Christmas, Trees, Plague, Trump, Goo, Cult, Jan 6, Watters All Wet, QAnon

Legal expert Imani Gandy gets surprisingly musical:

  • Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara rejects left and right this season. Christmas has nothing to do with Christianity and multi-culturalism rejects true American culture, which is inherently libertarian. So both are unAmerican.
     
    Here’s why Christmas has nothing to do with Christianity: It is a state and federally sanctioned holiday.
     
    Inherently libertarian? I’m taking some liberties here. He actually says American culture is rooted in individualism. Mr. LaFerrara is not the only libertarian to appropriate individualism as a synonym for their anti-government philosophy.
     
    Let’s take a look, shall we?
     
    That Christ is part of the name Christmas is not simply historical coincidence.
    Right?
    Nobody should be required to celebrate December 25 as a religious holiday, nor should it be prohibited. The fact that it is recognized by government is not a barrier to either. That includes my right wing friends. It also includes me and other hippy leftist longhairs who happen to be religious (remembering those happy days I actually had hair).
     
    In fact, religious freedom includes everyone. Celebrate or don’t celebrate as secular or religious. That’s …you know… individual.
     
    Multiculturalism extends social participation to those who have been excluded in the past. It does not require anyone to give up their individuality.
     
  • Concerned about the War on Christmas? In MadMikesAmerica, Glenn Geist says Christmas has already been killed.
     
  • But maybe Christmas in its truest sense can be given a resurrection:

  • SilverAppleQueen protects her Christmas tree from predators.
     
  • Household pets cannot always escape the joy:
  • @momwino98 is stunned by a Christmas realization:
     

    @momwino98

    Come on Santa! Get here!!! ##santa ##FFXmasSwitch ##thegrinch ##wine ##tiktokmom ##fyp ##foryourpage

    ♬ Original sound – TikToksSoundGuy

  • North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz suggests the real tragedy of the COVID pandemic is the core reason the pandemic did not end long ago.
     
  • As to humanity lost:

  • Hackwhackers still doesn’t much care for Mr. Trump but since suddenly he so vigorously endorses vaccinations, Mr. Trump deserves some appreciation. The turnaround does produce some conflict within the MAGA crowd.
     
    My reaction:


    And maybe I yield to a bit of cynicism:

  • PZ Myers has yet another story of folk who don’t want vaccines because they don’t know what’s in it.
     
    Good phraseology:
    …but then they’ll turn around and slurp up toxic goo mixed up in a church basement by a kook…

Continue reading “Christmas, Trees, Plague, Trump, Goo, Cult, Jan 6, Watters All Wet, QAnon”

Insurrect, Pence-ive, But… Their Emails!, Perry, Jordan, Big Lie, Rice in Peace

  • Green Eagle reports on the latest from Mike Pence. Seems that testifying about Jan 6 is not a sure thing. Green Eagle may know why. Has to do with an underreported aspect of the Constitution.
     
  •  

  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged hears Liz Cheney read emails from the Republican Fab Four, plays the game one of these is not like the others, and looks forward to actual hearings.
     
  • News Corpse covers Fox Network confusion about how to cover their mis-cover of the Jan 6 failed coup. Liz Cheney makes text messages public that Fox personalities had sent on January 6 urging that Donald Trump stop his followers as they trashed the Capitol Building, killing a few police officers, sending dozens more to the hospital, and attempting to assassinate legislators. As FoxFolk were sending messages urging that Trump tell the mob to stop, Foxxers went on air to say that the carnage was completely independent of Trump. As other networks showed Rep. Cheney reading the messages to the cameras, Fox refused to say a word about the hearings for more than 24 hours.
     
    The excuses they eventually offered for the difference between public coverage and private panic are pathetic, but they are the best pathetic excuses they had then, or have now.
     
  • In Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson notes that CNN reporters think they know who the Jan 6 Committee think they know wrote a subversion memo suggesting Republicans overthrow the 2020 election. The initials turn out to be May I have the envelope please? Rick Perry, one-time Energy Secretary for President Trump. The investigative momentum, she says, seems to be picking up.
     
  •  

  • The Palmer Report is paying attention to who says what in and out of the Jan 6 Committee. The individual who may be putting himself into an ocean of legal pain is Rick Perry.
     
    I haven’t liked Rick Perry since he was Governor Perry of Texas. An obviously innocent man was put to death for killing his family because Governor Perry was too damn busy read too damn lazy to read an urgent authoritative report proving the man could not have done it. Perry later tried to cover up the man’s innocence.
     
