Creativity Time

A quick followup to last week's blog in which I lamented the ending of American rules baseball by MLB. I found out they're being sued to break their monopoly. I had already been thinking about writing my congressmen to ask them to sponsor a bill to end the monopoly. I wrote the law firm that's doing the lawsuit and gave them an additional argument for doing that. I never heard back, and it's been a few hours short of a week. It's possible the case is already over, and it wasn't in the media that I saw. I need to do more searching.

During the past week, I spent a lot of time on the creative side of writing. In addition to needing to finish the B'Vellah War series, I now have three script ideas for television episodes that I need to do. The good news is that an hour of TV is about 12+ pages of dialogue. That's with minimal extraneous details. Including stage direction and location information would expand it, but for a bare bones script, I'm going for 12 to 14 pages. Once I get to it.

I went to the dentist but didn't get the abscessed tooth pulled. I had another filling done. I have another appointment in a couple of weeks. I've still been tired but not as tired.

It was short this week, but I have to go.

Have a great weekend.

MLB Ends American Rules Baseball

Since taking office in 2015, the new baseball commissioner, Rob Manfred, has made it a mission to change American baseball. At first I thought it was an ego trip to get into the history books as the man who changed baseball, but now that enough changes have been made, the real agenda is much clearer, especially when realizing that he couldn't do anything without owner support.

The last few years have seen changes to the game under the claim that "the games are too long". That never made sense. Fans don't complain about the length of the games. Non-fans do. They don't buy tickets or count as viewers, so who cares what they think? I don't. One change is the removal of the intentional walk. Instead of walking a batter, someone "calls it," and the batter goes to first. Another change is a requirement that pitchers have to face three batters or pitch to the end of the current inning. These rule are supposed to make the games faster. But wait.

This season, 2022, the National League will permanently switch to a designated hitter. The biggest impact that has is to make the games much, much longer. Ah, ha. So, the time-saving changes were implemented in order to introduce the designated hitter into the National League. It turns out MLB was lying the whole time about the length of the games as a reason for making changes.

Here's the problem. Any game with a designated hitter is not baseball. Any game without the intentional walk is not baseball. Any game with a minimum number of batters that has to be faced is not baseball. Tweaking the rules to fix a rule that doesn't work as intended is okay. Changing the game is not permitted. When the game itself is changed, it's no longer baseball.

It gets worse. I believe the next change will be to add a pitch count rule. Every once in a great while, I'll see an international baseball game that has a pitch count rule. It's something like 65 to 85 pitches. It depends on various factors. Pitch count rules are always claimed to be for safety to prevent injuries. In reality, it makes everyone more equal. In other words, it's to appease countries with a Marxist/Socialist/Communist mindset. It reduces the difference between starting pitchers and relievers. An American rules game could have a pitcher go 7, 8 or 9 innings. An international rules game would stop the pitcher at the limit. There would be no more shutouts, perfect games or no hitters. Any of those would have to be done by a combination of pitchers, and that doesn't count. It removes the American value of exceptionalism and makes everyone more equal. The highest ideal is Marxism to make everyone equal. Pitch count rules are based on that mindset. As a side note, social justice is a pillar of Marxism. Its purpose is to make everyone equal.

So, what we have and are moving into are two different types of baseball: American Rules Baseball and International Rules Baseball. Major League Baseball is no longer an American Rules game. It's an International Rules game. Beginning this year, 2022, American Rules Baseball is gone at the professional level and will never be played again at that level.

In order to preserve the national pastime from greedy owners who have shown a complete disrespect for the game and disrespect for the American people and America history and heritage, I propose that Congress remove the monopoly exemption granted to MLB in 1922. The current owners are clearly unworthy to be the caretakers of the national pastime.

I've never watched an American League game because of the designated hitter. This year I will no longer watch National League games either.

Have a great weekend.

Political Propaganda Example

I ran across what looked like an interesting article. It turned out to be radical leftist hate disguised as an article. An expert on civil wars discusses where political extremists are taking this country. It starts out being about civil wars then turns into a rabid attack on the right. If you follow politics at all, you've noticed that the left frequently accuses the right of things they're doing. For example, Democrats were accusing Trump of having dementia at the same time Biden was having trouble putting two sentences together while hiding in his basement. The article is like that. It continues the false claim that the January 6th events were an insurrection, etc.

The author says her father was born in German in 1932 and lived through WWII. She says he was a Republican until he saw Trump. According to her, he grew increasingly agitated at what Trump was doing because it was the same things he saw in Nazi Germany. Uh, no. Who's lying the author or her father? Both? Let's take a look.

