would have dinner together. When he died, mother was devastated. He was the favorite. She called me and said that instead of our customary once on Sundays at 5 o’clock call, I now had to call her every day. So at 7AM we said good morning and at 7PM we said good night. Often my phone would ring at all hours of the night so I made Everette Harp’s “Night Calls” her ringtone. I still miss those calls and when I hear “Night Calls” I still reach for the phone. Only now there are tears in my eyes.  

From the Knoxville Focus

August 7, 2023

Today’s political headlines tell us that Donald Trump will most likely be the Republican nominee and that all other contenders might as well quit the race. The polls show that Trump has a commanding lead over Ron DeSantis who seems to be fading fast. One poll has DeSantis barely above Chris Christie – who most people give virtually no chance of being the party’s nominee. Other indicators point to Tim Scott whose nomination some pundits state would demonstrate that the Republican party is not composed of a bunch of knuckle dragging gun happy bunch of homophobes, xenophobes, transphobes, anti-abortion racist bigots. Of course that same crowd calls black conservatives like Scott, Tom Sowell, Bob Woodson, Jason Riley and Clarence Thomas (among many others) as Uncle Toms and black faces of white supremacy. 

It is a wonder that anyone believes what comes from the media these days. Their narratives are seldom factual. The presidential polls are case in point. If the media is to be believed, then why vote? Isn’t the nomination process over with Trump and Biden redux? Why waste the billions of dollars campaigning? Indeed, why even have the election? Just compare the polling numbers for the two leaders and declare the winner right now.

The reason why we actually go through the nominating process is that the early polls have often been wrong. In 1972 Edmund Muskie led George McGovern by 18 points. In 1976 Hubert Humphrey led Jimmy Carter.  1988 Gary Hart led Michel Dukakis by 13 points. 1992 Jerry Brown led Bill Clinton by 15 points. Remember Howard Dean? He led John Kerry by 15 points in 2004. 2008 had Rudy Guiliani over John McCain and Hillary Clinton with a 29 point lead over Barack Obama. In 2012 Herman Cain had a lead of 3 points over Mitt Romney. 

So there is a good reason not to declare a winner based on early polling. Political polling is taking a small sample of people. Sometimes they look at registered voters. Sometimes not. Generally, the polls do not sample according to a meaningful distribution of voters: urban vs suburban, democrat versus republican, conservative versus liberal. Often when the sample is analyzed it is revealed that the pollsters have created a sample intended to yield a particular result. Most polls have a sample less of than 2,000. Only the Pew Research poll samples as many as 5,000 people. So pardon me if I remain a skeptic as to the validity of polling.

The democrats want very desperately for Donald Trump to be the nominee running against Biden – although I doubt if Biden will be the democrats’ nominee. To that end, they have done all they can to make Trump a sympathy figure among the republican primary voters. The indictments, defamation lawsuits, the raid at Mar-a-largo, the investigations, the tax returns, the January 6 sideshow, the civil suits, the New York and Georgia probes have all been aimed at getting Trump the nomination. The media polls are part and parcel of this effort by the democrats to enshrine Trump as the republican nominee. Bernie Sanders openly said “that as a politician who wants to see that no Republican is elected to the White House in 2024, from that perspective, his (Trump’s) candidacy is probably a good thing.” 

Trump’s unfavorable rating is 58% while Biden’s is 62 percent in a recent poll. It seems like Americans want neither to be the nominee and neither to be president. Trump was – and continues to be – his own worse enemy. Slinging insults and ridiculing others do not generally endear you to the voting public. Biden also has been his own worse enemy, stumbling and bumbling through his presidency showing physical and mental impairment while embracing the leftist socialist agenda. Afghanistan, the border, inflation, critical race theory, the woke military, transgenderism, LGBTQ along with energy/climate change dictates destined to make America poorer and dependent upon China are not generally the way to win elections. Ironically, Biden has done such an awful job that the head-to-head polls now show Trump beating Biden. So be careful for what you wish.

Surely, America can do better.

August 8, 2023

The Big 10 is going to have 18 schools while the Big 12 has 16 and the Pac 12 has four. And these represent institutions of higher learning?

I am a middling college football fan. I follow my alma maters, Georgia and Ohio State, and Tennessee where I taught for 24 years and where I live. I pay scant attention to the rest of college football. But conference expansion had me trying to make some sense out of it. To date, the SEC has done the better job, keeping the schools within reasonable proximity. The Big “10” home to my beloved Ohio State Buckeyes has become a joke.

