Perhaps time for some random nonsense. Okay, okay, you are saying that all my posts are nonsense. Point well taken.

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Hmm, I just came across one of those ubiquitous rankings of cities, best for this and that. This one was for the top ‘fittest’ cities. Madison (seen from across Lake Monona above) was again near the top … # 6. Let me say categorically that I dragged the city down on that one. Definitely would be in the top 5 if I were to move away.

Oh, and don’t forget … it also was ranked as the 5th top educated city in the land. If you want to be around people with sound minds in sound bodies, this is the place to be. Just to be clear, I’m not one of them (being unsound in both mind and body) but many others are.

To be honest, there is a petition circulating to encourage me to leave the city, a sure way of boosting the ratings higher.

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I can’t see how Trump can be President again. It is not because he is a thoroughly disgusting, morally bamkrupt, pathological narcissist and sociopath. While those are his better points and self-evident, others of similar ilk have had successful political careers. No, Trump is ineligible since he would contravene the Constitution if he were to serve again … namely Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, this clause having been approved after the Civil War to prevent clear enemies of the Republic from usurping power. It says:

‘no person shall … hold any office, civil or military, under the United States who, having previously taken an oath … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.’

Oh wait, I forgot. Didn’t the GOP tell me that those nice people beating the Capitol Police half to death were merely tourists ambling through our seat of government. How silly of me.

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Did you know there were only 21 Whoopng Cranes in the world a few decades ago. That beautiful bird, one of God’s special creatures, was on the verge of extinction. Now there are some 830. A shout out goes to the International Crane Foundation (located just north of Madison) and George Archibald for his tireless work for some five decades in bringing this and other species of cranes back from the brink. I so admire dedicated people like this though they make me feel like a worthless slug.

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For some reason, I just mused on the precise moment when I knew I would never make a living as an athlete. I was a pretty good baseball pitcher in my early teens, almost went undefeated for my junior high school team. Anyway, one day I was on first base when I got the steal signal from our coach. I was stunned, being the slowest runner on the team. I must have looked clueless to him since, after giving the same sign several times, he yelled … “steal second you nimrod.” So, on the next pitch I chugged down to second and slid in safely. I could not believe I had stolen a base and just assumed the batter had hit a fall ball.

In a move I have never forgotten by me (though I have tried deperately), I started jogging back to first base before our totally shocked opponents recovered to tag me out. I can still recall the adams apple of our coach going up and down as he yelled things at me that no young teen should ever hear. However, it was all for the best. A lesson was learned. I scratched pro-athlete off my list of possible future vocations.

I kept scratching off other possiblities as it became apparent that I had neither the talent nor disposition for each alternative considered. Manual labor, or real work, was never even an option to be remotely considered. At the end of the day, being a useless faux academic and pretty good policy wonk was all that was left. But I had fun … that’s what counts.

NOTE: That’s me in the middle flanked by two cousins. The one on the left went pretty far in the Los Angeles Angels minor league system but never quite made it to the majors.

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The movie Oppenheimer is out. That got me thinking that about how anyone would have made the decision he did … to use his skills to create a weapon potentially capable of destroying civilization. Albert Einstein perhaps started the atomic bomb rolling when he signed a letter to FDR that had been drafted by fellow physicist Leo Szilard warning of the danger that Germany might create an atomic weapon. They had the brainpower to do it.

Both Oppenheimer and Einstein were toward the pacifist end of the political spectrum. Einstein was very critical of his fellow German academics who helped the war effort in WWI. He also fled Germany as the Nazi’s were coming to power. Both men (Oppy and Al) faced an incredible dilemna. They hated war. In a way, that made it easier for them to ease their consiousnesses about creating a super-weapon. It might save lives in the end by ensuring the Nazi’s would not win (I doubt Japan played much of a role in their thinking). Of course, Einstein never got to play a substantive role in the Manhatten Project. He was considered a security risk by the paranoid powers that be for some specious reason or another.

