Colin Kaepernick’s Sacrifice and Nike

NOTE: As I come across more strangeness and silliness pertaining to this topic, I’ll add edits to the bottom of my missive, so this essay has become something of a “living” document, or at least a wee bit of streaming consciousness. Keep checking back for more.

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

-Attributed to Evelyn Beatrice Hall, Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet), and many others

Yes, I’m going to get political again, but this time it has nothing to do with WorldCon, Comicsgate, or any of that other stuff. Still, I suppose it’s related, since more or less the same players are involved.

I’ve read a ton of articles recently about Colin Kaepernick and what he’s supposedly sacrificed relative to being the “poster person” for Nike’s 30th anniversary of their “Just Do It” campaign. According to writer Hank Berrien in the linked article I just posted above, Kaepernick has been on Nike’s payroll since 2011, even though he hasn’t been in any of their ads for the past two years up until now.

As you can see from the image of his tweet, he believes in something even though (supposedly) it’s cost him everything. But what does that mean?

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Moving to the Beehive

apartments

Michael (Black) Ritter pexels-photo-41506

“I’m Erika. Welcome to the beehive.” Erika Kiribati was the unofficial greeter for the San Jose State dorms. “I’ll get that box.”

“Thanks. I’m Josh. There are more people living here than the town I grew up in.” Josh McKenny had his hands full with his duffel.

“You get used to it.” The 19-year-old Samoan picked up the box and elbowed the elevator’s ‘up’ button. “Family help you move?”

“Dad’s looking for a place to park.”

“Where you from?”

“Wallace, Idaho. About 80 miles east of Spokane.”

The elevator doors opened. “Which floor?”

“Fifth.” Erika pushed “5” as Josh hustled in behind her.

“I’m in 605. Come on up when you’re settled.”

520’s door was ajar and Erika pushed it open with her foot to find a young African-American.

“You Josh’s roomie?”

“Name’s Gabe Johnson.”

“Josh McKenny. You met Erika yet?” The two men shook hands.

“Nope. How’s it going?”

Erika and Gabe shook and then she turned. “Nice meeting you Gabe. See you soon, Idaho.”

The boy from Wallace and the Oakland native sized each other up, and it wasn’t the first time Josh questioned the wisdom of going to school out-of-state and away from everything he ever knew.

I wrote this for Week #36 of the Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner challenge. The idea is to use the image above as the prompt for crafting a piece of flash fiction no more than 200 words long. My word count is 199.

True story. I once knew a guy who was born and raised in a small town in Idaho. His parents were divorced and his Dad moved to California and was an instructor at San Jose State University. He got a terrific tuition break so decided to go there but once he saw the size of the dorm, he turned around and went home. The dorm really did have more people than the entire town he’d grown up in. Culture shock is still real.

To read other stories based on the prompt, visit InLinkz.com.

The Wrong Moon

moon

© Gah Learner

“Honey, come here. The full moon is so beautiful tonight.” Robin and Noah Clarke were celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary in a small resort town and had just returned to their hotel room after dinner.

“Full moon?” Noah picked up his smartphone and started pushing virtual buttons.

“Can’t you leave that thing alone and come watch the moon with me, please?” Minor annoyance etched her voice. “We’re on our second honeymoon…”

“That can’t be the Moon. Moonrise isn’t for another hour and the window faces west.”

Robin turned and looked out again. “Oh my God. You’re right. It’s getting bigger.”

I wrote this for the Rochelle Wisoff-Fields writing challenge. The idea is to use the image above as the inspiration for crafting a piece of flash fiction no more than 100 words long. My word count is 100.

The light in the photo is apparently the Moon, but then again, what if it isn’t?

To read other stories based on the prompt, visit InLinkz.com.

Quoting: Boost Your Self Esteem Objectively

pliskin

Rabbi Zelig Pliskin – Found at the website promoting the book “The Light From Zion.”

