TERRY MOSHER
KELSEY PLUM
When you get to a certain age you see things differently. Maybe it’s an increase in wisdom or maybe it’s just that societal changes confound you and you are left behind, but whatever it is you get a different look at our world.
Because of the advancement in the informational age we are in – if that is what you want to call it because sometimes I wonder if the so called advancements are harming us more than helping us – we are inundated with news from everywhere, big and small and it’s extremely difficult to tell what is true, what is false, what is half-truths and what is half-lies.
Today, for example, I discovered on Facebook a young deer playing in the yard with a young wild rabbit and on the other extreme I found a conservative site that cropped a Hillary Clinton speech to make her look like a village idiot, which I’m sure was done not only to make fun of her but perhaps with the hope that it will persuade an undecided voter to reject her when it comes time to cast a ballot.
Bottom line, there is so much information spewing forth from all kinds of venues that it can lead to head-splitting overload. Sometimes I swear it would be better for me to ignore it all and transport myself back to the 1950s where as a young boy I had no cares in the world, and in fact was living a simple life that had little pressure involved.
But it is what it is and there is nothing I can do to change the way the world is, and the direction the world is headed, wherever that is. It is a strange, and dangerous, world when we have a despot in North Korea firing off missiles and showing a mock-up of a missile blowing up New York City while at the other end of madness we have a presidential candidate saying he would encourage Japan and South Kitsap to have their own nuclear bombs.
That’s just as stupid as saying that delegates to the GOP Convention should all be armed with guns, to protect themselves if some madmen arrive with their own arsenal to shoot up the gathering.
Yeah, let’s have a shootout.
It’s a good thing saner minds prevailed and there will be no collective arming of convention goers, at least that we know of. All the shooting will be from the mouth, which as we all know is what conventions are all about.
This presidential race is the most absurd one that I can remember. We have a candidate who will say anything to get elected and then will do none of which is said, a candidate who wants to give us all a free college education and, hopefully, a free haircut once a month, a candidate that just wants to make money and is surprised to be doing so well, and if elected won’t have the faintest idea of what to do, and a candidate who is elected will send women and this country back to the 1880s.
Where is give-them-hell Harry Truman when we need him?
We might be better off to go down to the Seattle waterfront at night and find the nearest homeless person and tag him or her as our next president.
I was just thinking that this baseball season will be a season of no-names for the Seattle Mariners. I’m not too many years removed from my career as a writer covering the team and, man, I hardly recognize anybody on the roster.
If I walked into the team clubhouse today I would only recognize Robinson Cano, Nelson Cruz, Felix Hernandez, Kyle Seager and Edgar Martinez, the greatest right-handed hitter I ever saw, who is the team’s hitting coach.
The only real constant surrounding the Mariners is that the organization still does not want Chris Hansen to build his arena in the SoDo area next to the team’s ballpark, Safeco Field. They just the other day released a letter from the law firm representing the club that basically said, yes, they would like the NBA back in the city, but are against it coming to their neighborhood, and then repeated all the reasons why they don’t want it there.
Competition is good for the soul, but apparently not for the soul of the Seattle Mariners.
Then I listened to one of the shock jocks on one of the two Seattle sports radio shows try to stir up the populace by blasting the Mariners for being in opposition to the arena.
So it goes. It’s just more information spewing forth to cloud my mind, which is already overflowing and needs a rest.
In my mind one of the toughest jobs in sports is that of a general manager in the NFL. Because of the salary cap in the league, GMs have to play the “Take it from Peter to pay Paul” game in which good players are allowed to flee via free agency so as to provide enough money to keep some other player or players. So who do you keep and who do you try to keep?
Don’t know, but I think I would have many sleepless nights trying to figure out that puzzle. And if I can’t solve the puzzle, the team suffers, and you know what happens when the team suffers, the GM is fired.
So it goes.
How about those Washington Husky women? They knock off Maryland and Kentucky on their home courts, then bop the Pac-12’s top women’s program, Stanford, to reach the Final Four this Sunday in Indianapolis where they will face a familiar foe, Syracuse, at 5:30 p.m. (ESPN2)..
The Huskies lost to Syracuse 66-62 at the South Point Shootout in late November in Las Vegas. Washington trailed the Orange 36-22 at halftime and rallied in the fourth quarter with a 24-14 edge to make the final outcome close.
Syracuse is quick and aggressive and relies mainly on its guards to score points off transition and turnovers. It will be a tough task for the Huskies, who are listed as underdogs by a point and half.
I would like to see the Huskies pull off another upset, along with Oregon State doing the unthinkable in the other semifinal game against unbeaten and powerful Connecticut and win that game. That would make the Pac-12 proud having two of their teams battling in the championship game on Tuesday (April 5).
Don’t expect that, though. If somebody pointed a gun to my head and asked me to choose who would be playing in the championship game, I would have to say Syracuse and Connecticut.
But it’s been a heck of a run for the Husky women, and Kelsey Plum, Washington’s junior guard, is worth the watch. Plum, who averages 26.3 points and 7.3 assists, was named yesterday to the Wooden All-American team.
Okay, that is all for today. I’ve some other things to do.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.