Opinions

Veterans’ National Buddy-Check Week

/ Charles Henderson / Leave a comment

by Taylor MacHenry

On Monday, October 16, 2023, we will begin National Buddy-Check Week. A time when Veterans call 10 buddies and make sure that these brother and sister warriors are doing well and not circling the emotional drain.

My problem is that I can’t think of 10 friends that I can call. Much less veterans.

But the message is a good one. Veterans relate to veterans, especially when we have served together in bad places. Especially when life has become less fun.

Interesting experience yesterday at the Veterans’ Outpatient Clinic in Colorado Springs. I went there for an audiology check up. That means hearing test.  It will ensure that when I take off my hearing aids I avoid conversations that end in arguments.

That’s a joke. And I probably need to qualify myself and my joking around a lot more.

At the audiology appointment, this very attractive young woman doctor took care of my hearing needs, and part of the appointment involved a questionnaire that had some questions that obviously fulfilled a requirement from on high to red-flag veterans that came in and seemed maladjusted, teetering on the edge or just plain crazy.

Of course, I failed the test. Red flags went flying like those at Edson Range at Camp Pendleton with the Santa Ana winds blowing hard. But me? I am oblivious. And when the attractive doctor wanted to hold my hand and walk me upstairs to the Mental Health section of the clinic, I was flattered.

Then, as I began to fill out paperwork and the doctor offered to help me check the boxes, reality set in.

I have a warped sense of humor. I am a Marine. Case closed. Our damnation is our telling the truth, even the ugly stuff and not wincing when we tell it. Like just another picnic gone wrong.

So, I go in for a hearing test and end up in the loony bin with a mental health case worker asking me questions about intending to hurt myself. “You mean, eat a bullet?” I said, grinning. She was shocked. Blinked. And then said, “Yes.”

“I have PTSD. Check the record,” I said. Eating a bullet is a common thought among any Marine who went to war. Most of us will not act on it, and I was clear about it too. I am too selfish and narcissistic and cowardly to really put a gun to my head and pull the trigger.

Most of us are, if we’re honest. And most of us think it too, also if we are being honest.

I told the mental health doctor that I then saw after intake that I am pretty common among most 75 year old Marines who have looked the Devil in the eye and lived to tell of it. Life gets painful and ugly as we grow old. We might be 19 on the inside but we remain our biological age where the body and exterior come into play. My spine, three fractured vertebra after landing wrong, bunging up my left ankle and knee too, visit me now, every moment of every day. Pain is a constant. Spinal surgery to replace the sack of concrete that grew over those wrecked backbones, cutting them out and putting in bone grafts, titanium rods, screws, spacers and a few wires, which freed the spinal cord and sciatic nerves stopped me from landing in a wheelchair, a paraplegic, but the process still disabled me. Left me walking funny, limping, unable to walk on uneven ground, chronic pain and frustrating disability where putting on socks and tying my shoes become challenging if not impossible at times. Legs suffering muscle atrophy, neuropathy and worse. Everything that matters from the waist down quit working. Thankfully, I do not wear diapers.

Not yet.

As life becomes more painful, and all my friends have gone to Jesus, my family too, the thought of this life ending begins to brighten in the mind of an old Marine.

When the doctor asked how many guns I owned, I responded with dumbness, evasiveness, and dodged the question overall. My guns are my guns, and my business. Taking my guns will not prevent my death, if I decided it is time.

But like I said, I am a cowardly narcissist and love myself too much to quit now.

I am a Christian and I believe that God will take me when He is ready for me.

I am not a danger to myself, and certainly not a danger to others. I cannot imagine taking a life or hurting anyone because I love hunting but cannot pull the trigger because I cannot take a life. Not even a deer or a rabbit. Catching a fish makes me feel bad, but those trout do taste good.

When I finally left the VA clinic, I was miffed, just a bit. Then I got to thinking that probably there are many other Veterans who don’t love themselves as much as I love me. Odds are certain that many of them will take their own lives today. Right now!

What those VA doctors and healthcare workers are doing, even checking bunions of bad feet, may save a Veteran’s life by doing exactly what my audiology doctor did. Take their hands and walk them upstairs to the mental health section and put them in the hands of people who do really care and want to help a Veteran make the pain go away.

That is a good thing.

The shrink at the VA clinic did ask me one important question: “Do you have someone you can call? If you do make a decision to take your life?”

I thought of it for a minute. I cannot talk to my wife about it. She loves me but does not understand. Nor can I call my sons because they love me but do not understand what is in a Veteran’s wrecked mind. But I do have a friend. A brother Marine who suffers the same kind of PTSD that I do. He saw me lose my mind when my son pushed my buttons and triggered my vocal wrath. He said to me, “I have done exactly that same thing with my daughter. PTSD. It’s the shits.”

Just those words rescued me. Yes, my buddy, my brother Marine knew because he lives the same mind mess that I do.

I told the doctor, “Yes, I have a brother Marine who lives close to me. My friend. A hard core warrior. I can call him because he gets it.”

