CHEATING, LYING AND MOMS

VARIATIONS

 Spirit Room-Jerome Arizona. 158 curves in 12 miles of Highway 89A.

SPIRITUAL ARCHITECTURE

 Inside Chapel of the Holy Cross, Sedona Arizona, in red rock country. 

 Courtesy of Chapel of the Holy Cross Sedona Az

 Courtesy of Chapel of the Holy Cross Sedona Az
DEDICATED TO TOM BRADY

   An overnight construction in Cambria. 
OH WHAT A WEB WE WEAVE
WHEN AT FIRST WE DECEIVE

LIAR AND CHEAT

     Dashing and handsome Tom Brady is a public superstar and a great quarterback, but he is also a liar and a cheater.

     Several writers and commentators have taken on Mr. Brady since the investigation revealed his participation and knowledge in the scandal of deflated footballs. They are right to do so.

      The NFL is considering sanctions, if any. I suggest Brady play the next season in a jersey with LIAR on the back in place of his name.

       His coach Bill Belichick is a winning coach, but he too is a cheater. Patriots fans don't like to hear any of this, but it's true. Sneaking video of opponents, as engineered by Belichick, or deflating footballs is not the reason the Patriots are one of the great modern football dynasties. They are good and that makes cheating and lying all the more tragic. They don't need a sneaking, cheating advantage.
       Brady has lost my respect. He may be an exceptional jock, but he is a failure as a man. To be in his vaunted, high profile position and to lie repeatedly is the sign of a coward and weasel, as well as a cheater and liar. 
      You have to wonder when games went from being about play to being about only winning.  I've been an amateur jock my entire life and admit winning is a lot more fun than loosing. But they are games and principles, honor, sportsmanship and a conduct code still matter. There are rules of the game and they should matter despite the big money influence that dominates so much of our sports culture.
       Winning at all costs matters only when good people or societies are engaged in war against evil, like Hitler, Isis, disease, starvation, atrocities and even dishonesty. How you play the game, at all levels, speaks to who you really are.  
       The Patriots are a sad use of a good name. They are liars and cheaters. They are nothing to look up to.

SWEET, BUT TOUGH

    This is about the age Mary Helen Decker Cochrun became a mother by giving birth to this blogger.

     A bride during WWII, she endured the long absence of my father as he fought in the South Pacific. By then she was already a child of the great depression and had lost her father to blood poisoning when she was merely 16.

     She was one of the "greatest generation" who helped turn post war 1950's America into a place where families grew and the middle class flourished as parents participated in their children's lives and educations. She brought four children into the world and she buried three of them.

     "Nothing prepares you for the loss of a child" she said, still her faith remained strong and abiding. She was always about giving, sharing, being a shoulder to lean on. People sought her out for her strength and grace. She was tough, a survivor with firm views. She always supported the underdog, the working person, those who told the truth. She demanded that of her children and of public officials.

       She was active in politics until full time mothering limited her involvement. When I went to college she returned to work as an administrator, seeing three boys who needed rearing and educating. Dad's salary would go only go so far as they were supporting their own aging mothers and they insisted on traveling with their three sons to widen our view of life. Her daughter she lost early. Her two younger sons she lost with in the same year, as they both had reached young manhood. She had done a good job of being a mother to my irrepressible and accomplished brothers.

     I'm sorry for those who did not have a good relationship with their mother. My mother and her influence is one of the treasures of my life. As my daughters celebrate their mother this weekend, I will celebrate Mary Helen Decker Cochrun and that special selfless love of mothers.

     And kind and gentle as she was and as sentimental as is this remembrance, I can hear her saying that Tom Brady's behavior is disgusting and would be embarrassing to his mother! Yea mom, at least! 

    See you down the trail.

A VIEW FOR MYSTICS-ROOT CAUSES AND TOO IMPORTANT NOT TO SEE

CATHEDRAL LAND

   Red rock country near Sedona Arizona-

   Nature induces spirituality, contemplation, meditation and awe.

ROOT CAUSES

    A fraternity brother, now a retired psychologist said it well the other night; "If I was a young black man, no sense of future, poor education, unemployed and grew up watching police violence on other black people, I'd be angry too."

    Violence and looting will only make things worse, but cities, especially police departments, need to see the root causes. An economic underclass breeds discontent. Put police brutality and insensitivity into the mix and you have an explosive trigger. Baltimore police have paid out some six million dollars in settlement claims in the last few years because of inappropriate conduct. Unemployment among minority youth in Baltimore is stratospheric compared to other cities.

     There are many guilty parties in this kind of hellish problem and no one should get a pass on personal responsibility but it's foolish to expect a standard of behavior from people who have not been trained, educated and given an opportunity to grow up in a non hostile, non threatening world where the definition of civility means something. You can't do it if you don't know it. How to fix that is complicated, touchy and will require commitment from people and government. This much is sure, inappropriate police conduct and lack of understanding will only make it worse.

    

WOMAN IN GOLD

    This is one of the better films you can see. Excellent theatrical performance in the interpretation of an ugly, grinding piece of history.

    Helen Mirren, who again is astounding in her acting, portrays a Jewish woman Maria Altman, trying to reclaim a painting that was stolen from her family by the Nazis and which remained in the clutches of an arrogant Austrian government that at the time acquiesced to the Germans and since refused to admit guilt and theft.

    The entire cast is superb.  I'm a real fan of Daniel Bruhl who lights it up, even in his small role.  Two brief but wonderful character roles come from Jonathan Pryce as Chief Justice Rehnquist and Elizabeth McGovern as Judge Florence Cooper. Ryan Reynolds is a believable Randol Schoenberg. Charles Dance evokes a gut response to his character's arrogance and shortsightedness. He's so good at evil. Tatiana Maslany is hypnotic as a young Marian Altman, looking like Mirren. But Mirren's performance alone is a reason to watch, though the storyline, the quest for justice and the historical foundation are too important not to see and ponder.

     A line from Schoenberg about the "two Austrias" is not so vaguely reminiscent of the type of divides that exist in America on matters of race, sex, gender and economic class.

   See you down the trail.