Truman had little doubt about using this new tool. He already saw the ally costs in lives lost associated with taking places like Iwo Jima and Okinawa by conventional means. If they had to invade mainline Japan, some estimates put the potential causualties as high as a million lives. We can never know for sure but the dropping the bomb on Horoshima and Nagasaki likely saved many lives. Conventional bombing alone to siften them up for an invasion would have killed more Japanese than the two atomic weapons did. As Oppenheimer believed, the horrific example to the world of using such a weapon may also have detered future use, a lesson that never would have been embraced had the bomb remained simply an unused threat.

Albert and Oppy, on the other hand, suffered from their participation and contribution to the creation of nuclear weapons. They gambled on Germany (and the Nazis) being far further along than they were. By the time that they realized they would not develop the bomb (though they did come up with jet planes and ballistic missiles by the end of the conflict), it was too late to reverse course.

Since I had trouble with high school algebra, I never would have been involved in the Manhatten project. But if that were possible, what decision would I have made? What decision would you have made? Remember this, while many of the scientists came to regret their actions at Los Alamos (and the satellite sites) it was assumed at the beginning that the Germans had a 12 to 18 month head start on the allies in creating a nuclear weapon. Who would wait and debate morality under such a threat?

Oddly enough, the Nazi’s hate of the Jews may have thwarted their best chance of ultimate victory. Hitler once said that quantum physics, the theoretical basis for the bomb, was ‘Jewish’ Science. He could never support it. In the end, his own irrational hate contributed to his downfall.

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Do you ever receive these emails from political campaigns that suggest they are sharing top secrets with you. I remember the Republican ones for some reason. They usually start with something about ‘the information below is for my eyes only,’ perhaps even suggesting that I delete the message after reading. A common variation on the theme is that they are ONLY sharing this inside info with a few trusted supporters, especially those who have been financially generous in the past.

Right there, my antennae go up. If the leaked secret info is from a conservative source, I never should be getting it. I have not given them a single dime even though some 70 percent or so of all the messages I get are from that side of the aisle. Could it be that they are playing me with a con? Perish the thought.

Then I read the ‘top secret’ message. After the blabber, it comes down to the Dems are ‘woke, radical, socialist, and pawns of Satan himself.’ They need all the money I have left to stop this grave threat to America, to our freedoms, and mother and apple pie. Ifyou need any confirmation as to the low regard in which politicians hold the public (including some, though I believe fewer, Dems) this is all the proof you need.

They, especially those on the right, think we are idiots. Oh wait, people still vote Republican. Perhaps they are correct.

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I have suffered from the ‘imposter complex’ most of my life, a debilitating affliction associated with low self-esteem. I’m not sure that people see this from the outside since I have taken on a number of challenges over time and, from what some have told me, generally look confident as I addressed them. The truth! Inside I am a bundle of doubts … always have been though the level of insecurity has diminished somewhat over time. After all, my favorite mantra now is ‘what are they going to do, fire me.’

Somehow, I managed to survive what seemed like a reasonably successful career as a policy wonk, as a manager of a university-based research entity, as a university-level teacher, as a consultant to the feds along with many state and local government, and as other such things. I gave hundreds of talks to all kinds of audiences, did untold print-media interviews and even a few TV appearances, and consorted with quite a few top government officials and academic luminaries. Yet, all along I kept waiting to be revealed as a total fraud and kicked out of the room. For some reason, that never happened and I cannot, for the life of me, explain why.

The key question is where did my affliction start. I had an epiphany during a recent power walk. Yes, I have sunk so low as to resort to exercise. Had to, really had gotten disgustingly fat. But I digress. My insight was that it all started on the playground as a kid. Now, it is true that my mother never praised me at all, though I found out later she bragged to everyone else about me (with lies). But I got nothing but criticism. Surely, that contributed to my sinking self-image.

The real culprit was located, I believe, in the despicable protocols for picking team members for those games we played as young urchins. Today, kids are spoiled rotten. They are driven to organized events by doting parents, play under adult supervision, and then given participation awards for not crapping in their pants during the contest. In my day, we simply marauded around the neighborhood until we organized ourselves into do-or-die sporting events on the nearby playgrounds or right in the streets.

