"...Through the too many miles
and the to little smiles
I still remember you..."
- Harry Chapin
Fifty years ago, a huge fan. We saw Harry Chapin as a headliner in Detroit in 1974. The intro act was a relatively new act to us which got the crowd fired up. It was Linda Rondstadt.
I still can remember the full lyrics to this song.
https://youtu.be/c5dwksSbD34?si=wmaNzX8A9woVLCI2
What is the most pressing issue facing the State of Michigan? Is it the on again, off again tariffs that have been proposed which could push Michigan’s auto industry into a deep recession? Is it budget cuts and employee terminations to the Veteran’s and Social Security Administrations, and other areas of government? Is it the fact that the “damn roads” still are not fixed and the legislature in Lansing and Governor Whitmer have yet to produce a long-term fix? Maybe the wars in Ukraine or Gaza?
If you ask Congressman Tim Walberg, he might say that it is the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA). Huh?
A little background is in order. At the end of my senior year in high school and in June 1972, Title IX was signed into law. According to a Google search, Title IX “prohibits sex-based discrimination in education programs and activities that receive federal funding, ensuring equal opportunities for male and female students and employees.”
That is a good thing. Before Title IX girls’ sports in Michigan schools and other states were not equal. Title IX and the MHSAA started to require a balance in the number of sports for girls and boys. As a result, young ladies were granted greater opportunities to participate in sports and the physical fitness, discipline, teamwork, and competition that sports entail.
A year after the passage of Title IX in September 1973, one of the most infamous sports competitions of all time took place. Labeled the Battle of the Sexes, Bobby Riggs challenged Billie Jean King to a tennis match. Riggs was 55 years old. King was in her athletic prime at age 29. King won in three straight sets.
A few months before the Battle of the Sexes, Martina Navratilova faced Chris Evert for the first time in what would become competition between two of the greatest tennis players of all time. Evert is a native born American. Navratilova is a Czech/American citizen, like my maternal grandparents. I think one of the reasons that I am a tennis fan has to do with their matches. Navratilova’s similar background to my maternal ancestors, also gives me an affinity. To this day, I highly respect and enjoy the expert commentary of both during matches but especially the tennis Grand Slam tournaments.
Ok, ok, but what does Navratilova have to do with Congressman Walberg and MHSAA? Not much, really. Navratilova is liberal on most issues. Walberg is the opposite. There is an exception. Both are virulently anti-transgender girls playing in girls’ sports.
Congressman Walberg recently stated in a syndicated radio interview, “The President issued an Executive Order banning trans girls from participating in women’s athletics. The Michigan High School Athletic Association has decided to uphold it’s (sic) policy allowing them to take part…The next step will be enacting a punishment on (MHSAA).”
Walberg has recommended cutting all federal funds to the MHSAA. This is problematic. One main reason is that MHSAA apparently receives no federal funds. According to MHSAA, their revenues come from fan ticket sales during tournaments, fees paid by officials at events, interest income, etc. Schools do not fund the MHSAA.
Per the MHSAA, there were TWO transgender girls in fall 2024, or less than 0.002 percent (two thousandths of one percent) out of 112,377 girls who played Michigan High School sports in 2022-23, per the MHSAA. In fact, the MHSAA says that ZERO received waivers to play in winter or spring 2024-25.
Now, I do not know what the rules should be allowing trans kids to participate in sports. I am not that smart. Seems to me that the MHSAA rules are about as fair as can be. I just wish Walberg and others like him would pick on someone other than two vulnerable kids.
Yes, I am one hundred percent supportive of Title IX and girls and women sports. Watching Kailin Clark shoot threes is spectacular. Madison Keys winning the Australian Open this year with her powerful serves was cool. And if I ever get the chance to get an autograph from soccer great Mia Hamm, I will proudly post it on my den wall. (Martina’s autograph too.)
Navratilova once said “And what I think I have come to realize, the biggest thing for me, is just that the level of difficulty that trans people go through cannot be underestimated. The fight for equality and recognition is just huge. Still, for me, the most important thing in sports...”
Girls’ sports are important. As are vulnerable kids.
Drinking again...
Making the rounds
Buying a round for total strangers
Just being a fool...
- The Divine Miss M (Bette Midler)
No I am not. This is just one of my favorite Bette Midler ditties.
https://youtu.be/Cy-a5zIGj48?si=4Mqqzhzmfdx-2tDm
"But only love can break your heart
Try to be sure right from the start
Yes, only love can break your heart
What if your world should fall apart..."