The doctor smiled. Good. Fellow veterans are the best people to call when life becomes too much of a struggle.

So, my brothers and sisters, my fellow Spartans. Call your brother or sister today and make sure that they have you to call, and that you can call them.

Such a thing might save your dearly loved brother or sister warrior’s life, and save their family devastation and heartbreak.

It just might save your life too. And prevent your dearly loved family the devastation and heartbreak of your loss.

Semper FI.

Accused but Not Presumed Innocent:

/ Charles Henderson / Leave a comment

Can States Legally Keep Donald Trump Off 2024 Presidential Election Ballots?

by Taylor MacHenry

While the last news story published about an effort in Colorado to keep former President Donald Trump off the Colorado ballot in 2024 occurred in mid-September, when the Colorado judge hearing the suit said that she would try to expedite her ruling before Thanksgiving, most people today still daily receive junk email begging voters to sign their petition and donate money to whatever group that sent the email’s cause. The misleading verbiage in the email is always that Colorado, California and other states have done it.

Fact: The matter remains under Judicial Consideration with a ruling expected soon but has not yet been issued.

While the political junk email has surpassed the point of irritating, as most other election-oriented junk mail have long-ago done, the question of the legality of states keeping Mr. Trump off their Presidential Election ballots consistent with The Constitution of the United States of America remains vexing. Does the Constitution allow a State or any group to accuse a candidate of Insurrection and by that accusation without indictment or verdict keep him or her off a Congressional or Presidential election ballot?

Many people make presumptions of Constitutional protections that are in fact simply not specified. Such as separation of Church and State, or the Presumption of Innocence until found Guilty.

And this is where the Trump matter sits.

In the Bill of Rights, the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th Amendments directly protect a person’s rights when being investigated of a crime and the person’s rights within the legal structure of “due process.” Nowhere in these Constitutional guarantees does “Presumption of Innocence until Proven Guilty,” appear. However, the 9th Amendment does state that listing specific rights in the Constitution does not mean that people do not have Other Rights that the Constitution does not spell out.

Thus, the Presumption of Innocence is the lynchpin in the case where people accuse Mr. Trump of inciting an “Insurrection” on January 6, 2021, thus branding him an “Insurrectionist.” And on the merit of the Accusation alone, groups have filed suit to keep President Trump off 2024 election ballots.

The groups cite the verbiage of law in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution which states:

“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

Coming off the heels of the Civil War, authors of the 14th Amendment had matters that brought the nation into war addressed, such as citizenship by birth and rights to hold office by people who fought on the side of the Confederate States. One must doubt that anyone intended that words voiced under protection of Free Speech, provided in the 1st Amendment to the Constitution, might brand that person an Insurrectionist or Rebel against the United States of America and the Constitution.

The Colorado group that filed suit, claim that President Trump is disqualified for election to President or Senator or Representative in Congress, or of holding any other Federal Office, because of the speech he made on the Mall in Washington, DC to a massive crowd, and claimed that the election in which President Joe Biden defeated him was fraudulent and illegal because of vote tampering in multiple states. The group that filed suit in Colorado says that Mr. Trump’s words to the crowd incited the riot, which the group and others have defined as an Insurrection, that took place at the United States Capitol Building while Vice President Mike Pence presided over the Electoral College and certified the 2020 Presidential Election. The rioters held firearms and forced their way inside the building while the certification of the Presidential Election took place.

Some rioters were killed by shots fired, perhaps by police or other rioters, no one knows for sure. One police officer died, thought killed by rioters, but the investigation determined that the officer died of natural causes not caused by the riot or any person. Did this violent riot constitute an Insurrection or Rebellion?

Democrats by and large have called this event an “Insurrection” and branded President Trump its instigator, thus making him an “Insurrectionist.”

As of this date, President Trump has not been indicted nor charged with Insurrection, and the investigation into his participation has been completed with no findings of a crime. However, he has been charged with other crimes associated with the election, such as attempting to tamper with the vote count in Georgia, but Mr. Trump has not been indicted nor even charged by any State or Federal Grand Jury with committing or inciting Insurrection or Rebellion, nor with even inciting the riot that took place.

As stated earlier, many people believe that the Constitution specifies that when a person is indicted or charged with committing a crime, he or she is “Presumed Innocent until Proven Guilty.” And that is not the case, although the Constitution in many areas implies such protection.

Cornell University Law School published the following opinion regarding Presumption of Innocence:

“A presumption of innocence means that any defendant in a criminal trial is assumed to be innocent until they have been proven guilty. As such, a prosecutor is required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person committed the crime if that person is to be convicted. To do so, proof must be shown for every single element of a crime. That being said, a presumption of innocence does not guarantee that a person will remain free until their trial has concluded. In some circumstances, a person can be held in custody.

“The presumption of innocence is not guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. However, through statutes and court decisions–such as the U.S. Supreme Court case of Taylor v. Kentucky–it has been recognized as one of the most basic requirements of a fair trial.”