For baseball, a common approach was to have one team captain (the captains were the best athletes there that day) throw a bat to the other captain who would catch it with one hand somewhere along the barrel. Each captain would then start alternating hands up the bat until one of the two could still cup the nob at the skinny end found on all baseball bats. That captain would get the first pick and then they would alternate as they selected their team members.

This was the excrutiating part. If you were a talentless schmuck like me, you stood there as all the healthy guys were picked, then the tomboy girl who insisted on playing with us manly guys, and then the walking wounded who were on crutches or in a wheelchair. Finally, they got to me. I could see the pain in the captains eyes as he looked about to see if anyone else was coming along. Absent any reprieve, he would sigh as he said ‘guess I’m stuck with Corbett.’ I think those words will be etched on my tombstone. It really wasn’t a good start in life.

NOTE: That is me on the left.

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I had a breakthrough of sorts the other night. A neighbor sent me a URL that was linked to a Facenbook site. This has happened before and I’ve never been able to access them since I was banned from Facebook (Meta) many moons ago. This was not just going to Facebook jail, I was banned, exiled presumably forever twice (I am reduced to sneaking back on). That’s why I started this blog.

Anyway, I decided to give FB another try so that I could access the joke sent to me. Usually, such efforts would stall when I would get this message that I needed to prove my identity by uploading an official ID like my Wisconsin drivers license. I tried that a number of times and nothing. More recently, I’ve been getting a message that I had used an old password but none of my paswords seemed to work when tried. When I then tried creating a new one, I never made it passed all their security barriers. Hopeless, I figured.

Last night I tried a new account (not sure why). In the past, I would get just so far and they would say there was already an account with this email or phone number, but I knew I could not access that account since they would ask me for my ID again. Not last night, however. I would get a ‘continue’ message and, amazingly, I could. In he end, I was able to create an account under my real name … Tom Corbett. Were the FB Gestapo asleep at the switch?

The problem, however, is that once again I am starting out with NO FRIENDS (I am up to 120 plus already). Under Thomas Corbett I had 30,000 friends and followers before being banned for life. Under Jim Corbett I quickly accumulated 7,000 friends and followers before their vigilant Gestapo thugs threw me off (permanently) once again. My sin this last time was posting a pic of Jesse Owens getting a medal at the 1936 Berlin Olymic games (see below). I made the comment that it was unfortunate that FDR did not invite him to the White House but I understood the political reasons for why he was reluctant.

This lifetime ban undoubtedly was because of the third white athlete on the podium giving a Nazi salute (again, see pic above). The shot had nothing to do with this white guy, and my comments did not allude to him in the least. But apparently I was seen as fomenting some right wing violence. ME? Really, you have got to be kidding.

I will say this one more time. You have to stay up nights creating a community standards program that is so ineptly designed and moronically managed that the whole thing leaves you in disbelief. WOW! I doubt my run this time will be for long. I probably will post a picture of a tulip and be accused of discriminating against roses.

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This epic event happened some 54 years ago (where has the time gone). I saw it happen in a Dublin Ireland Hotel Bar at about 3 AM after spending another futile evening trying to seduce a lovely young lass … a Swedish tourist in this instance. I ran into her while touring Trinity College and accompanied her back to her hostel where we got yo know one another a bit better. A lesson for all males. Never chase fast women. They will outrun you all the time.

When time to take my leave, I had to make it across town to my own hotel in the middle of the night. When I arrived, I was shocked to see a bunch of people huddled in front of a TV in the bar (which had officially closed down much earlier, this not being New York). Curious, I wandered over to see what was what and found history was being made. I enjoyed the moment.

Of course, I was actually proud to be an American back then. Now, not so much!

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Perhaps next time, I will post something about college towns turning the political tide in many states, possibly saving America from the an authoritarian takeover by the hard right. Florida is not exactly the poster state for this thesis. As I mentioned, some Republicans are waging a war on higher education, with Ron Desantis trying to lead the charge.

