St. Andrews, a Fitting Place for Heroes to Play Golf

It has been said that there are no heroes, just ordinary people who have been forced by circumstances to do extraordinary things.

Regular readers know that from time to time I write about heroes. People who do extraordinary things, even in everyday life, as they go about the business of living. In my mind heroes aren't to be idolized, but they should be held up as examples and be respected for the things they do. Heroism is a uniquely human thing. No other creatures on earth display heroism.

A close friend of mine, a hero in his own right for his sacrifices in Viet Nam, sent me the video found below. It's about an ordinary guy who was forced by circumstances to live an extraordinary life, find an extraordinary friend, and honor his memory by playing golf at St. Andrews in Scotland.

Mike Reeder is his name and you can decide for yourself if he is a hero because of his sacrifice in war or because of the way he lived afterwards. As professional golfer Johnny Miller has said, "It's not what you accomplish in life, but what you overcome."

Some people are heroes and some people are golfers. And some people are both
I hope you enjoy the story as much as I did.



Many thanks to "Captain" Miller for sharing this story.

What's the Difference? It's Obvious

We all remember the old jokes that always started with the line "What's the difference between a blank and a blank?" Or the reverse, "how is a blank like a blank?" Most of them weren't too funny. The current philosophical (dare I say?) battle isn't that humorous either.

After a semi-political exchange in the comment section of a Face Book post by a largely non-political acquaintance the other day, I got to thinking about the differences between Democrats and Republicans.

The issue being commented upon isn't important because any other "us vs them" issue would have had a similar ring to it. And since I'm not a Republican and I have no idea if the other commentators are Democrats, it really was just one more discussion about nothing of true importance. Such discussions are getting more frequent than they used to be and they seem to be more about which "side" you are on than anything else.

It didn't take me long to remember that the differences between those two political parties weren't as important as the similarities of those groups, so it was a nonstarter. You probably couldn't find a single member of either of those parties that would agree with me on that premise. They have too much emotional energy invested in their "teams" and I'm sure I will come under equal scorn by both.

Then I tried for liberals and conservatives. The differences were starker and more numerous, but when it comes to the governance part of those ideologies, they started to run together as well. From my perspective they both are interested in using government power to advance their own particular agenda for the country. (Or for the whole world for that matter.) George W Bush's "compassionate conservatism" agenda is ample evidence for that. As is the Clintonian "moderate liberalism" model.

I finally decided that the big differences are between the ideologies of big government "progressives" and freedom minded "classical liberals." (Today largely known as libertarians) It is in these two belief systems that the differences and the friction lies. I count myself among the latter group so I have a bias when describing the differences.

In a short essay such as this just a few of these differences can be counted, but who knows, maybe other essays will follow that describe the many others.

First there is the purpose of government itself.
One group views it as a necessary means to defend the rights of the people and very little else. Thomas Jefferson and I are among that group. (It's really fun to link myself to 'ole Tom even if you aren't falling for it.) The "progressives" of today think that the purpose of government is to solve societal problems and implement policies which reflect the vision of some angelic elite group who possess superior intellect.

So laws are to defend rights or to right wrongs. (It only sounds confusing.)

Next is taxes to run government.
One group thinks the purpose is just that, to run government. To raise revenue. The other group thinks taxes are the best method of promoting "fairness." Another way to describe it is to "spread the wealth" as Barak Obama explained it to Joe the plumber. The same is true of the argument over the spending of tax revenues, so it doesn't deserve it's own category.

These things are fundamental to many of us so you may be wondering why I have taken the time to point out the obvious. It's because when both sides of the philosophical aisle start to bicker about whose fault it is when some whack job kills a bunch of innocent people while trying to assassinate a US Representative all of the real differences get lost in the battle between people who largely agree on the big issues even if they don't realize it.

To me the differences are obvious even if this list is abbreviated. Can't we all just get along?
Umm,, no.

Meeting at the Halfway House

Sometimes when your golf game is even worse than normal, the best thing you have to look forward to is the halfway house. Your team has lost every hole, and every "press" has been a disaster. Even worse than the money lost so far is the prospect of the 19th hole verbal drilling you are going to take from your opponents. Most of the fun is ripping your buddies anyway.

So even the watery beer looks pretty good by the turn. It also gives you the chance of washing down your pride along with the hot dog by trying to re-negotiate the wager. Only the guy who is losing big is willing to de-testosterone himself. It has to be a desperate situation.

So when a President tells his political opponents that he is "willing to meet them halfway" on the legislation that he couldn't even get his own partners to agree to, it's a sure thing that prospects for his "all in" bet are dropping faster than the putts are. But you can't blame him for trying.  His opponents (Republicans) have been chumps so many times in the past it's almost a given that they will let him off the hook again.