Long-standing Statutes and Legal Precedence established by the United States Supreme Court and lower federal and state courts in all opinions guarantees a right of a person under trial to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. And the 9th Amendment to the Constitution likewise states that We the People have Other Protected Rights that may not be specifically stated in the Constitution.

Considering the vast weight of law supporting the argument that President Trump cannot be legally taken off any ballot or denied the right to hold office, these days one should not be surprised if the states of Colorado, California and several others do not list Donald Trump as a Presidential Candidate on their states’ Presidential Election ballots next year. They may keep his name off the ballot and challenge anyone to sue them for it.

Should President Trump not appear on Colorado’s Presidential Election ballot, a voter can write his name on the ballot in the blank line that is always, and by law, provided for voters to Write-In a Candidate and cast their votes for him. Law requires the Write-In Votes to be counted.

Personally, the very idea of anyone branding President Trump as an Insurrectionist because of words protected by the Free Speech clause in the 1st Amendment that he said on the Mall in Washington, DC to a crowd well-removed from the rioters that gathered at the United States Capitol Building is itself an Affront to Justice and at very least Tramples the Spirit if not the Law of The Constitution of the United States of America.

The people who brand Mr. Trump an Insurrectionist and demand that he cannot hold office as President or a Member of Congress or any other Federal Officer themselves by their very actions of suing to keep Mr. Trump’s name off any ballot are by their actions defying their own Oaths they may have taken to Support and Defend The Constitution of the United States of America Against All Enemies, Foreign and Domestic. They violate their oaths taken exactly as they accuse Mr. Trump of doing and rendering him ineligible for holding Federal Office, as stated in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

Such lawsuits and actions by any state, government or agency within the United States of America is an affront and a bitter insult to every person who took the Oath to Support and Defend the Constitution.

I may not care for Donald Trump as a person. I may object to his record as a businessman and developer who made billions on the losses of good, hard-working people.

Yet I must Stand in Defense of Donald Trump’s Constitutional Rights and his Presumption of Innocence until Proven Guilty. As such, Mr. Trump’s name must, therefore, appear on all ballots in the 2024 Election of President of the United States.

Supporting and Defending the Constitution of the United States means that we must defend and support the rights of even those with whom we may vehemently disagree. Including the Rights of Donald Trump.

My Cat, Russell, has Cancer

/ Charles Henderson / Leave a comment

by Taylor MacHenry

My boy Russell has been my dearest and best little buddy since the spring of 2010, along with his twin brother, Rocky, who died in 2015. That broke my heart, but I survived. Rusty and I still had each other.

These days Rusty’s doing a slow circle around life’s drain. He’s got lymphoma, the most common cancer in cats. That and kidney failure are what takes cats in most cases, and they do not go gently into that good night. Neither do I, because my love for these perfect, sinless little souls lives in my heart forever.

Russell imprinted on my heart when he was just a few weeks old.

He and his twin brother Rocky had gotten thrown out like trash.

I found them clinging to the ground, way too young to be able to survive without their mother. But some people regard cats as rubbish.

They do not neuter their cats, and instead of treating them like pets they put them in the barn to keep down the rodent populations. And the cats banished to the barn, if they survive, have kittens. Lots and lots of kittens. Thus a hive of feral cats grows from the neglected, rejected pets.

When the feline population grows into a problem, the thoughtless people who regard cats as trash, throw away the kittens. Thus Rocky and his brother Russell wound up that beautiful day in June 2010 on a dirt road that leads towards a barn that anyone rarely visits.

I saw the two babies when I was hauling hay and feed for my horses. Just a flash in the corner of my eye. A yellow fur ball on a dirt road rut. Two tiny kittens so small that at first I thought it was a single body.

But as I got closer, I saw two little heads wobbling, trying to look around, scared to death, abandoned. They would certainly die.

I scooped up both babies together in one hand. So tiny and so scared. And I took them home with me, fed them and nurtured them and they implanted in my soul forever and ever.

Rocky died when he and Rusty were five. A strange illness. Something wrong with his pancreas.

We took out all the stops trying to save Rocky. Cost did not slow us down. Rusty and all of us in the family loved Rocky. But even the best veterinarians sometimes lose their most hard-fought battles for a cat’s life.

We buried Rocky in our little pet eternal resting area beneath a blue Colorado spruce tree and planted wild Chamomile over the head of his grave. It blooms late summer each year with a spray of daisy-looking white and yellow flowers.

When Russell goes to Heaven, we will bury his sweet body by his dear brother Rocky, and put more wild Chamomile flowers over him too.

This spring we noticed Russell losing weight. He had some bad teeth so we thought he just needed to get the faulty ones out. After the dental surgery he came home a different cat. Not frisky and playful and always wanting to be near us, but really tired. The stress of the surgery took a lot out of him and probably triggered the lymphoma lurking within him to amp up.

We looked hard at what was going on. Our family veterinarian is our friend for more than 20 years and he helped us search for answers, and referred other specialists. He warned us of the most common problem, lymphoma. The symptoms of sudden weight loss, no appetite and lethargy, along with stomach ache and Russell not being able to clear his bowels held up a host of red flags.