Take Ron for example. I’m serious, please take … somewhere or anywhere. He has hijacked the campus of the New College of Florida, a smaller school with a liberal reputation. Besides getting rid of the President, he has installed six new members to the Board of Trustees. These include:

• The architect of the Republican attack on ‘critical race’ theory.
• the superintendent of a religious charter school and critic of public education.
• the Dean of very conservative Hillsdale College (Michigan) which explicitly pushes an extreme ‘hard right’ agenda.
• the author of a book so extremely anti-LGBTQ that Amazon won’t sell it. actual

Not surprisingly, some 36 percent of the existing faculty are fleeing. This won’t dismay Desantis and friends at all. They will bring in propogandists to replace actual scholars and legitimate teachers since he wants this institution to become the Hillsdale College of Florida.

Ah, remember when we revered academic freedom as a strength.

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My mind really wanders during my morning walks (when I’m not worrying about collapsing in a heap from cardiac arrest). One final early memory, one possibly associated with another of my lifelong neuroses and pathological affliction … an extreme difficulty being intimate with those of the female persuasion. Now, I’ve always been great around women on a casual or friendship level. Being friend, companion, colleague comes naturally to me. And I like the superior sex. They have their idiosyncracies but I have always found them to be more insightful as interesting as friends and more organized and focused as professional colleagues. Most of what would pass as my friends have been women.

The difficulty always came in moving beyond this casual stage. I was paralyzed when it came to asking for a date. One hint of a rejection and I would go into a form of hibernation where I would lick my wounds for months. While I had questions about whether females could ever be attracted to males physically, I really was convinced I had nothing to offer. When good fortune smiled on me (and it did on occasion, amazingly enough), I immediately became suspicious … what is she really after?

Enough on my pathology, one of them at least. Where did it start?

Here I am with Diane … my upstairs neighbor. One day, while playing in the backyard, she said ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.’ Though I suspect we were a bit older than in this pic I had NO IDEA what she was talking about. Show what and, for god’s sake, why? But, as I recall, she dropped her drawers and then so did I (while remaining utterly clueless).

And then, a booming voice came from above ‘What are you doing down there.’ For a moment, I thought it was the voice of God and that I would be cast into the bowels of Hell for all eternity. But it was a female voice and we all knew that God was an angry looking old man. It turned out to be my gray-haired grandmother (Irish no less) looking down disapprovingly from her 3rd floor back porch. I immediately was stricken with a profusion of emotions … guilt, embarrasment, fear, dread, and remorse. Mostly, I was frantically thinking of how I might make my way to Mexico as a young tyke.

I can’t recall what happened after this moment but surely I was scarred for life. I wonder if I’m too old to start therapy?

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You are probably asking why I have arrived at the conclusion that our Republic is doomed? Even if your aren’t, I am going to tell you in any case. It is because we have become two separate nations, supported by distinct cultures that CANNOT be reconciled (my old rant again). They are not separated by different political opinions or even normative views. No, we are talking about two distinct populations that see basic reality in very different ways, and have all the social and communication supports to support these utterly different and fundamentally disparate worlds.

In my youth, we had serious divisions like Apartheid in southern states. Yet, there was a common narrative painting a realistic picture of what minorities faced. It is just that a large portion of the population had decided that it was in their best interests to exploit Black people. But I cannot recall them believing that they were lynching minorities and bombing or burning down their churches out of kindness. There was a national media, at least as we got into the 1960s, that painted a relatively honest picture of what was happening.

The big difference today is that those on the other side of the divide from me have access to an alternative reality. They can skip over the ‘liberal’ media and ‘fake’ news to seek those outlets that will feed their fears and stoke their anger. As I noted earlier, according to the MAGA cult the mob attacking the capitol on January 6 were patriots defending the Constitution, not insurrectionists defiling that sacred document. And Donald Trump, they tell us, is the final arbiter of truth. Read that one again … Donald Trump is seen as the savior of the little people as he spouts venom from his Mar-A-Lago version of Shangri-La.

We have found George Orwell’s 1984. Up is down, black is white, war is peace. And I am looking for the exit ramp.

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Until next time … CHILL!