In this case, for the Democrats, meeting "half way" would mean that since everything they wanted in their bid for socialized medicine (and control of Americans' lives) was rejected, they will now be willing to settle for most of what they wanted without giving up anything. I guess they might be willing to say in public that sometimes the Republicans are reasonable people because they "negotiated" away some of the citizens rights in return for the avoidance of looking like obstructionists. Sweet deal for someone I guess.

If I was "down nine after nine" and asked my weekly nassau opponent, Gary, for a deal like that at the Halfway House, he would pretend he didn't hear what I said (because it was me who was mumbling for a change) and march out to the tenth tee driver in hand.

For our sake, I can only hope those in opposition to the preposterous health-care scam are as clever as Gary. Turning a deaf ear to nonsensical proposals is always a good way to stay healthy.

Golfing With Whigs

The temptation to write about current events is almost overwhelming. While this blog is primarily dedicated to writing about concepts and ideas, the use of timely examples in doing so makes it more interesting to most folks, at least the ones who read these essays. It's a crowded field however and most of the people who get paid to write do a better job of it than those of us who engage in it to fill the time between golf seasons.

Although my writing handicap is even larger than my golf handicap, I enjoy both without excelling at either. So far I haven't figured out how to write between shots, so "in season" scribbling takes a back seat to power squibbing tee balls. It's a good guess that my golf partners (particularly my dear friend Skinny) enjoy watching the latter more than reading the former.

Having said that, since it's not yet golf season in Chicago and since the political equivalent of the dreaded "worm-burner" -the Illinois Primary- is over, their only remaining giggle option might be my ruminations about the dreadful state of affairs currently besetting us.

It's about the same (pitifully small) number of options available to us after the selection of candidates for the uni-party elections of this coming fall. By my count, in the ILLinois Senatorial contest you will be given a choice of which Democrat to vote for to replace the retiring statesman Roland Burris who is most famous for his tombstone and his method of entry into "the world's greatest deliberative body." Buying the Senate seat from future prison inmate Blago right under the watchful eye of the feds was just a small added expense for chiseling the office onto his monument to himself, particularly since he didn't have bear the cost himself.

Let's look at the "choices." One of the guys is Alexi Giannoulias. (A name which sounds more like a Russian hockey player than a failing small banker)  His main claims to fame are being money man for Tony Rezko (Obama's real estate benefactor) and being Obama's frequent basketball chum(p).

The other guy is the winner of the pretend Republican Party primary, congressman Mark Kirk.  He represents a district of mostly liberal people but gets elected as a Republican anyway because, you just can't fool the folks up in Highland Park, they know a kindred spirit when they see one. So let's call him a Whig in deference to his penchant for giving free advertising to the firm that offers "two rooms for the price of one" by wearing their product on his head. (The other Whig candidate, Andy 'cat head' McKenna lost his bid for Republican nominee for Governor.)

Being flush with actual choices isn't common in the Land of (nod and) Wincoln, so my disappointment is purely theoretical. Perhaps in November, Kirk will prevail during the backlash against the Chavez style government takeovers by the "Yes we Can" Chicago connection in Washington.

But if he does, the "victory" will be like winning a hole in match play golf by making a bogey while your opponent makes a triple. You are glad you didn't lose, but you know you didn't really win.

Checking the Scorecard

If you are a golfer, you have probably witnessed a familiar scene at the 19th hole of your favorite course. When you look around at the other players enjoying their after-round beverage and commiseration session, you will see them staring at the scorecard almost with the expectation that the score might somehow change for the better if only they look at it long enough. It's part of the fun. (It's almost as much fun as collecting on the small wager from my old friend "Skinny")

It's the same way with writing on a blog. It's interesting to see where the readers come from and how they arrived at your site. Many of those who visit this site do so because I have alerted them with an annoying email. Others stumble upon it while doing google searches or click on the link from other sites who recommend it to their readers. Several have come because the link was forwarded to them in an email. Happily, this blog is starting to make the rounds of some colleges. It's nice to have younger readers, it's their future I usually write about. It would be a terrible waste of the perfectly good mistakes my generation has made if they weren't shared with people who still have time to avoid them.

So after checking the "score card" of my writing effort on Dec. 9th, I was a tad confused by some of the "hits" received. The number was larger than usual, but the two separate visits from the U S House of Representatives was the stat that caught my eye.

I have some theories, but it's still not clear to me how a Lilliputian blogsite like this one came under the watchful eye of someone from what noted humorist and freedom advocate P.J. O'Rourke called the "Parliament of Whores" in his best selling book of that title.

As an aside, I highly suggest you click the link, make note of the titles of all his other books (most of which I have read) and get ready for laughter and enlightenment mixed together into a terrific literary cocktail. P.J. truly is the Will Rogers of our era. They would also make great Christmas gifts.