- Neil Young with CSN
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18wgDepK6U/
OMG.
The guidance coming down from the IRS is from bizarro world.
In the volunteer income tax assistance program, we are supposed
to have in the past had two posters posted. One was entitled
"Your Civil Rights". That poster has been removed from the
IRS website.
In addition, all our clients have to complete an intake sheet.
The sheet lists the demographic information we need to
complete a return: Name, address, phone #, dependents,
marital status. Also, inside it references to the types of
income or expenses that a client may have.
Last year, the IRS added that a client could circle or
indicate their preferred pronouns. That would be nothing
in the return, but we could use that if we needed to contact
a client with questions or when referring to the client.
We are to cross that reference off.
In addition, the IRS is no longer allowed to collect ethnic
background data on clients we serve. Again, not that it
was entered on a return. But the IRS wanted to ensure that
we did not discriminate against any clients. (I never
asked the question, if our clients never bothered to complete
the information. Most just want to know "how much do
I owe or what is my refund?"
Another document we were to have is labeled:
Privacy, Confidentiality, and Civil Rights.
Again, the apparent dastardly reference to "civil rights".
It ain't available on the IRS website and we for now
no longer need to have it available to help us determine
how best to serve our clients in those regards.
Probably more coming down the pike.
As Looney Tunes would say:
That's All Folks!
Although apparently more sh*t to come.
In 1755, after a terrible earthquake in Lisbon, Portugal, Voltaire wrote a poem. The first lines from translation here:
Oh wretched man, earth-fated to be cursed
Abyss of plagues, and miseries the worst!
Horrors on horrors, griefs on griefs must show,
That man's the victim of unceasing woe,
And lamentations which inspire my strain,
Prove that philosophy is false and vain.
Approach in crowds, and mediate awhile
Yon shattered walls, and view each ruined pile
Women and children heaped up mountain high,
Limbs crushed which under ponderous marble lie;
Wretches unnumbered in the pangs of death,
Who mangled, torn, and panting for their breath,
Buried beneath their sinking roofs expire,
And end their wretched lives in torment dire...
The poem about the Lisbon earthquake is considered by some to be a precursor
to his most famous work Candide. Like the Lisbon earthquake poem which
showed Voltaire's humanity, both Lisbon and Candide are pointed pokes
at optimism and to some degree the naivete of Candide's Doctor Pangloss. Both are
direct attacks on Leibniz who suggested that an all-powerful God had
created the world and that, therefore, the world must be perfect.
It is not. We live in a universe 13 billion years old and stretching for tens
of billions of light years with what scientists think are billions
upon billions of galaxies with trillions of stars and untold planets.
None of which are perfect but expanding and evolving still.
Darwin, not Dr. Pangloss, was right when he wrote:
"If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature,
but by our institutions, great is our sin."
Sometimes my written words
are no more than mumbo jumbo,
pseudo-intellectual bullshit.
But they are my words,
at times carefully chosen,
other times spewing forward.
Words that to me are
so much easier to write
than to verbalize.
Forgive me that
and my inability to express
what in a song I know
but in my heart I fear,
never wanting to offend you.
What should be so simple.
Have I told you lately ...
https://youtu.be/doCIvWFEgN4?si=rv7_GUHs9oC9eNuD
Fogelberg fits my mood this New Year's Eve:
"...We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to nowAnd tried to reach beyond the emptinessBut neither one knew how..."
“So, this is Christmas and what have you done? Another year over and a new one just begun.” John Lennon’s Happy Christmas, War Is Over is one of my favorite Christmas songs. Yes, I am of the age that I remember seeing the Beatles live on the Ed Sullivan show decades ago. I also remember an older sister screaming her appreciation of the Fab Four that evening while I simply wanted to retreat to another room to watch The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh on the Wonderful World of Disney.
After I spent four years in the U.S. Navy primarily to obtain the G.I. Bill, I returned to college. Because I was older than most students at Grand Valley, I was in a hurry to graduate. As a result, I attended school year-round including summer semesters. I completed my bachelor’s degree in December 1980. I was scheduled to start my first post college job after Christmas that year. While I was studying for my final exams, I got the word on WLAV, the local rock station, that Lennon was killed just outside his home in New York City.
WLAV immediately started playing Lennon’s classic Imagine. Thousands of his fans converged on New York to pay their respects and mourn together. I completed my final exams while listening to Beatles albums that December.