    There’s something about executing innocent people that flat-out ticks me off.
     
  • Jim Jordan reveals that he also wrote texts to Mark Meadows advocating the overthrow of the election. Andy Borowitz covers the stunned reaction as the nation is shocked that Jim Jordan is capable of writing a text.
     
  • Dave Dubya talks about the Big Lie that is disproven in an endless series of Groundhog Days, remarking,
    But a cult is a cult. And a cult isn’t a cult to a cult,
    asking if Trumpists are fascists, and whether we should compare them to Nazis, then proposing an answer.
     
  • On the other hand, Scottie has definite proof of voter fraud in the 2020 election.
     
  • CalicoJack in The Psy of Life finds reason for pessimism about our national future:

  • driftglass is frustrated as columnist Jennifer Rubin insists Biden must defend democracy by publicly identifying its foes. driftglass asks: identify what to whom?
     
  • MadMikesAmerica explores in cartoon format why President Biden’s poll numbers have been going down.
     
  • Frances Langum has the documentation showing exactly where Republicans stand on Biden’s American Rescue Plan.
     
    It’s becoming a pattern. Representative Paul A. Gosar (R-AZ):
     
    While bill is being debated:
    The American Rescue Plan is a Trojan horse for socialism!
     
    After bill passes:
    I am pleased to announce that the City of Kingman will receive this critical funding…
     
    Yup. Oppose it all the way until Republican opposition is defeated and relief for beleaguered Americans passes.
    Then Republicans claim credit for it.
     
  • M. Bouffant at Web of Evil gathers the documentation and the reaction as Donald Trump, bitter at his massive election defeat, accuses the American Jews collectively of inadequate loyalty to Israel.
     


    This rather jumps out:
    It used to be that Israel had absolute power over Congress and today I think it’s the exact opposite.

Continue reading “Insurrect, Pence-ive, But… Their Emails!, Perry, Jordan, Big Lie, Rice in Peace”

Pandem Variants, Masks, Gargle, GOP, Jan 6, Exec Priv, Big Lie, Evil, Gaetz

  • Infidel753 has the initial facts on the fairly new Omicron variant.
     
  • Here in Missouri, if our Governor ever faced accusations that intelligence exceeded the legal limit, he would have many overlapping proofs of innocence.
     
    Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit watches the latest drama:

    • Mike Parsons opposes any masking requirements, which is run-of-the-mill dumb among Republicans in these parts.
    • Mike Parsons orders a study to prove he is right about opposing mask-mandates. This elevates the dumb a bit.
    • The study proves he is wrong. Mandates work. This merely documents the dumb. A deal of sorts, but still not that big a deal.
    • He tries to hide the study, which is way-y-y-y dumb.
    • News media find it anyway. Duh! Making it even bigger news than if he had been honest about it. Now it’s a newsworthy news story that can’t be ignored in news coverage by local news organizations.
    • Governor Parsons blows up, mad as hell about it being found. Which produces headlines everywhere.

     
    Of course, separately, this never gets old:
     

  • At Scotties Playtime, Senator Ron Johnson (R-Idiocy) abandon’s bleach injections and says gargling with mouthwash cures COVID.
     
    Along that vein, so to speak
     

  • Some of us do get frustrated by so many lazy accept-whatever-they-say reporters interviewing prominent disinformation political types. Tommy Christopher shows that it is not always that way. A Senator who opposes vaccine mandates by employers seems unprepared for a couple of sharper than usual CNBC anchors and trips all over himself.
     
  • The Palmer Report documents the documents and a bad week for Mr. Trump that ended in a very bad day yesterday.
     
  • Hackwhackers, discovers the newly discovered Republican Power Point presentation directing Jan 6 efforts to overturn the election of Joe Biden and the national rejection of Trump. Then posts several pithy internet reactions. Entertaining, instructive, and, on reflection, horrifying.
     
  • One major news item this week involved Trump losing so far his executive privilege claim on archived White House documents. The appeals court decision was unanimous. News Corpse covers the coverage, watching for the slant from the Fox Network.
     
    Turns out there is no slant. Fox didn’t mention it at all.
     
    Well, I suppose reporting nothing on one side and nothing on the other is Fair And Balanced after a fashion.
     
  • Green Eagle explains the part of law that may make Mike Pence unwilling to testify to the Jan 6 Committee. Has to do with the Constitutional right to kill Vice Presidents.
     