So, after ultrasound exams and more tests, we concluded to a fair certainty that he has cancer.

We won’t put him in surgery because the ordeal poses too much stress on his now frail body, and his life would become terrible. He would suffer.

So we give him Prednisolone, a steroid that has cancer fighting elements that can reduce tumor growth and kills cancer cells. With this we give him antacid and anti-nausea medications, plus appetite stimulants. Also, we give him Gabapentin twice daily for pain and stress relief.

With this we have added a vitamin B-12 injection into the IV line when we flush him subcutaneously every few days with 150 milliliters of Ringer’s Lactate. Between the fluid infusions we also give him oral vitamin B complex as well as vitamins C, D, A and E.

Atop that we also give Rusty the highest quality and most pure, full-spectrum CBD oil available, and it is specially made for cats and dogs by a group near Denver who scientifically research and develop medicines made from hemp and cannabis.

This CBD oil is rigorously tested by independent scientific laboratories to ensure that the quality, molar densities and purity of the CBD oil are consistent with the same standards required of any other medication. The CBD oil producers are also part of an FDA program that hopes to find beneficial medicines from hemp and other cannabis family plants for people and animals.

I have an oncologist friend whose patients now take CBD oil with good results, helping them fight cancer. And he told me about the people here in Colorado, where I purchased Russell’s CBD oil.

The oil is expensive. You can buy much cheaper CBD on Amazon. But those products are not full-spectrum CBD nor do they get tested for purity and consistency, nor for a high standard of quality. Those additional steps cost money, so the drug that I buy is higher priced. But with it I have confidence that each dose is exactly the precise molar density per milliliter that the cat needs consistently each day. Just like any patented medicine approved by the Food and Drug Administration for human or animal uses and controlled by prescription.

I even got some CBD for me to take to see if it helps with my disabilities that I suffer today from my Marine Corps service. Sleep problems from PTSD and pain issues from several old injuries to include my reconstructed lower spine, necessary in 2018 after a bad landing I suffered in 1983 that fractured three vertebrae along with giving me a bad knee and ankle sprain. The bad knee and ankle also remain on my list of Veteran Disabilities.

This CBD oils that Russell and I take have no THC in them, but they do have the important Cannabidiol drugs that relieve pain, relieve stress, and help bring on sleep at night. Studies currently suggest that CBD can reduce cancer cells. These are not internet claims by unscientific blogs or chat forums, but real scientific studies now ongoing.

This gives us hope that the combined medical care that we and our vet are providing Rusty will give him a little more time with us and allow him to enjoy a better quality of life than many pets get. Many pet “owners” (we don’t own pets here but include them in our family) will have their pet euthanized at the first moment that cancer is diagnosed. It’s usually an economic decision rationalized that it was best for the cat. But not in our house nor at the hands of our veterinarian who will only euthanize a pet when it is the ethically and morally correct thing to do for the genuine best interests of the pet.

For now, we in our household do all that we can to not just love Russell but to make sure he feels our love. And that’s the way it should always be for every pet in every home.

Rusty and our other pets are important and deeply loved members of our family.

The Heart of Russell Wilson

/ Charles Henderson / Leave a comment

by Taylor MacHenry

Today, Mike Tannenbaum, long-time executive with the New York Jets and its previous General Manager, said that Sean Payton would bench Russell Wilson and use him as an example to establish a culture and climate for the team. This scurrilous comment coming from a former Jets boss smells of an ulterior motive. Payback?

The statement flies in the face of the facts that Sean Payton has gone deep in standing up for Russell Wilson, giving the Broncos’ quarterback the maximum opportunity and support to make the 2023 football season a good one for him. Wilson, an emotionally driven player whose heart in the game propels him to go far above and beyond, as he did for Pete Carroll at Seattle, likewise, like most people, struggles if slogging an uphill battle without any support, as he did with Nathaniel Hackett. And one of a coach’s key responsibilities is to be that powerful mentor and at times emotional support animal for his players. Good players need good coaches and great players demand them: Coaches like Sean Payton.

Why did every NFL player that ever suited up for Tom Landry or Vince Lombardi fear these coaches, and avoided like the pain of death ever disappointing them? Yet without exception, these players would take a bullet for Landry or Lombardi. They loved the men!

It is an interesting, old-school dynamic. Fathers who greatly love their children often dote on them and spoil them. But the smart dads who would die for their daughters and sons show their children powerful leadership that is a mix of uncompromising devotion, loyalty, justice, unyielding love and importantly, discipline.

Smart dads know that the world is a terribly cruel place and it cuts no slack for weaklings. Because they love their children, these smart dads establish rules and boundaries enforced by very clear discipline. No ambiguity or guessing for the kid if he or she runs afoul of dad’s rule. Yet in the same breath, that dad will without thought give up his life for his children. That’s the greatest love of all.

Yes, the Denver Broncos are grown men, but they are young men and not too many years away from growing up in a family that loved and protected them. Even a single mom. Too often a single mom.

Yes, inspiringly a single mom. She loves and protects her son like a lioness.