People with low self-esteem are frequently very good people by objective standards, but have high aspirations and hence feel frustrated in not reaching their lofty goals. Since they are not perfect, they consider themselves failures and this leads to many negative consequences.

It is important for such people to realize they are thinking in either/or terms: “Either I am perfect, or else I am a failure.”

In truth, each area of behavior and personality has numerous levels along a continuum. If you are not perfect, you need not rate yourself as a failure. Focus on improvement, instead of absolute perfection.

It is worthwhile for a person with low self-esteem to write a list of the minimum standards of a basically good person. He is then able to see more objectively whether or not he is meeting those standards.

-from Rabbi Zelig Pliskin’s book Gateway to Happiness, p.132

The Murasaki Betrayal

galileo 7

Image of the Galileo shuttlecraft from the Star Trek episode “The Galileo Seven” – Found at memory-alpha.wikia.com

Charlton Ortega piloted his light scout ship “Lily Sloane” into the nebulous Murasaki 312 quasar-like formation at half impulse power not knowing if he and his three crew mates would make it back out again.

“Shields are nominal. Continuing sensor sweep. Still nothing.” Helen Olssen was both the ship’s systems expert and Ortega’s lover, and they were nothing alike. While he was impulsive, adventurous, and as dark as his Inca ancestors, the Swede from Uppsala was fair-skinned, blond to the point of having almost white hair, conservative, reserved, and studious. If Retenox Five hadn’t been invented, she would have been a natural for a pair of horned rim glasses.

“This whole area for a diameter of twelve light years is completely infused in a shell of hard radiation. If our shields drop even for a few seconds, we’ll sizzle like bacon on a griddle.” The navigator’s east Texas accent was what Ortega called “thick enough to cut with a knife.” Bethany “Red” Harrington checked her navcom against the readings of the old shuttlecraft that had visited the unknown planet more than a century ago. They’d been uploaded to the Enterprise’s ancient duotronic-based information system seconds before the Galileo Seven had burned up in the atmosphere, and hopefully they’d be enough to guide the Sloane on its mission. “You sure you can fly this thing under these conditions, Charlie?”

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The Man at 100 Forrest Avenue

100

Photo by Lauris at Pixabay.com

“Are you sure he lives here?” Emily Long had been a stringer for the AP for the past three years and if this story panned out, it would make her career.

“100 Forrest Avenue, Panama City, Florida. There’s no mistake.” Quentin Street called himself a consulting detective, like how Sherlock Holmes described himself. Emily had checked his credentials after he had first texted her, and he had been licensed as a private investigator in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and New York for the past twenty-five years, ever since she had been alive in fact, so that much was legit.

“But you’re accusing him of…”

“I know the allegations against him, Ms. Long. We are here to see what retired General Watts has to say about them.” The middle-aged detective, dressed in his signature blue jeans and garish Hawaiian shirt, raised his hand to knock on the door when it suddenly sprung open revealing a bald man of extreme age wearing khaki shorts, a “I heart Florida” t-shirt, and a scowl.

“I’m not deaf, you know. Come in Mr. Street. I assume this is Miss Long accompanying you.”

“How did you…” Emily slipped her hand inside her jacket pocket and turned on the audio recording app on her smartphone.”

“You can turn that thing off, Missie.” Watts’s piercing gray eyes seemed to bore a hole in her head. “I’m ready to confess to the murder. I thought the IED would cover up the clues.”

“It is true that they did, General.” Street stepped across the threshold, glancing at both of Watts’s hands, assuring himself that the elderly man wasn’t armed. “But it didn’t eliminate the witness.”

I wrote this for the twittering tales writing challenge hosted at like mercury colliding. The idea is to use the image above as the prompt for crafting a piece of flash fiction no more than 280 words long. My word count is 277.

Actually, having no “challenges” in my gmail inbox, I “borrowed” this one from Fandango. The image reminded me of something you’d see in a Sherlock Holmes mystery, so I crafted one. I used a random address generator and came up with Panama City, Florida, which is home to the 153rd Cavalry Regiment. The rest was easy.