  • Julian Sanchez joins fellow Cato Institute personality Caleb Brown in podcastville to consider the Mark Meadows case and Congressional access to information from former executive branch officials. Julian Sanchez seems to think the case represents a fuzzy legal issue with no clear answer.
     
  • The good news for Mr. Trump is he has attracted heavy duty investment into his very own social network. The Borowitz Report covers the bad news. The network’s standards have been violated and Trump has been banned.
     
    If you haven’t read his blistering statement about the expulsion, it’s because he hasn’t found anywhere to post it.
     
    Warning: None of it is true. It’s satire, folks.
     
  • CalicoJack in The Psy of Life takes a close penetrating look at why middleclass suburban white voters fall for racist dog whistles and variations of the Big Lie and other lies, and why Democrats are perpetually caught flat-footed and unprepared.

Continue reading “Pandem Variants, Masks, Gargle, GOP, Jan 6, Exec Priv, Big Lie, Evil, Gaetz”

Abortion, COVID, Fauci, Jan 6, Lincoln Project, Kamala, DeSantis Military

  • It seems a staple on the right that pregnant women must be prosecuted if they are suspected of aborting the fetus or in any way causing their own miscarriage.
     
    A few misguided souls on the left greet the prospect of the coming Supreme Court ruling with some glee. It might help win enough seats next year to save the Republic.
     
    Infidel753 explains, step by step, why the controversy should be regarded as about an essential freedom not a political chess piece.
     
  • This involves real people. Legal scholar Imani Gandy says abortion is part of a larger pattern. She brings the true stories of a few actual victims from an ongoing state and local war on pregnant people.
     
  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged elaborates on the flippant suggestion of adoption as the solution as Justice Amy Coney Barrett asks an extraordinarily loutish question.
     
  • Sarah Cooper explains a flaw in Supreme Court thinking on women, abortion, and adoption:
     

  • Nan’s Notebook points to an obvious group that has no legitimate voice on controlling the bodies of pregnant women, which is to say men. She also has obvious advice for anti-abortion women.
     
  • This hits home:

  • Andy Borowitz reports on a new variant of non-intelligence, discovered in Texas. The mutation has developed immunity to all information.
     
  • M. Bouffant at Web of Evil has the news. When it comes to vaccines, seems the sheriff of Los Angeles County is a paranoid loon.
     
    The Sheriff refuses to vaccinate because when you get the vaccination, the Chinese get your DNA. Honest, says he, the FBI themselves told him. Really they did.
     
    Doesn’t say whether they had tears in their eyes or called him sir.
     
  • MadMikesAmerica watches as Death consoles a disappointed Omicron.
     
  • This answers one inane argument:

  • Frances Langum takes notes as Jimmy Kimmel provides an eloquent, compelling, and funny rant defending Anthony Fauci from Senate Republicans and Fox personalities. Saving lives occasionally offends delicate conservative sensibilities.
     
  • News Corpse follows the occasion as once-upon-a-president Donald Trump hosts a recent event of devoted followers, and leads the cheers for Corona-19 in the hope that each new death might hurt Joe Biden.

Continue reading “Abortion, COVID, Fauci, Jan 6, Lincoln Project, Kamala, DeSantis Military”

Two Trials, Judge Not, Jan 6, Alex Jones, Eric Trump, Antifa Infiltration, Boosters

  • Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger looks to the just verdicts in the Arbery murder for hope, but points out the fight is far from over.
     
  • Dave Dubya is grateful for the application of justice by a mostly white jury to three white neighborhood vigilantes, but sees racism continuing as a powerful undercurrent. He has a deeper gratitude for our opportunity to work and vote for sanity and decency.
     
  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged points out that it should not have been so hard to expect a conviction in the murder of a jogger. But the system nearly failed. It took more effort than it should have even to bring charges.
     
  • Hackwhackers keeps the week’s justice score. 1 good, 1 not so good.
     
  • We have all seen the same video by now. Ahmaud Arbery was murdered by the father-and-son McMichael team with the help of their friend Roddie Bryan.
     
    The question that should not have been a question was whether a southern, nearly all white jury would follow the evidence and convict.
     
    Tommy Christopher has the numbers. A new national poll taken just before the verdict shows that only a third of Republicans thought the three were guilty of anything.
     

  • At The Moderate Voice David Robertson has a criticism. Those of us who were not on the juries in the Wisconsin and Georgia murder trials are not entitled to make judgments.
     
    On the Arbery verdict:
    I am not a member of the Arbery jury. So, I am not in a position to declare Arbery’s killers guilty of murder. Neither is anyone else who isn’t a member of the jury.
     