How many pro football players do we see openly weep on television for their parents, dedicating a game to a mom who is critically ill? Or they look up toward Heaven, pointing a finger high and speak their late father’s name?

Like Russel Wilson’s dad, Harrison, who died in 2010 while Russell endured difficult times not only at home but at North Carolina State University where turmoil and a coach who thought little of Wilson just piled onto his burden of losing his father and seeing his widowed mother, alone under a heavy yoke, keep their family and life together.

While these may be grown men out of college, making millions playing a kids game, the hearts of these grown men are the same impressionable hearts of kids who love their moms and dads, and very often really love and respect their old high school football coaches and teachers, and sometimes their college football coaches too.

They could not be great football players without having HEART.

And Russell Wilson has HEART.

Sean Payton knows this fact and builds on it. He is the disciplined coach who often fills the dad shoes for many of his young players, and a few old ones, especially those who did not have a father in their households and mom did a miraculous job of raising the kid.

Yet, Russell Wilson had a mom and dad who gave him their all, during much of his youth. However, he grew up in a professional household. And that has its own set of challenges.

His late father was a lawyer, and his mother was a hospital nursing director. He enjoyed a plentiful childhood with many benefits. But, a professional household often means that mom and dad have responsibilities that often takes them away from the football practices and games, and robs them of a lot of important support time with their sons or daughters.

Such a kid with a lawyer for a dad and a nursing director for a mom finds other people, like teachers and coaches, who mentor the boy or girl, and that support helps fill the emotional gap that professional parents too often leave in their children’s lives, especially during the kid’s formative years in junior high and high school.

For Russell Wilson, football coaches were important people. And God blessed Russell Wilson with people in his life, outside his mom and dad, who loved him and always did their best, who gave the youngster some great mentoring in his youth.

However, in college, things changed. In this case there were those that also made Russell Wilson angry and resentful, and set a fire in Russell’s belly to prove them wrong.

Trouble about a player with lots of HEART is that it can turn angry if rejected by someone who should be a mentor but dismisses the player.

Roll back the calendar to 2010 when Russell Wilson was a student athlete at North Carolina State University. The same year that Harrison Wilson, Russell’s dad, died. Wolfpack head football coach Tom O’Brien never believed in Wilson and on top of the loss of his father, rejected him badly.

Wilson was playing minor league professional baseball while a college football player. This fact alone probably turned O’Brien against Wilson. Football coaches want their football players to play football not baseball.

A young and impressionable Wilson said to him, “Hey coach, I’d like to come back my senior year (to play football).”

Coach O’Brien chopped the legs from under the gifted athlete, who could make first string in anybody’s league, baseball or football, that he would not play his senior year for the North Carolina State Wolfpack football team.

O’Brien said, “Liston son, you’re never going to play in the National Football League. You’re too small. There’s no chance. You’ve got no shot. Give it up!”

The Wolfpack coach drove the nail home when he responded to Wilson after Russell said, “So, you’re telling me I’m not coming back to N. C. State? I won’t see the field?”

And O’Brien said, “No son, you won’t see the field.”

O’Brien had pressed Wilson to stop playing baseball and to devote himself full-time to football, even though the coach was not impressed with the future Super-Bowl-winning quarterback and would cut him without even a shrug.

The rejection burned Russell Wilson deep and broke his heart.

The young athlete wasted no more time with North Carolina State University nor their head football coach who thought very little of Russell Wilson. He reached out to the University of Wisconsin Badgers football team, and they snapped him up. They needed a quality quarterback. And they were amazed that Tom O’Brien would toss Russell Wilson to the curb.

Russell Wilson immediately won the hearts of the Badgers football team, and they elected him co-captain. And Coach Bret Bielema embraced Wilson and filled the young player’s heart with a coach’s love, respect and renewed hope.

Wilson also had a fire in his emotional furnace to prove Wolfpack coach Tom O’Brien wrong about him.

Russell Wilson led the Wisconsin Badgers to an 11 and 3 winning season in the NCAA Big Ten, and the Big Ten Conference Championship, beating Michigan State 42-39.

In the 2012 Rose Bowl, however, Wisconsin fell to Chip Kelly’s number-4 nationally-ranked Oregon Ducks by a touchdown, 45-to-38.

But Russell Wilson proved to Wolfpack coach Tom O’Brien that he did belong on the upper shelf of NCAA football and received Most Valuable Player honors at number-10 nationally ranked Wisconsin in 2011.

Ironically, unranked North Carolina State did not do that great in 2011, finishing with a mediocre plus-side season of 8 and 5, with a 4 and 4 record in the Atlantic Coast Conference. But the Wolfpack did win the Belk Bowl against Louisville, 31-to-24. And what is the Belk Bowl compared to the Rose Bowl?

Russell Wilson made his point and backed it with undeniable fact and action.

He also made it to the NFL, proving another point to Tom O’Brien, albeit that Wilson was picked overall 75th in the 2012 NFL Draft, selected by the Seattle Seahawks in the 3rd round. Not the first round of the draft, but a 3rd round pick, which is highly respectable.

