I am shocked that the Chicago Cubs signed Alex Bregman to what will be the third most lucrative contract in team history. Ownership has not shown a willingness to sign big contracts since the one they gave Dansby Swanson. What I see from BleedCubbieBlue.com is that the math pegs the Cubs right at the luxury tax threshold, which I suspect is ownership’s upper limit. Being that the Cubs are in a large market, they ought to be more willing to pay the luxury tax, if they are willing I would love to see them pursue Cody Bellinger for a one year deal, but that won’t happen. The article reports that the Cubs are spending 36% of their revenue on player salaries, putting them at 26th in the league. Comparable big market teams New York Yankees and Los Angelas Dodgers are spending 50% (11th) and 73% (2nd) respectively.
While earlier this week it felt like spring, today Mother Nature sent a reminder that it is still January.
Military Not Law Enforcement
The killing of Renee Nicole Good by that ICE agent is bad enough, but the words of people in government, particularly J.D. Vance is what I am most troubled by.
Law Enforcement in the United States is vested by the state with the ability to take a life. The social contract between citizens and the state in this matter is that Law Enforcement is held to high standard.
Note to every news pundit and reporter. Let’s stop saying ICE is law enforcement, instead say what ICE is, a military force on U.S. soil. Law enforcement generally does not shoot first and ask questions later, that is how the military operates and which is why we do not want the military on U.S. soil. Let’s not be hung up by org charts and focus instead on how they act and describe it accordingly.
I received my Exist 2025 year in review today. This year I recorded 3,174,492 steps for a distance of 1,440.5 miles. The number of steps is down 1% while the distance walked is up 1%. My highest step day was 14,259 on March 9 when I was in Mesa Arizona attending a Chicago Cubs spring training game.
According to the weather app on my phone we are experiencing 20 mph winds, a bit of which I attempted to capture below. I think this might be the first time I have tried to share a video snippet here.
Just received an email from our condo association that there is a power line down at the entrace to our complex preventing access in and out.
It has been a fantastic weather day for January in Michigan. Plenty of sunshine for all creatures to enjoy!
What Is The Purpose Law?
Police in the United States have a blank check to kill because people in power have convinced citizens that if an officer feels threatened there is no consequences for their actions. Feelings cannot be proven or disproven so the result is immunity. The combination of fast, mass hiring of officers to fill law enforcement positions with a likely low threshold of evaluation on the hiring, is a threat to all citizens in the United States.
A government for the people must treat the use of lethal force against citizens with the utmost care. Any person given a gun, bullets, a badge, and the blank check to kill citizens must be throughly vetted.
Why should it be acceptable that disobedience of an officer’s orders be grounds for killing?
Further, why if you are telling a person in a car to move, does one stand in front of that car to “block it?”
Is shoot first ask questions later by officers justice? Or is this really a show of force to create a state of fear? And if the answers are yes, then how is the United States different from any of the “socialist” or “communist” or “dictatorships” of any other country in our past or current times? Isn’t shoot first ask questions later how the military works? While ICE may be organizationally apart from the military, I think their actions are of the military and should be treated accordingly.
You may think you are creating order through enforcement of law, but that is not justice and it is certainly not freedom. What we have right now in the United States is a standing army on U.S. soil killing citizens.
I agree with Cory Doctorow’s idea regarding teaching writing, but I also think he missed an important part of writing. I remember a time I had with a middle school history teacher, who having graded a test in which I had to write responses he asked me how much I read. Of course I told him a lot, to which he responded “I can tell by your writing.”
A part of becoming a good writer is reading good writing and that is not for what passes for writing on most of the Internet. You certainly don’t find good writing on social networks. Reading is implied in Doctorow’s examples of writers workshops, but it should be obvious that reading is fundamental to writing. Much of how we learn is by mimicking others, so we cannot write well if we never see or read good writing.
Article on Talking Points Memo claims January 6, 2021 is when we lost the plot in the United States. I think the train went off the tracks much earlier, probably on 9/11. I personally consider our lack of response to the murder in Sandhook Elementary as the moment because I want to believe that in a prior time the country would have been shocked in to a consensus. The reinterpretation and idolization of the Second Amendment completely blocks any form of agreement in the U.S. and I do think that is exactly what the Powers want.