    I hold an opposing view.
     
    It is true that, as a member of a jury, I am constrained by the Constitution and my own notions of fairness in deciding whether a defendant will be deprived of liberty for the crime of murder. The prosecution must prove its case conclusively on the basis of submitted evidence.
     
    Not being on a jury, I am allowed to non-judicial opinions, to wit:
    – O.J. Simpson is a murderer.
    – So was Charles Manson.
    – And so were Byron De La Beckwith and Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price.
    – So were a host of lynch party enthusiasts in the often sad history
         of US civil rights.
     
    While my opinion may be of little value, except to myself, I violate no-one’s rights in holding to it.
    Not sorry, O.J.
     

  • Frances Langum listens carefully as Alex Jones explains that he doesn’t want to go to prison. He will testify to the Congressional committee investigating the Jan 6 lynch mob insurrection. He will refuse to answer questions, based on his 5th Amendment rights. He will claim that in answering truthfully, he would incriminate himself.
     
    But he wants everyone to know that he won’t really mean it.
     
  • The Palmer Report contemplates the story now circulating that Eric Trump’s wife was in secret communication with organizers of the Jan 6 lynch mob insurrection. They supposedly used burner cell phones – to be used and discarded. Well… so far, it’s a single story in a single magazine, so who knows whether it will stand up. And Eric Trump can be expected to issue a blistering denial – fake news, unfair smear, and all.
     
    Except for this:
     
    So far, Eric hasn’t said a word. Deafening silence.
     
    Remembering one of Arthur Conan Doyle’s favorite Sherlock Holmes adventures The Adventure of Silver Blaze and the dog (which is to say Eric) that didn’t bark.
     
    About those secret calls:

  • It’s looking like white supremacist infiltration was responsible for a whole lot of the violence blamed on antifa and BLM. Much more than we thought.
     
    While it is accepted by most as a legitimate news source, I do have a bias about The Intercept. It was founded, in part, by the prickly Glenn Greenwald, so we should put it in the Trust-but-Verify category. I confess to a low opinion of Mr. Greenwald. Let’s wait for the verify part.
     
  • Wearying though it may be…
     
    Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit looks to South Africa to find that while you may be done with COVID, COVID is not done with you.
     
  • John Scalzi at Whatever explains why he got the booster shot.
     
    Has to do with listening to the experts about vaccines, and not, say, podcast hosts or virulently racist and/or performatively ignorant politicians.
     
    Well… when you put it that way.
     
  • Andy Borowitz reports as Dr. Anthony Fauci urges Americans to use COVID as an excuse to skip Thanksgiving with horrible relatives.

Continue reading “Two Trials, Judge Not, Jan 6, Alex Jones, Eric Trump, Antifa Infiltration, Boosters”

John Kennedy and
the Seven Football Games


 
[Every few years I remember President Kennedy in my own small way, by republishing]

The concussive violence of football, the long term damage to players, was never in the national consciousness in those days. Back when I was a kid, such thoughts never intruded. We had no idea.

There is something about football crowds. I’m not sure exactly what it is. But if most of us were blindfolded and put into the middle of a crowd at a professional game, we’d be able to tell if it was football or some other sport. The raucousness of the crowd, maybe? The yelling of the vendors? The play-by-play enthusiasm? Hard to say what the rhythm is, exactly, but it is unmistakable.

The Redskins vs Eagles game at Franklin Field in Philadelphia had been billed as a big deal. The stadium itself seemed like the setting for it. It was the oldest stadium in the country. The Eagles had been there only a few years.

By the time the coin was tossed that Sunday, there were over 60,000 fans in the stadium. But, on that Sunday, you would not have recognized the sound as happening during a football event. In fact, there was an eerie silence during the entire game.

A 25 yard pass from Jurgensen to Brown provided some hope for the home team. Yet, even during the breakaway run for the goal, the entire stadium was still. No cheering. No reaction. The vendors selling hotdogs and drinks worked without any of the normal shouting. Money and food were wordlessly exchanged.

The Redskins won the game. The home team lost. Nobody seemed to notice. It was as if 60,000 people had simultaneously lost their voices.

The same strange silence was reported from every stadium in which a professional game was played. There were 7 games in all that Sunday. Each one played out before a silent, sullen crowd. Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, everywhere the same. The Cardinals narrowly beat the Giants in New York. Nobody reacted. The New York crowd seemed more interested in the National Anthem than in the game.