EDIT: I goofed. I thought it was 280 words but as it turns out, the challenge is 280 characters. My bad. I withdraw from the challenge, but I might as well let the story stay up on my blog.

Quoting: Feel Joy at Overcoming Obstacles

military training

Military training

A powerful general will prefer difficult military assignments because he wants to show his strength and abilities when he is victorious.

Similarly, if you feel strong love for another person, you will experience joy when you find opportunities to express the full extent of love for that person.

So, too, when you have a strong love for the Almighty, the greater the obstacles in your path when trying to serve Him, the more joy you will experience – because this is an opportunity to show the strength of your commitment.

The next time you face an obstacle, focus on the fact that this enables you to feel greater love for the Almighty. Feel a sense of joy and empowerment that you can express your love by overcoming obstacles.

Sources: see Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto – Path of the Just, ch.19

Shut up, Wesley OR Why You Should Expect twitter to Hurt You

shut up, wesley

Shut up, Wesley meme

“It is impossible to see a fault in someone else if you don’t have it in yourself.” -Anonymous

I’ve been thinking about the amazing amount of kvetching going on in social media and especially twitter. I’ve participated in a certain amount of it as well, as chronicled in blog posts such as This is the World of Science Fiction and WorldCon?, Part 2: This is the World of Science Fiction and WorldCon?, and Here We Go Again: Comicsgate. In the last comment I made in the last blog post listed, I decided to take the moral high road and not participate in such spitting contests and the measuring of each other’s male genitalia. However, I came across something interesting.

wheaton

Wil Wheaton quits social media

Apparently, actor Wil Wheaton of Shut up, Wesley fame has made a rather big deal of quitting social media because people were mean to him.

Okay, I get it. People are mean to each other all over twitter, and someone like Wheaton, who arguably played the most unpopular character in STTNG, and who was once compared with Jar Jar Binks on a closed Science Fiction group in Facebook makes a really big target. Actually, I kind of feel sorry for him as on his blog, he said:

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The New Dragon Saga: The Resistance

collar

Replica collar from the original Star Trek series episode, “The Gamesters of Triskelion.” Found at the “Star Trek Prop Authority” website.

Chapter 3: “It’s a good thing the biotrace found him.”

Landon heard a familiar voice, a man’s voice. The Master? Where was Buddy?

“Yes sir. Another few minutes and his signal would have faded forever.”

It was Carmen Ramsey, Landon’s doctor; the one who treated his wounds after one of the Games, the Roman’s sword. Yes, he remembered.

“Without the collar, he was free of our influence, and in his case, the ability to use sorcery was restored. He is too valuable a contestant to lose. Besides, if he ever freed the dragon…” The Master abruptly stopped talking.

“Wait. He’s coming to.” Carmen put her hand on his forehead.

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Quoting: The Wealth of Torah

pliskin

Rabbi Zelig Pliskin – Found at the website promoting the book “The Light From Zion.”

During a holiday, students at the Lakewood Yeshiva were elated at the words of Rabbi Aharon Kotler, the Rosh Yeshiva, who had just delivered an inspiring holiday lecture.

At the end of his talk, the students began to sing a tune to the words from King David’s Psalms, “Were it not for Thy Torah being my delight, I would have succumbed to my poverty…”

Rabbi Kotler interrupted the singing, and said with great joy:

“King David was tremendously wealthy. Yet except for the enduring possession of Torah, King David was drowning in a sea of poverty!”

-from Rabbi Shaul Kagan – Jewish Observer 5/73; cited in Rabbi Zelig Pliskin’s Gateway to Happiness, p.97

Sorry I haven’t been around much, but I was visiting my aged Mom in Southwestern Utah, an eight or nine hour drive from where I live in Southwestern Idaho. Just got back yesterday, but then we have the grandkids, so I’m still busy. Managed to finally catch up on my sleep last night, but will still be busy catching up with events at home, so my online writing will still suffer.