Several years ago when the SEC was looking to expand, rumor had it that the conference approached Florida State and Clemson about joining. Those schools were a good fit both academically and geographically. However, Florida State’s head coach Bobby Bowden was riding a crest of national prominence and was reputed to veto the move to the SEC because it was likely that FSU would be in the same division as Alabama, Auburn and LSU threatening his run of top five ratings. Clemson too decided that staying in the ACC was preferable to joining the SEC and having to play Tennessee, Georgia and Florida every year. So the SEC turned to Arkansas and South Carolina instead. Little did Florida State realize that the future TV contracts would explode resulting in the SEC schools receiving payouts in excess of $30 million annually more than the ACC. Now Florida State is whining about its “low” payout. The SEC in the meanwhile added Missouri and Texas A&M in 2012. I was always puzzled about the addition of Missouri despite it bordering Tennessee. I wished that the SEC had made another run at Clemson. But I liked Texas A&M due to the abundance of talent in Texas and its natural rivalry with LSU. Texas A&M always felt slighted in the Big 12 because of the presence of the University of Texas and needed space to make its own mark. Now the allure of bigger dollars has prompted Texas and Oklahoma to join the SEC despite having to play big time opposition. I have no doubt that the expansion of the college football playoff from 4 to 12 was made to make it even more attractive for Texas and Oklahoma to jump to the SEC.

The bigger badder SEC forced the Big Ten to do something. Previously it had added Penn State and Nebraska to counter the additions of Arkansas and South Carolina to the SEC. Those schools made sense both geographically and academically. Then pushed by the further expansion in the SEC, the Big Ten added Maryland because it wanted a presence in the DC area and Rutgers because of its proximity to New York. Rutgers was and still is a headscratcher. It simply does not fit with the rest of the Big Ten with its mediocre athletics. I don’t understand why the conference did not add Syracuse instead with its better athletics and academics. Then the astounding news that USC and UCLA were leaving the Pac 12 to go to the Big Ten is directly attributable to the SEC adding Texas and Oklahoma. The Los Angeles glamor schools add to the TV market and are a counterweight to the SEC. However, they make no sense geographically. 

I thought that adding Notre Dame and Stanford would be a bigger boost to the Big Ten but Notre Dame likes being an independent with its own TV contract and its link with the ACC. Colorado’s leaving the Pac 12 for the Big 12 then led to Washington and Oregon begging to be let into the Big Ten even with reduced revenue shares. Now at least the four west coast teams can schedule each other and reduce their trips east. 

To me the Big Ten was forced to expand even at the expense of its athletes in all sports not only football. Travel has got to be brutal. Balancing academics and athletics was always difficult. Now it becomes almost impossible. Although the athletes can now generate income (NIL), that income is wildly different for the stars and the other members of the teams. I think the only reasonable solution should be revenue sharing between the schools and all the athletes in all the sports. Every athlete receives the same amount from the school regardless of sport. Yes I know that since football drives the revenue it could be argued that the amount going to each athlete should be dependent upon how revenue is generated by that sport. I simply don’t agree. I think that football players and women fencers should get the same share from the TV revenue and that NIL money will go to the more glamorous athletes in the more glamorous sports. I would also incorporate significant pay incentives for academics and a graduation bonus. Today’s rush to expansion is motivated by dollars. The athletes will pay the price. The least we can do is to give them significant compensation. 

Fox News has a sweepstakes where the winner gets to go to the first republican debate. The loser gets to go to both the first debate and the second one.

Who does a social influencer influence?

The Oracle-Who-Names Things and Stuff somehow got the republicans to allow their states to be labelled “red” even though historically red meant leftish, socialist and communist. Remember “Better dead than red”? Now that has an altogether different meaning.

I don’t use the term “cisgender” or made up pronouns. I also won’t refer to an individual as “they.”

But then, I don’t use the term “African American” either. Recall that once I was reviewing a paper for an academic journal in an area where I am widely published. I looked at the citations and found that three of my articles were attributed to a Harold African-American. I kid you not.

I am not a soccer fan. I did not watch any of the women’s world cup but it is rare when I don’t want the US teams to do well. This world cup was an exception when the US women refused to sing the national anthem before its match with Viet Nam and only a few players put their hands over their hearts. Then a majority of the team chose not to do either before their match with Sweden. The most famous member of the team Megan Rapinoe once knelt during the anthem and said that she would never sing it again. Then as the fates would have it, during the game with Sweden, Rapinoe’s missed penalty kick led to the US loss. 