It is hard to give a sense of those days to anyone who did not experience the times in which we lived. That Sunday, two days after the assassination, provides only small anecdotal illustration. It was a choking sort of grief.

In those days of the Cold War, the terror of nuclear conflict combined with fear and loathing toward the Soviet empire. The domino theory of international Communist conquest was considered an established fact, with debate reserved for the dangerously naive. As President Kennedy called for personal vigor, office personnel, secretaries, clerks, and managers, actually worked overtime just to feel they were contributing to the national effort.

Civil Rights was a noble struggle against evil itself, and segregationists were a national embarrassment.

It has been described as a time of innocence, with innocence lost on that bloody Friday in 1963. But it was more than that. It was less an innocence than a sense of national purpose that seems almost childlike from today’s jaded weariness. There is a sadness in many of us at the loss of that purpose, now seen through cynical eyes as something other than what we experienced then.

The carping was as severe as it is now. Pamphlets were distributed in Dallas that day with a photograph of the visiting President and the words: “Wanted For Treason!” The antecedents of Tea Party-ism existed in Birchers. Racism was evident in KKK sympathizers. Violence was met by peaceful demonstration.

A very large proportion of Americans thought that reasonable balance required a stand somewhere “between the two extremes.” Yes, voting rights and safety of black citizens in the south were considered one of the extremes.

John F. Kennedy was on a national wave. But he did more than ride that wave. He seemed to those who wanted to join the effort, as having channeled and directed it into a mighty force for progress. The country was deeply flawed, but America was working, growing, toward national redemption, leading the world on a similar path.

I was very young back then. I remember adults joining children in public sorrow, men and women crying unashamed. I remember a sort of communion of grief. It was as if we were, briefly, an extended family.

I had nightmares through my teenaged years. My imagination tells me I was not alone.

Today, the President we knew back then was not simply a reflection of an innocent country in innocent times. Partly because of his youth, his leadership, the way he spoke the words he gave to us, he, and we, were something more.

Not so much an innocent country in innocent times.
We were an inspired nation in inspired times.

– Podcasts –
 

RittenOff, Biden Builds, Gaetz Gotten, MAGA Trauma, Pence Parked, Posted

One minute of pure talent, 10 seconds of contagious joy.
Can’t not smile.
Ellen Alaverdyan, 9 year old bass player:

  • Yesterday was the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s address at the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania: the Gettysburg Address. In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson contrasts the dedication to a proposition with yesterday’s Republican responses to Biden’s bill to improve American lives and the Rittenhouse acquittal.
     
    Nice celebration, folks.
     
  • Max’s Dad summarizes the Rittenhouse trial containing such incompetence from all sides that it seemed as if nobody wanted to win, and reacts to the verdict.
     
  • About that verdict: Hackwhackers has reactions from a President, a Governor, and parents of a victim that a judge said would not be called a victim.
     
  • North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz says that Kyle Rittenhouse may have escaped justice, but followers of this troubled young man have convincingly testified against themselves.
     
  • Matt Gaetz offers to hire young Rittenhouse. Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson reacts:
     


    I have a slightly different take:

  • CalicoJack in The Psy of Life looks closely at MAGA folk and sees similarities with survivors of trauma.
     
  • Green Eagle explores developing evidence of a trip by then Vice President Mike Pence to a parking garage, why it is significant, and how the national press misses the point.
     
  • I already knew that our image has improved since our national leadership went from Trump to Biden. But Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger dives into the numbers and oh WOW!
     
  • As far as we know, Donald Trump had nothing in particular against the Post Office. But he wanted to win, and he hated the idea that Democrats might vote in 2020. Trump had been instructing Republicans that COVID-19 was a hoax. Democrats, by and large, didn’t believe him, so they were more likely in 2020 to vote by mail. So he came up with a plan.
     
    Louis DeJoy did have something against the US Postal Service. As a subcontractor, he had investigated by postal authorities for cheating taxpayers by overbilling.
     
    So Trump and DeJoy: It was a match made in Heaven.
     
    Trump didn’t appoint DeJoy. Only the Post Office Board of Governors could do that. But Trump had, by June 2020, appointed every member of that board. They did as Trump ordered, and THAT’S how DeJoy was hired as Postmaster General.
     
    DeJoy promptly fired senior officials like crazy and slowed down mail delivery. Slowed WAY down. With luck, enough of those Democratic ballots would get delivered too late to count and Trump would win the election.
     
    Luck ran out. Ballots counted after all. President Trump became bad loser Trump.
     