Nazi is an acronym for National Socialist Party. Among other things, the Nazis believed in: peace, taxing the rich and giving to the poor, gun control, environmentalism, low tolerance for Christianity and Judaism while embracing paganism, social justice, political correctness, gaining power through targeted violence, etc. Hitler was the most famous social justice warrior of the 20th century. If the author's father wants to draw parallels between an American political party and the Nazis, he needs to look at the Democrats. They believe in everything on that list. They have more in common with the Nazis than they have differences.

In 1933, the Nazis burned down the Reichstag(German parliament building) and instigated Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass, during which they attacked opponents. There was political gain in those events, especially burning down the Reichstag. In 2020, the Democrats instigated a Marxist insurrection(George Floyd riots) and rode a wave of violence to election victory. That's assuming the election wasn't stolen. Because Democrats stopped the investigations in their states, we may never really know. During the first three days after George Floyd died, the protests against "police violence" were peaceful. On the third day Antifa showed up, burned down a black housing project and began a reign of terror that lasted months. The violence is still ongoing in some places now in 2022 and makes it into the news, which I find mind boggling.

The article is blaming Republicans for any future civil war. Wow. The Republican party isn't as useless as the Democrat party, but both parties are 19th century political clubs that are no longer relevant in the 21st century. Neither party is good for America. However, the Democrats are following the exact same path the Nazis did in the 1920s and 1930s and for the exact same reasons. Nazi party beliefs didn't line up with the beliefs of the German people. Democrat party beliefs don't line up with American beliefs. The Nazis had to use violence and intimidation because they couldn't make enough headway politically. The Democrats are doing the same thing. Cancel culture? That's the Nazis. Political correctness that fires people for telling the truth? That's the Nazis. Creating an atmosphere in which people are afraid to speak up? That's the Nazis. We're living through the 1920s right now.

When I look around, I see a Democrat party stepping in Nazi footsteps. The Republicans, as near-useless as they are, aren't doing that. Just like the Nazis, the Democrats are attacking their victims and blaming the victims for the attacks.

Have a great weekend.

Do You Mean Kiev?

Every time I see Kyiv or hear someone say Keev, I always think, Is that Kiev? It turns out it is. I checked out some French news articles, and every one uses Kiev. I'm glad that's cleared up. Why the word change? It doesn't makes much sense unless it's for propaganda or deception purposes. That's usually why names change. See Monsanto. The French articles say things I'm not seeing in U.S. coverage. According to them, Putin says he's doing a "denazification" of Ukraine and claims to be fighting "neonazis" there. Interesting things to censor. I have no idea what he's talking about. American coverage seems sparse and shallow.

Something I noticed in one U.S. article is that President Zelensky is part of the Jewish community. That got me to wondering about Bible promises and whether God would protect Ukraine from Russia. It makes the war more watchable. Up until seeing that, I hadn't been able to muster much interest. Now I want to see what happens, especially since it appears Ukraine is completely doomed without a miracle.

Then this story appears, detailing how the stalled Russia invasion may be because they're using cheap, Chinese tires that are crumbling apart after disuse. Really? Because there's a Bible passage for that. Exodus 14 24 And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the LORD looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians, 25 And took off their chariot wheels, that they drove them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the LORD is fighting for them against the Egyptians. So, God took the Egyptian wheels off back then, and now the Russian wheels have come off. Coincidence? I don't know.

In the Christian prophecy community, there's a big hullabaloo over the war because Russia is involved, and there's a line of thinking that believes Russia is in Bible prophecy via the War of Gog and Magog. Even Pat Roberson came out of retirement to make some claims. I'm not holding my breath. I'm more interested in whether the war spreads to other countries. Belarus is supposed to be sending troops in to fight for Russia. Would that lead to other countries sending in troops to help Ukraine? That's what I'm looking at.

Israel has stepped in to try to mediate between Zelensky and Putin. Russia is in Syria. Israel has bombed a number of terrorist targets there, particularly Iranian ones. Not only does Israel have an interest in Zelensky personally, it has an interest in what Russia does in Syria. Instead of Gog and Magog, I'm wondering about Isaiah 17: 1, 14  The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. And behold at evening trouble; and before the morning he is not. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.

If the war spreads and Israel has to take a side, will Damascus be destroyed as that prophecy says? That would be huge. Damascus is the oldest inhabited city in the world. I think that prophecy is more likely than the Gog and Magog one, which modern scholarship believes refers to Turkey and not Russia at all.

Can Russia survive this war and still be a major power? Is this war their last historical attempt to project power before they diminish in history? I'm looking at that, too. This may be the final death throe of the old Soviet Union.

Lots of questions and waiting for the answers.

Have a great weekend.