December 1, 2023 - Tackling, Trump, Cease-Fires, Solutions for Israel, Free Speech, and Dying Broke

 

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How to Tackle a Ball Carrier … or a Former President 

I’ve watched a lot of professional and college football on TV lately.  As its season reaches its climax with bowl games and championships, I have one recommendation to improve the game.

Tackling should be primarily aimed at stopping the progress of a ball carrier, and not at dislodging the ball from their grasp.  If they happen to drop the ball while being tackled, that is a legitimate ‘fumble,’ but if the primary aim of the tackler was to dislodge the ball, that should not be allowed.  There should be a distinction between stopping a runner and fighting with a runner over possession of the ball.  As I see it, grasping at the ball while making a tackle is worth a ten-yard penalty. 

(You know, this might even be allegorical to what goes on in politics these days, where taking a position opposite from that of an opponent often crosses over the line into incivility, law breaking, or might even inspire violence, as it sometimes does on the football field.  I am certain it will take much more than a ten-yard penalty to get the defeated and indicted former president, who never played football, to play by the rules.)

This tackler is giving priority to attacking the ball rather than
stopping the runner.  Otherwise his arm would be reaching
around 34’s waist.   I say it’s worth a ten-yard penalty!  
But no one agrees with me.

JL

 

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Cease-Fires and One or Two-State Solutions

One-State Solutions:  Take your choice:  (1) Israel controlling all of Palestine, with Palestinians who choose to stay as second-class citizens, or (2)  A Palestinian state ‘from the river (Jordan) to the sea with no Jews. 

Neither of these ‘one-state’ solutions can work. Either will eventually lead to continued violence.  The only solution is a ‘two-state’ solution that guarantees the identity of two separate states and their survival.

Without recognizing that overarching challenge, of which the present hostilities on the Gaza Strip are just a part, that conflict cannot be permanently resolved.  Period.  End of story.  

As for a ‘cease fire’ at this time, which some are recommending, remember that the violent attack on October 7 on neighboring Israeli communities by Hamas terrorists took place during such a ‘cease fire,’ violating it!  To Hamas, ‘cease fire’ means that Israel will ‘cease firing,’ but justified by their devotion to their cause, Hamas will not.  Crazy, but that’s the way they think.

Until October 7, while Hamas missiles were being shot into Israel and Israel’s attempts to destroy where they were coming from were continuing, a ‘cease fire’ actually existed limiting other hostile acts between Hamas and Israel!  There is no reason whatsoever to believe Hamas would respect such a ‘cease fire’ now any more than they did on October 7.  That is why Israel’s military ground and other actions against Hamas must and will resume after the temporary ‘humanitarian’ pauses now in effect end.  And we are approaching that point right now. 

For a more detailed analysis of what a ‘cease fire’ really means, please check out some of Bret Stephens’ recent New York Times columns on this subject  

In particular, I suggest accessing his November 28 column by copying and pasting https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2023/nov/23/opinion-the-cease-fire-now-imposture-tfp/  on your browser line or by CLICKING HERE.  (Included in Stephens’ journalistic history are two years, 2002-2004, as Editor-in-Chief of the Jerusalem Post. Do not confuse him with others whose first name is Brett with two ‘t’s.)

Required Difficult Compromises:  To start on the path to such a two-state solution, generally following the borders in the UN’s 1947 partition plan, those Palestinians insisting on the elimination of the State of Israel, and those Israelis insisting on the right to settle on territories occupied after the Arabs' unsuccessful wars to destroy Israel in 1948 and 1967 will have to abandon these aims.   

Right now, this would mean that current Israeli and Palestinian leadership would have to be voted out of office, and that will not happen easily.  Many politicians in Israel and in Arab countries have based their careers on such ‘dead-end’ policies, which can only lead to violence.  If they have to abandon those ideas, they might have to find a legitimate job.  But it must happen.

Only then can work commence on achieving the ‘two-state’ solution described by President Biden as one 'where Israelis and Palestinians can one day live side by side…with equal measure of freedom and dignity.’

 Any other course of action guarantees continued violence.

JL

 

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The Limits of Free Speech

Much of what we’ve witnessed on campuses and in organized pro-Hamas demonstrations over the past few weeks is not, in fact, ‘free speech,’ but rather ‘conduct’ designed specifically to harass, intimidate, and terrorize Jews.  It has given antisemites the opportunity to have a cause that would allow them to crawl out from under the shadows. Such conduct is not protected by the First Amendment.  It leads to acts of violence.

An immediate step to combat antisemitism that you might take is a donation to the Anti-Defamation League. You can do this by copying and pasting this link on your browser line, https://support.adl.org/give/174715/#!/donation/checkout , or by CLICKING HERE.

Such violence committed in this country, against Jews, or against Muslims in the form of  ‘revenge’ attacks, are totally inexcusable and should be vigorously prosecuted. 

JL

 

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Dying Broke

The preceding posting on Jackspotpourri included a link to a New York Times article about the hidden costs of Assisted Living.  It was part of a series in that newspaper entitled ‘Dying Broke.’  Here’s a link that you can copy and post on your browser line (or CLICK HERE to get there) that will give you access to all four articles that have appeared thus far in the series.  https://www.nytimes.com/series/dying-broke

With advances in medicine, and people taking better care of themselves, with fewer smokers, we are living longer than earlier generations, well beyond our ‘productive’ years, putting individual families and society as a whole, in the position of groping to find the financial resources needed to support an unexpectedly large number of people in their eighties and nineties, needing some kind of care.  Savings, investments, and insurance, all eventually depleted, are turning out to to be inadequate solutions to this problem.  In view of that, I ask if solving this problem is something for government (and all taxpayers) to take on? I don’t know.

Again, this is required reading for those over age 65 or anyone with parents over that age.

If any of you are old enough to remember the 1973 dystopian film ‘Soylent Green,’ in it the late Edward G. Robinson played a character dealing with this problem, and who found a solution which none of us would dare consider in today’s world.

JL

 

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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri

Email Alerts:  If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do.  And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com.

Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it. Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.  If you want to send someone the blog, exactly as you are now seeing it, with all of its bells and whistles, you can just tell folks to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or by providing a link to that address in your email to them.   I think this is the best method of forwarding Jackspotpourri.

There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though!   Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible.  If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a comment from you.  Each will receive a link to the textual portion only of the blog that you are now reading, but without the illustrations, colors, variations in typography, or the 'sidebar' features such as access to the blog's archives.

Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting, but I recommend sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com  

Again, I ask you to forward this posting to those you feel might benefit from it.

JL

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