The elephant in the room
Longtime readers know I like to keep it light. However, history sometimes looms so large it can’t be ignored, and last week Americans were faced with what may be the most critical court case in history. Former president Donald Trump has been indicted for a conspiracy to steal the 2020 election. You will be hearing entirely different perspectives from different media sources. Before you form an opinion, do your duty as a citizen. Read the 45-page indictment. This is worth 20 minutes of your time. Critical, in fact.
I remember watching Watergate play out on television as a teen. It shook the nation. This pales in comparison. I didn’t come from a political family. To this day, I couldn’t tell you how my parents voted. But they imparted in us a strong sense of justice and right and wrong. It is from that perspective that I speak.
I’m fully cognizant of the reality that most of my readership leans Republican. But we’re all Americans. Read the indictment. Open your mind to different media sources. There are countless honest journalists out there despite political smear attempts. Politicians find it convenient to discredit journalists for very obvious reasons. Kill the messenger and the message dies. You ever notice that they never point out a specific falsehood? Why is that? Instead they broadly impugn and dumb it down to “fake news!”
Absolutely we ought to question our institutions and challenge them to perform better. But it’s lazy and dangerous to brand entire institutions—the free press, law enforcement, the judiciary—corrupt. That’s crazy conspiracist territory.
Imagine, perhaps that you believe what was done in 2020 was justified. Now imagine that the sitting president loses in 2024 but chooses to remain in power based on the 2020 precedent—by replacing electors and claiming that the vice president can arbitrarily choose the winner. When the shoe is on the other foot it doesn’t feel very democratic, does it? Without the rule of law, the Constitution, we’re lost. That has to come before political parties.
The Twins and Joe Mauer
I remember the annual fundraising auction at a newspaper convention that doesn’t feel that long ago. Somebody brought a signed bat signed by an unknown named Joe Mauer to be auctioned. “They say he’s going to be really special,” he said. I once bought a signed Harmon Killebrew bat at that auction. I should have bought this one, too. Mauer was inducted into the Twins Hall of Fame last week.
If you know anything about baseball, you know his lifetime batting average of .306 would be among the league leaders today in an era in which .260 might get you to the All Star Game. He was special. A hometown guy, and by all accounts, a good family man. I’m glad I got to see him play.
He could probably help the Twins right now. For the first time in decades, the team has one of the best pitching staffs in the league, but they’re squandering that effort. The Twins can’t score runs. They’re striking out more than any team in history. Still, the rest of their division may be more awful than they’ve been, and they may win it by playing .500 ball. Maybe they can turn it around. Put your rally cap on.
Crops look promising
This “spring” we wondered if farmers would ever get into the fields. Yet, in my territory, thanks to timely rains, my eye tells me it could be a good harvest. The corn is tall and the soybeans look good. Not too many sunflowers visible in my travels, however, and I miss that. My five acres in the country is surrounded by cropland, and when sunflowers are planted, it becomes the greatest flower garden ever. It’s just glorious to see a sea of yellow blooms following the sun.
All I know is I couldn’t be a farmer. The droughts. Hail. Depending on the sky for the right amount of sun and rain at the proper time. You’d have to be mad or some kind of Zen philosopher. I’ve always thought that a farmer going to Vegas to gamble was being redundant.
I’m just a generation removed from the farm and my memory is often drawn back to those summers I spent with my grandparents. Hauling bales. Picking rocks. Fixing fence. Trapping gophers. Of course, now my gopher bloodlust has abated. I dodge them while driving, and I’ll probably get mowed down by a semi someday while rescuing a turtle.
Have a good week, friends.
© Tony Bender, 2023