As it was for the 2012 1st-round pick, Andrew Luck, who went to the Indianapolis Colts, in a 2022 do-over of that draft 10-years prior, the Colts would have picked Russell Wilson number 1. A popular lexicon at the time of reflection stated, “Hustle for Russell” instead of “Suck for Luck.”

One thing about Coach Pete Carroll is that he is like his players, an emotionally-driven animal, and he plays with HEART. Big time HEART. Yes, he believes in fielding an overwhelming Defense and managing the Offense, but he wins with it. Yet with that mindset, he failed to tap into all of Russell Wilson’s great range of quarterback tools as he focused on dominant Defense and managed Offense. But Russell Wilson loved Coach Carroll and Pete Carroll loved Quarterback Wilson.

When a head football coach goes all in on a player, and the player has HEART, the player will die before disappointing his coach. And that is Pete Carroll’s relationship with Russell Wilson. They still love each other.

Broncos Coach Sean Payton knows this and believes in this dynamic too. Payton builds teams on that dynamic.

Sean Payton goes all in on his players and he is all in on Russell Wilson.

Nathaniel Hackett never believed in Russell Wilson, did not understand his game, and wrecked the entire Broncos 2022 season.

And that’s what Sean Payton meant when he said that Hackett’s NFL coaching leadership in the Broncos 2022 season was the worst performance of a head coach he had ever seen.

The fact remains that Nathaniel Hackett put such a stinking turd on the Broncos dinner plate that he got fired without completing the last few games of his only season. Yes, Hackett was horrible! Truth!

And because of it, Russell Wilson’s performance stunk too. Simple logic.

It stunk because Russell Wilson thrives on good coaching.

What stinks today is that Mike Tannenbaum would honestly believe that Sean Payton is such a poor coach that he would use a great quarterback, who proved himself for 10 years with Seattle and won the Super Bowl, as a goat to make a show of benching him to set an atmosphere for the Broncos team.

How stupid is that statement? A rhetorical question with an emphatic response: Pretty darned stupid!

Hope now blesses Russell Wilson for the Broncos 2023 football season. And the team as well. Their quarterback has a fire in his belly to prove lots of critics wrong about him, and a good number of Broncos fans.

Sean Payton is a super-star coach who can make Russell Wilson thrive. And in the pre-season, we see a much-improved Wilson who is regaining his confidence as he is feeling the LOVE of his team and his coach, and an increasing number of Broncos fans.

Wilson also has the unyielding and emphatic and very vocal-to-the-press support of his head football coach, Sean Payton.

One thing about Sean Payton: He says what he believes, and he believes in Russell Wilson as his starting quarterback for the Broncos. Take it as gospel.

Will he bench Russell Wilson? Highly doubtful, even if Wilson fails to prove himself and the Broncos need to go shopping for another trail boss.

But that is a worst-case scenario. Not very likely.

What is most likely is that Russell Wilson will feel the LOVE from his team and his coach, and Russell Wilson will play with FIRE to prove his disrespecting detractors wrong.

I believe that Sean Payton expects greatness from Russell Wilson, and I expect that Russell Wilson expects it from himself. And he will go over the top to deliver every extra measure of greatness that he has for a coach that believes in him.

Even though the Broncos lost their first two pre-season games, by one point each, all of us witnessed a better version of Russell Wilson than we saw in the entirety of last season. And I believe it will just keep getting better. So does Sean Payton.

And Mike Tannenbaum said what he said because he is a fan of Aaron Rodgers, the New York Jets and the Jets’ Offensive Coordinator, Nathaniel Hackett.

Just another barb to piss off Sean Payton.

But it also stokes Russell Wilson’s FIRE and HEART.

Insight for those sharing the Gospel of Christ

/ Charles Henderson / Leave a comment

By Taylor MacHenry

Perhaps I am just impatient.

I lack the peace at heart to allow God in His good time to act. Yet I keep trying without patience, because as a human being, I lack faith.

Yes, I am a Christian, but I am also, as the Apostle Paul said of himself, “Chief among sinners.” I certainly cannot hold my head high as a pious man.

Yet as a sinner who is also certain of his Salvation because I have repented and I try my best to live in the Will of God, and because I Believe in Jesus as the only begotten Son of God who is Himself God in the person of Christ, and because I proclaim Christ Jesus my Lord and Master above all governments and powers, I am saved.

By the Grace given to me through the unending Love of God and the sacrifice on the cross of my Lord and Savior, I am Justified before God and given forgiveness so that I can remain in the Kingdom of Heaven before our Lord for eternity.

But back to my impatience. What causes me this impatience?

My efforts for others who are not yet believers in Jesus Christ and they do not relent in their unbelief. They do not repent nor do they accept and believe and proclaim Christ their Lord. I have shared the Truth of Jesus Christ with them, and the Holy Spirit has knocked on the doors to their hearts. Some of them I have gone so far as to give them Bible and Study Bibles, some of them leather-bound with their names on them, as I expressed my love for them as their genuine friend. And I want them in Heaven with me.