Rapinoe had also chided parents for not wanting their girls to play volleyball against a girl’s team with a biological boy by saying “I’m sorry but your kid’s high school volleyball team just isn’t that important.” Amazingly she said that she doesn’t believe that boys have an advantage in girl’s sports. But didn’t an under-15 boy’s club team FC Dallas once beat the US women’s national team 5-2 in a scrimmage?

Fitch has downgraded long term US bonds. What some “experts” are saying is that this implies that the US will be less able to repay its debts in the long run. Of course that is nonsense since the US has the power of the printing press. What it actually means to the markets is that the congress and the presidency have no will to curtail spending and to address the problem of runaway national debt. This means less growth, more inflation and although long term bonds will be paid back, they will be paid back in inflated dollars devaluing their worth. So caveat emptor.

The democrats keep saying that no one is above the law – except Joe and Hunter Biden.

The democrats insist that the republicans have presented no proof of the allegations about the Bidens. I guess Hunter’s laptop doesn’t qualify and all the testimony from former associates and IRS whistleblowers is merely hearsay. I guess the republicans have to give them a fake dossier.

It’s hard to do but the democrats are trying to turn Trump into a sympathetic figure. I am sure there is a difference between Trump’s classified documents and Biden’s or Hillary’s for that matter. But what is sad is seeing two sets of laws being applied in this country.

I have written before that I thought the democrats’ strategy was to get Trump the republican nomination by riling up his base through the raids, charges and indictments. Trump would suck all the air out of the room leaving no space for the other candidates. I am certain that the democrats have gotten all the pollsters to rig their polling to show that Trump has an unsurmountable lead to discourage the supporters of the other candidates from donating money and going to the polls to vote.

The latest indictment by the Department of “Justice” is part of the democrats’ strategy to get Trump nominated. It is going for a two-fer. First, Trump will be tried in a DC court where he has zero chance of getting an impartial judge and receiving a fair trial. Then the democrats’ want the conviction to be appealed to the Supreme Court where they know it will be overturned. This is the democrats’ dream because it will give them another opportunity to bash the Supreme Court as ruling against the will of the people and being a “threat to democracy”. Pack the Court!

Trump was indicted for trying to overturn the election. Didn’t the democrats try to do the same thing when John Kerry lost?

I am no fan of Trump. He combines the worse traits of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden. He has questionable morals, an insufferable bombastic ego and governed badly. Perhaps the best thing he ever did was defeating Hillary Clinton. It would be ironic if that turned out to be the second best thing. He is certainly not presidential. I don’t understand why he tweets. When Nancy Pelosi remarked that he looked “like a scared puppy” at his latest indictment, he tweeted (or whatever it is now called) that he was not scared and that “She is a Wicked Witch whose husbands journey from hell starts and finishes with her. She is a sick and demented psycho who will someday live in HELL?” Now doesn’t that sound presidential?

A dear friend of mine said “OMG! Don’t tell me I’m going to be forced to vote for Trump!”

A Trump presidency will be a journey through hell for the country. He will use the Department of “Justice” to go after the Bidens. Of course, Hunter is not in jail only because of his last name. But Trump will seek to take Joe down as well. Trump is vindictive and you can bet that anyone associated with Biden will be harassed and persecuted just like what has happened to Trump and his allies. It will be payback time and the nation will suffer. 

The first Trump term was bad enough with the “repeal and replace” Obamacare fiasco and the punitive use of tariffs against our allies, but it was not as bad as what we have suffered through with the Bidens. For all of Trump’s faults, he did not deliberately try to destroy the country. However, I can guarantee that whoever wins, the next four years will be hell. A Biden second term will mean a continuation of policies intended to destroy the republic (change the electoral college, pack the Supreme Court, weaken the First and Second Amendments, more woke, more CRT, failing schools, more climate regulations, higher energy prices, more outrageous spending, judicial appointees who are ignorant of the Constitution, more inflation, more dependency on China for climate related stuff and heavy metals for EV batteries). Did I leave anything out?

BTW did you know that China has withdrawn from the Paris Accord?

One of Biden’s lies was that he was going to bring the country together when elected. He has done the opposite. We have never been farther apart as a country. On every major issue most democrats feel one way and republicans feel the other. One of my closest friends is a card carrying “progressive”. I told him that if he and I could not find common ground then there was little hope for the country. He actually is gleeful about the Trump indictment. He should be sad for what it forebodes for the country.

A victory by either will push parts of the country toward serious discussion of succession. 