    But Dejoy is still Postmaster General and still hates the Post Office. The damage continues, and only the Board of Governors can fire the guy.
     
    But with time, terms run out. Members of the board are slowly being replaced with uncorrupted patriots.
     
    tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors says President Biden just appointed a couple more members and might have enough to kick DeJoy down the highway.
     
    And tengrain notices something odd and a little sad and somewhat revolting about news coverage.
     
  • Andy Borowitz reports on Steve Bannon’s indictment for Contempt of Soap.
     
  • Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit draws a lesson from the legal travails of Alex Jones. He is now officially guilty of inflicting pain on innocent parents of murdered children. The amount of damages is still in the hands of a jury.
     
  • Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged cannot think about the Alex Jones verdict without contemplating the nightmare of having a child murdered while sitting in a classroom, then getting calls from Jones devotees accusing you and your child of faking it.
     
  • Representative Paul Gosar(R-Hell) doesn’t like AOC so he posts a video showing himself assassinating her. Nice.
     
    He gets censured by the House of Representatives. Censured basically means he gets officially scolded and removed from committees.
     
    driftglass doesn’t like Gosar so he posts something. Tit-for-tat, I suppose, except this is a non-threatening, non-video, in which nobody gets hurt.
     
  • At The Onion, the House votes to remove Gosar from the Anime and Manga Committee.
     
  • Republican leader Kevin McCarthy holds the floor for hour after dreary hour, for a full 8 hours. Tommy Christopher watches as White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki entertainingly summarizes the whole grim talkietime then demolishes McCarthy, leaving him soaking into the carpet.
     
  • Frances Langum has the courage and stamina to watch the everlasting speech by McCarthy (Okay, I know. Only 8½ hours). McCarthy insists that No One Elected Joe Biden To Be FDR, then doesn’t know how to respond to a 2 word interruption.
     
  • At The Moderate Voice social media has lots of fun with McCarthy’s long, long ramble.

Continue reading “RittenOff, Biden Builds, Gaetz Gotten, MAGA Trauma, Pence Parked, Posted”

Thank Veterans, Bannon Bumped, Kyle Cries, Fox Edits, BBB, Give Cruz the Bird

Thank you

Continue reading “Thank Veterans, Bannon Bumped, Kyle Cries, Fox Edits, BBB, Give Cruz the Bird”

Combat Hero in a Library

[Written and published in 2008. It seems fitting today.]

Last evening he reacted with amazement. “You gotta be kidding me!” I had just mentioned I was writing about him. I thought for a moment he might object. As it is, I hope he forgives me for the details I may have gotten wrong.

It was one of several encounters I had happened upon with this impressive, self-deprecating man. I often stop by the local library, and that’s where we kept bumping into each other. The first time, he was trying to recover a lost file on a library computer. I tried to help him, unsuccessfully as it turned out. We talked about the coming election. He was for McCain, I for Obama.

Then he told me a little of himself. He is a war hero from the Vietnam era. That’s my description not his. He seems hesitant as he talks about it, and he talks about it sparingly. “I just went a little crazy,” he says. His “craziness” saved others who were in mortal danger, pinned down and taking enemy fire. He was later awarded the Bronze Star for bravery. That medal is awarded for any of several acts, but when earned for bravery in combat, it is the fourth highest possible military citation given by the U.S. Armed Forces.

For years, modesty and uncertainty of how it might be regarded prompted him to keep the award stored out of view. He would not expose this symbol to derision. It was his father who changed his mind. His dad had served in the Air Force in World War Two, flying over the Empire of Japan with General Curtis Lemay. He confessed to his son that he felt just a little envious. The younger veteran was incredulous and so his father explained, it was that hidden Bronze Star. The son objected. The old man was a hero many times over. He pointed to the many ribbons, medals, and awards the elder hero had on his own wall. “But I never earned a Bronze Star,” the father stated simply.

They are everywhere, these heroes who have our lasting thanks and admiration, earned in far off lands. They are lucky to have made it back, and we are blessed in having them back. A choir director, members at church, workmates, and casual acquaintances are among them. There are many more unknowingly met in bank lines and pharmacies, the routine encounters that are part of everyday life. I have a letter from a onetime coworker, recently assigned to Afghanistan. He has my prayers until the moment he returns.

My friend in the library had a special relationship with his dad. They each shared an admiration of the other, quiet and well deserved. The last act of that regard came as the son gazed into an open casket. He placed next to his father the Bronze Star that had been awarded for an act of desperation decades ago in a land far away.

The father had chosen his son well.