I will never stop praying for these people, nor trying for them, because I love them as God also loves them. Even those who scorn me, mock me for my faith, and speak harshly of me for my faith, and say that God is not real but merely a myth made up in antiquity by frightened souls. A projection of humanity because of our need for a deity.

I will not stop loving them and praying for them and trying to open their eyes to Christ. Because that is what Jesus commanded me, as well as all His believers, to do. It is the purpose of His Great Commission to all who believe in Him.

In the New Testament, the book of Matthew, chapter 28, verses 18 through 20, God’s Word tells us the final Commandment that Jesus gave to all of us:

“All authority in Heaven and on Earth has been given to Me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

And just because a person rejects God and the Salvation of Jesus Christ, and His redeeming Grace, does not mean that we just walk away. We must not stop trying for that person. Especially if that person is someone you love, a friend or a family member.

We pray for him or her, and we love that person, showing him or her the example of Jesus and what Christ teaches us to do. Which is to Love above all things, to Forgive everything and to Not Judge anyone because Judgment will only be done by God Himself.

I am sure that the Apostle Paul, in his service to Christ, taking the Gospel to all nations, establishing churches throughout the known world of his time, he must have suffered impatience and disappointment even more than I do.

And God reminded Paul that all will not be saved. Not even all of the Israelites, God’s own chosen people. However, God will deal with those people in His time, not ours. Jesus never said for any of us to give up trying. He only reminds us that all will not be saved, so don’t be too disappointed. We did our best for them because God loves them and wants them to be saved. Yet they will refuse. But we must keep trying.

In his Epistle to the Romans, Paul reminded his followers in Rome of this fact and that we should remain undaunted in our mission. He wrote these words in Romans, chapter 10, verses 5 through Romans, chapter 11, verse 10, (English Standard Version) which should help and encourage us all:

The Apostle Paul’s Message of Salvation to All:

“For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. But the righteousness based on faith says, ‘Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down) or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

“For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

“For the Scripture says, ‘Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.’

“For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’

“How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?

“As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’

“But they have not all obeyed the Gospel.

For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?’

“So, faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

“But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed, they have, for
‘Their voice has gone out to all the earth,
and their words to the ends of the world.’

“But I ask, did Israel not understand? First Moses says,
‘I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation;
with a foolish nation I will make you angry.’

“Then Isaiah is so bold as to say,
‘I have been found by those who did not seek me;
I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.’

“But of Israel he says, ‘All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.’

“I ask, then, has God rejected his people?

“By no means!

“For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel?

“’Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.’

“But what is God’s reply to him?

“’I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’

“So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise, grace would no longer be grace.

“What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, as it is written,
‘“God gave them a spirit of stupor,
eyes that would not see
and ears that would not hear,
down to this very day.’
“And David says,
‘Let their table become a snare and a trap,
a stumbling block and a retribution for them;
let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see,
and bend their backs forever.'”
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ro 10:5–11:10.

No One Loves the Warrior Until the Enemy Stands at the Gate

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by Taylor MacHenry

The spirit of the words in the below picture, I believe, are best expressed by Rudyard Kipling in his poem, TOMMY.

As a journalist, he witnessed the valor and bloodshed of the British soldier, and then the disdain in which “proper British society” held their soldiers, whom he named Tommy Atkins, a common fellow among people of little worth or importance.

This incensed Kipling because no one among “proper British society” had sacrificed even a whet’s worth of their own value compared to the boy he called, Tommy Atkins, who gave up his life on the battlefields for King and Country.

The Scots Observer in Edinburgh first published Kipling’s poem, TOMMY, on March 1, 1890.

Some 25 years later, on September 27, 1915, Rudyard Kipling’s dearly loved son, John, went missing in action, fighting the Germans in the Battle of Loos in Northern France, bringing the poem TOMMY home to resonate with all of the English-speaking world. Kipling died on January 18, 1936, never knowing the fate of his beloved son, John Kipling, an 18 year old British lieutenant, cannon fodder they called them.

John Kipling shipped off to France on his 18th birthday, August 17, 1915, and six weeks later, he led a platoon of Irish Guards into the jaws of no-man’s land, in the Battle of Loos. More than a thousand British soldiers lay scattered on that killing field, many of them buried in mass graves, known only to God. Young Lieutenant Kipling was one of those Unknown Soldiers who died there.

In his youth, Kipling wrote of adventure, The Man Who Would Be King. But the loss of his son, John, left the great poet, novelist, journalist and critic of society in a dismal, gray pal.

He wrote great poetry, but they were always words of some sort of mourning.

Responding to the death of 16-year old Sailor, Jack Cornwell, Kipling was inspired to write, MY BOY JACK. Many say that the poem is a veiled commentary about the loss of his own son.

MY BOY JACK
by Rudyard Kipling

“Have you news of my boy Jack? “
Not this tide.
“When d’you think that he’ll come back?”
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

“Has any one else had word of him?”
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

“Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?”
None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he did not shame his kind—
Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.

Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every tide;
Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide.