August 7, 2023

I love baseball. Maybe it is because other than baseball I have so few fond memories of my childhood. I was an unwanted second son. Dad wanted a girl. My brother was a math genius and a straight A student. I never could compete but he was my best friend until his senior year at Purdue. Dad showered him with accolades, new stuff and favors. I didn’t mind because I knew he was smarter than me. I was only jealous of his hair. He got my mother’s side of the family hair inherited from the Anglo side of the family: thick and wavy. I got “colored” hair. I had friends growing up but other than my brother none were close. It was because I was two years ahead in school, graduating from high school when I was 16. I was young. I was short and unathletic. When I was in the varsity band as an eight grader my feet did not touch the floor. When I graduated the only boy shorter in my class was a midget. I never had a date in high school.

But I looked forward to the summers. Going to Brooklyn or Cincinnati to see the Dodgers was the only time we had fun as a family. Dad loved the Brooklyn Dodgers because of Jackie Robinson. He planned our summer vacations around the Dodgers’ schedule. If they were in New York we would go stay with my mother’s brother (Uncle Son) in Brooklyn and go to Ebbets Field or to the Polo Grounds where they played the Giants. If they were in Cincinnati we would stay with Dad’s older brother (Uncle Floyd) and see them play the Reds in Crosby Field. The Dodgers’ 1954 lineup read like an all-star team: Junior Gilliam, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Gill Hodges, Carl Furillo and Billy Cox. Carl Erskine, Johnny Podres, Don Newcombe and Preacher Roe were the pitchers. Walter Alston was the manager. Yet that team finished five games behind the New York Giants who had Sal Maglie, Hoyt Wilhelm and Al Worthington as pitchers. Joe Garagiloa caught. Alvin Dark, Billy Gardner, Hank Thompson, Monte Irvin, Dusty Rhodes and Willie Mays were on that team. Leo Durocher was the manager. The 1954 Reds had Gus Bell, Wally Post, Ted Kluszewski, Art Fowler and Knoxville’s own Ed Bailey. Cincinnati wasn’t very good finishing 23 games back. But that didn’t matter. We went to see the Dodgers. 

Although we loved baseball, we never went to see the local minor league team – the Atlanta Crackers (I kid you not. During the heyday of the Negro League, the local team was the Atlanta Black Crackers. Again I kid you not). We did not go to the games because the stadium seating was segregated. The black section was run down, the bathrooms hardly functioned and were filthy. Dad refused to put us in a situation where we would be segregated by race.

When I went to work at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in 1973, the Washington Senators had left to become the Texas Rangers so I became a fan of the Baltimore Orioles. I was there during the great years of Cal Ripken, Jim Palmer, Boog Powell, Mark Belanger, Mike Cuellar, Eddie Murray, Mike Flannagan and Steve Stone. Frank and Brooks Robinson were recent memories. Earl Weaver was the manager. 

By the time Baltimore’s glory days were gone, so was I. But I went to see college baseball while on the faculty at UNC and remember Walt Weiss as being the star. When I returned to DC in the early 1980s, I stayed an Orioles fan and picked the opponent to go see while the Orioles struggled.

Coming to Knoxville, I was treated to SEC baseball, arguably the best in the country. Tennessee has had some great players and Todd Helton was my favorite. I really liked the Rod Delmonico teams but the ones with Coach Tony Vitello are more fun.

I now usually go to Cincinnati and St Petersburg for major league baseball. Although the Braves are my favorite team I won’t go the Truist Park because the Braves abandoned downtown Atlanta for the ritzy suburbs. I don’t fault them. They know their fanbase. They have been successful and have an incredible team. But I still won’t go. I can’t even see them live, since they are blacked out in Knoxville. That’s one of the things I don’t like about Major League Baseball. Another dislike is the floating strike zone of some umpires. I probably am biased but the worse called game in major league history has got to be game five of the 1997 National League Championship Series where Eric Gregg’s strike zone was as wide as his waist. The Marlins’ Livan Hernandez whose fastball was probably 75 mph struck out 15 Braves who behind Greg Maddux lost 2-1. The last out was made by new Hall of Famer Fred McGriff who could not have reached the called “strike” if he had thrown his bat at it. 

I subscribe to MLB since the stupid rapacious Google gods dropped the MLB Network. Now I can see how truly awful most of the umpires are. Angel Hernandez is the worst but CJ Bucknor isn’t far behind. Dan Bellino made perhaps the worse strike call I’ve seen this side of Eric Gregg. Since MLB has instituted rules to speed up the game, maybe they should go to a digital strike zone. It pains me to say that but I suffer a greater pain seeing all the bad ball and strike calls.