Whether you are celebrating Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa or any other holiday this December, may your celebrations be meaningful and joyful. Admittedly, I am a newcomer when it comes to knowledge of religious customs other than my own. Over a decade ago, I enrolled in a comparative religion course at Lake Michigan College. As a part of that course, we were required to visit a house of worship other than our own denomination. Upon inquiry, a friend graciously extended an invitation for me to attend a Jewish sabbath service. I found it a joyful experience as a group of youngsters and those in attendance sang Shabbat Shalom (or peaceful sabbath).
One of the strengths of America is our first amendment. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
We are stronger as a nation, as a country the more that we live up to that ideal. Peaceable assembly, the free exercise of religion, and freedom of the press are essential to our American way of life.
This past year has been a test of those ideals. Election years often challenge our tolerance toward one another. This election year was more challenging than most. Whether someone had a Trump or Harris sign in their lawn, they are simply exercising their freedom of speech. Surely, we should celebrate that. We are still neighbors. We are all Michiganders. And whether our candidate(s) won or lost, there is another election in two years, and another one two years after that.
Admittedly, I am finding it challenging to be optimistic this holiday season. Wars are raging in the Middle East, Ukraine, and various countries in Africa. When the news is full of images of the elderly, women, and children suffering amidst devastation in Gaza and elsewhere, it is not an image of “peace on earth and good will toward men.”
No president. No religious leader. No one can wave a magic wand and end suffering, or war, poverty, or famine.
Peace on earth and good will toward men, tolerance is demanding work. Yet, it is an ideal that our first amendment and major religions point to: the Golden Rule.
From the website Medium.com:
“Do to others what you would have them do to you,” Christianity.
“None of you [truly] believes until he loves for his brother that which he loves for himself,” Islam.
“That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow, this is the whole Torah,” Judaism.
“One should not behave toward others in a way which is disagreeable to oneself,” Hinduism.
“Hurt not others with that which pains yourself,” Buddhism.
And finally, from Monticello:
“Perhaps the single thing which may be required to others before toleration to them would be an oath that they would allow toleration to others,” Thomas Jefferson.
Imagine.
A Michigan Episcopalian Takes a Stance Against Dehumanizing Rhetoric
EMM recently heard from Rob Burgess, an Episcopalian who lives in Lincoln Township, just south of Benton Harbor, Michigan. Now retired, Rob remains active as a volunteer with many local organizations, including Southwest Michigan Interfaith Action, a local soup kitchen, and Emergency Shelter Services of Benton Harbor. Rob also serves as Treasurer on the Vestry at St. Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church in Benton Harbor. Rob’s background, life experiences, and community engagement have made him especially sensitive to the vulnerabilities of people forced to flee their homes who seek safety and a new life in the U.S.
In response to the anti-immigrant rhetoric that has ramped up in this election season, Rob felt compelled to write an opinion piece for his local newspaper, The Herald-Palladium. Since the piece remains behind a paywall, Rob shared it with EMM, giving us permission to share his perspective along with further context on how he came to take this stance.
Rob’s interactions and relationships with people who have come to the U.S. in search of safety and a better life have been important to his journey. Rob points, for example, to his friend, “Doña Teresa,” using the Spanish title of respect for a woman. Originally from Nicaragua, Doña Teresa came to the U.S. years ago fleeing domestic abuse, with two young children in tow. Offered refuge as a survivor of violence against women, Doña Teresa worked hard, made a new life for herself and her children, applied for legal permanent residency, and eventually became a social worker. Rob met her when he was serving as a volunteer for the United Way of Southwest Michigan, helping local residents fill out their income tax returns. The two became friends, and Doña Teresa eventually invited Rob to attend the ceremony when she became a U.S. citizen. “It was one of the most beautiful ceremonies I have ever attended,” Rob recalled. “New citizens from all continents (except of course Antarctica) were sworn in that day.”
Rob has also found inspiration in his involvement in the Episcopal Church, which has included service on the board of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship as well as his local parish. Rob was raised a Catholic, but after “drifting” for a while as a young man, eventually found his way to the Episcopal Church. As he tells the story, “I was a young CPA and auditor just out of college. My second client, straight out of school, was St Mark's Episcopal in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The bookkeeper at the time was Alida Densem.” Mrs. Densem had been serving in that role for a long time, and her skills made a big impression on young Rob Burgess.