The blog you are reading has been visited by people in all but a few of the states in this country as well as countries across Europe, Asia, Australia and the Middle East. Although the number of hits is small, I'm still amazed about that. And I thank all those who take the time to read the short essays I write here.

Maybe some House staffer was just running a google search to find out who is mentioning their boss and the context of the citation, but just in case they actually care what I think;

I disapprove of what most of you are doing. I think you were destroying this country step by step, and now by leaps and bounds.  Both Democrats and Republicans. Many of you are just looking for power and money. Some of you are just misguided fools who think they are trying to do the right thing. But the effect on my life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, and that of my offspring is the same as if you are deliberately trying to destroy them. But I forgive you because you are not the problem. We who elected you are the problem, and I'm not sure if we deserve to be forgiven. In any case, I am keeping a different kind of scorecard on you.

PS...Your employee evaluation is coming up in 2010. You're fired.

Once You Read This, Your Troubles Will be Over Forever.

As most of you know, I'm a golfist. Since that word isn't in any dictionary I use, it can mean whatever I want it to mean. One thing it sure doesn’t mean is that I'm good at golf. Although "good" in this case can be a relative term, in absolute terms, I'm terrible. (Already, I digress)
As a golfist, I read lots of golf magazines and books. And since my niece has suggested that I write an essay on pet peeves, I'm going to expound on one of my own pet peeves.

Golf magazines always have a "hook" headline on the front cover. Not to be confused with the shape of the ball flight that has caused people to throw their $400 drivers into the trash, the "hook" I'm referring to is the preposterous headline on the cover that infuriates you so much that you feel compelled to read the article inside even when you know it's an outright lie.
One of my favorites is; "Never Slice Again!"  Seemingly, I have read every article written which promised that result, and I've tried everything that was instructed, but after almost a half a century of golf, at least fifty percent of my tee shots still slice. It's gotten to the point that I don't know if I want to be a good golfer or just an ex-slicer.

By now you may have figured out that this piece isn't about golf or slicing. The above title is the same type of "hook" the golf magazines use to peeve me off. Once you read what I want you to read, your troubles will not be over. In fact, they might just be beginning, because it may change the way you think about problems and solutions, particularly the political ones we are currently facing. And almost everyone hates change even if they don't admit it.

So this opinion piece is about economics.         Huh?        Indulge me once again if you can.
I have never heard a trained economist describe it this way, but my definition of economics is; the study of human nature. One branch of it anyway. And as a way to distill it a bit more, it has been described by an actual economics professor as "a way to approach problems". A methodology for thinking things through, if you will.
People make choices all the time even when they do not realize it, and since utopia is not an option, solving problems means making tradeoffs. Everywhere and always. An economist knows that and it shapes the way he views the world.

The seminal event in my intellectual life occurred when, as a young man, I was given a well thumbed, used paperback book as a gift from a man named Walter Ramsey who was a broker on the trading floor where I worked. I don't know if I believe in fate, but I do believe in good fortune because my life has been one example of it right after another. For me, meeting Walter was fortunate for sure and perhaps even fateful.

The book was Economics in One Lesson, written by Henry Hazlitt. Although I certainly recommend that you read it, I know that most of you won't for one valid reason or another so I will copy the essence of it, as he defines it in "The Lesson".

"the whole of economics can be reduced to a single lesson, and that lesson can be reduced to a single sentence. The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups."

That simple sentence may not seem profound to you right now, but it is. And if you take it to heart, I'm guessing you will agree with that assessment after a time.

Here is what that lesson has done for me;
 I still care what other people think and I still seek their opinions, but my own opinions have been less shaped by what friends think, or what they will think of me if I come to a different conclusion than they do. And I think that although polls have their place, I ignore them even more than I did before I took the above lesson to heart. I replaced those things with my own analysis based on asking myself the question in the quoted sentence. Now, why do I write these things about my approach? It's because of the title of this blog. It's the WHY, in the "what we think and why".

So, I "hooked" you in, and although your troubles are not over forever, I promise that if you take the lesson to heart and apply it to your thinking, you will hit fewer "slices" when you ponder most of the nonsense that the political busybodies foist upon us.
The birdies promised by the "I will mind your own business" crowd, almost always get carded as triple bogeys and the above picture of Fidel Castro and his golfing partner Che playing a match in the Caribbean workers paradise seem to be a good illustration of the consequences of not knowing the Lesson.

A Postscript

Walter, if you are out there, I owe you more thanks than I can ever repay, even if it's likely that you have forgotten the gift, and perhaps even me, for that matter. But another lesson I learned from this event is that sometimes we have an impact on young people by what we say or do that outlives our memories. And that is a par worth making.