My last peeve with Major League Baseball is ignoring the great Larry Doby. Every year I would send MLB a letter/email imploring them to recognize Doby who integrated the American League the same year that Jackie Robinson debuted in the National League. Very people know of Doby, although he is in the Hall of Fame, because he came into the league after the Allstar break while Robinson started at the beginning of the season. So I think it should be Jackie Robinson/Larry Doby day with all the teams in the National League wearing Robinson’s number and those in the American League wearing Doby’s. Alternatively, why not have each team wear the number of their first black player? I have a Sam Jethroe jersey.

The recent kerfuffle over the proposed Florida AP course on black history should be embarrassing to all those who are attacking it. To recount, Ron DeSantis and his Department of Education rejected the original AP course because it was more about the left’s attempts to indoctrinate rather than to provide an unbiased account of black history. The revision was Florida’s own effort written in large part by scholars such as Dr William Allen, professor emeritus from Michigan State University. I met Dr Allen when I was invited by Liberty Fund to first write a remembrance of Walter Williams (https://www.aier.org/article/walter-williams-a-fond-remembrance/) and then to participate in a colloquium celebrating his life. Dr Allen was one of the participants. He was one of the most eloquent wordsmiths I have ever encountered. I was in awe of his intellect, his forthrightness and thinking.

To recount, Ron DeSantis was attacked for opposing the teaching of woke black history rather than the teaching of black history. No one explained why critical race theory, advocating for the abolition of prisons, queer black studies and black feminism were essential parts of black history. There was even a laudatory section on the Marxist anti-family Black Lives Matter. The left accused DeSantis as opposing the teaching of black history. One headline read “What is behind DeSantis push to erase black history?” This is another illustration that the media is fostering the lie that DeSantis opposes the teaching of black history.  Historic black conservatives were excluded from the original AP course.

National Education Association president’s Becky Pringles defense of the AP curriculum “Black history is American history. DeSantis is stealing our students’ freedom to learn it” is sobering and shows precisely why we need to change our children being indoctrinated rather than educated in our public schools. Pringles ignores that contrary to the claims that Gov DeSantis is trying to erase black history, the governor annually awards winners of Black History Month student contests in Florida. 

The blistering attack on the Florida revision was led by Vice President Kamala Harris who in a speech in Jacksonville attacked the new curriculum stating that it said that enslaved people benefited from slavery implying that the Florida curriculum was actually saying that slavery was good for black people. The one line read “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” One headline read “Florida’s public schools will now teach students that some black people benefited from slavery because it taught them useful skills, part of new African American history standards approved Wednesday that were blasted by a state teachers’ union as a “step backward.” 

Dr Allen has been in the news and very vocal about how the criticism was misguided pointing out that slavery was odious but in a slave society not all slaves worked at menial tasks. There were blacksmiths, carpenters, cooks, craftsmen and even bookkeepers. Allen pointed out that the great Frederick Douglas was taught by the plantation owner’s wife to read and write. Allen when asked about that single line said “I think the sentence explains itself. Its grammar is certainly perfectly clear when refers to the fact that those who were held in slavery possess skills, whether they developed them before being held in slavery, while being held in slavery or subsequently to being held in slavery, from which they benefited when they applied themselves in the exertion of those skills. That’s not a statement that is at all controversial. The facts sustain it. The testimonies of the people who lived the history sustain it.”

As Dr Allen says, the statement is self evident and true. But in addition to Harris, two leading black conservatives agreed with her and attacked the sentence. They were Byron Donalds, Florida congressman and Tim Scott the junior senator from South Carolina. Why would they agree with Harris? It is for the same reason. The curriculum was assailed was because it was a chance to attack Ron DeSantis. Harris and the Democrats see DeSantis as a major threat to their power. Donalds is a Trump supporter while Scott is running for the Republican presidential nomination against DeSantis. Donalds and Scott are trying to undermine DeSantis’ quest for the nomination while Harris recognizes him as the Democrat’s biggest threat.

However, Donalds, Scott, Harris and all the critics have egg on their faces. All the critics were intellectually lazy and have embarrassed themselves. This because the AP course lionized by the left which was rejected by the state of Florida contained almost the exact same statement: “In addition to agricultural work, enslaved people learned specialized trades and worked as painters, carpenters, tailors, musicians, and healers in the North and South. Once free, African Americans used these skills to provide for themselves and others.”

Again, the only reason why all this nonsense occurred in the first place is that Ron DeSantis is running for president. Otherwise, there would haven’t been a peep of criticism – at least not by those with half a brain.