A supporter of the war effort in England, with the declared death of John Kipling, the great poet grew disgruntled with war and angry at “proper British society” in general. And angry with himself for supporting the war, which he believed helped motivate his boy, John, to join up and go to France.

Kipling’s very brief, single-sentence, COMMON FORM, slaps the face of British society, including himself.

COMMON FORM
by Rudyard Kipling

If any questions
why we died,
Tell them,
because our fathers lied.

Rudyard Kipling’s life-long passion of supporting all soldiers called to war, however, is perhaps best remembered by the world in his angry words in each stanza of TOMMY.

TOMMY
by Rudyard Kipling

I went into a public ‘ouse to get a pint o’ beer,
The publican ‘e up an’ sez, ” We serve no red-coats here.”
The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an’ to myself sez I:
O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ” Tommy, go away ” ;
But it’s ” Thank you, Mister Atkins,” when the band begins to play
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it’s ” Thank you, Mister Atkins,” when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but ‘adn’t none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-‘alls,
But when it comes to fightin’, Lord! they’ll shove me in the stalls!
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ” Tommy, wait outside “;
But it’s ” Special train for Atkins ” when the trooper’s on the tide
The troopship’s on the tide, my boys, the troopship’s on the tide,
O it’s ” Special train for Atkins ” when the trooper’s on the tide.

Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap.
An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit.
Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an` Tommy, ‘ow’s yer soul? “
But it’s ” Thin red line of ‘eroes ” when the drums begin to roll
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it’s ” Thin red line of ‘eroes, ” when the drums begin to roll.

We aren’t no thin red ‘eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints;
While it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an` Tommy, fall be’ind,”
But it’s ” Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind
There’s trouble in the wind, my boys, there’s trouble in the wind,
O it’s ” Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind.

You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires, an’ all:
We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow’s Uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace.
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an` Chuck him out, the brute! “
But it’s ” Saviour of ‘is country ” when the guns begin to shoot;
An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;
An ‘Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool – you bet that Tommy sees!

Vladimir Putin Hoists Banner of Nuclear War

/ Charles Henderson / Leave a comment

by Taylor MacHenry

Here are some hard and true facts: As long as Vladimir Putin wants war in Ukraine or elsewhere too, any idea of a negotiated peace is a waste of time, and second of all, Vladimir Putin quit honoring the nuclear arms treaties with the United States and free world years ago. The fact that Tuesday, February 21, 2023, Putin officially proclaimed that the nuclear arms treaties no longer apply is good news for American defense strategy. America’s political hands are now untied. If it’s war Putin wants, then a Stinger missile up his tailpipe needs to happen. That or the free world braces for nuclear war.

A well-planned drone strike on Putin would solve many problems, and for most Russians, it would give them a reason to celebrate. Russian soldiers don’t want the war in Ukraine. They didn’t even know they had gone to war when Putin sent them to Ukraine, telling them it was a planned military exercise. Lots of Russians have died, and at home the bread lines remind Muscovites of days gone by when a different despot commanded the Soviet Union.

As for the nuclear arms treaties, many uninformed Americans now worry in their basements, including the President. However, the meat of the nuclear arms treaties had little purpose other than perhaps slowing down the ultimate destruction of entire Planet Earth. The real nuclear threat never received any mention in any nuclear arms treaties: the small nuclear bombs that the United States, China, Russia, and other allies of both sides, can fire from their field artillery pieces. Yes the so-called short-range weapons that all sides counted for use in theaters of contained warfare. Ukraine is such a theater of contained warfare, and field artillery, such as the Russian 2S19 152-millimeter self-propelled Howitzer or its big brother, the 2S7M Malka 203-millimeter self-propelled Howitzer, or the M109A7 Paladin 155-millimeter self-propelled Howitzers or any of the thousands of its towed brothers that US and NATO forces use. All of these weapon systems have nuclear capabilities. They use something called “wrap-rounds” that propel the nuclear projectile that they fire precisely onto targets anywhere nearby, a few miles distance, to 70 or even 100 miles away.

The numbers of these nuclear weapons are a mystery. The United States has a highly classified count of them, along with locations, however, the Russians have no idea how many nuclear projectiles exist in their bunkers nor where they exist. But they do exist and they exist in large numbers.

With Vladimir Putin announcing that the nuclear arms treaties today are no longer valid, clears the decks for him to employ nuclear artillery and rockets, within the contained battlefield of Ukraine, without concern of violating any treaty anywhere. With the nuclear weapons employed in Ukraine, in addition to wantonly killing hundreds of thousands more innocent people (a war crime against humanity) the nuclear fallout will salt the highly productive farmlands of Ukraine, rendering them useless for decades if not centuries. Putin’s only drawback to the nukes are the prevailing westerly winds that will blow any nuclear clouds back into Mother Russia.

But does he really care? Most likely, he does not. Russian lives mean nothing to the dysfunctionally narcissistic leader.

What should the United States do? Probably our leaders won’t, but this approaching horror story will require leadership with resolve and iron courage, the likes of which Winston Churchill and a few others possessed. Not some blowhard loudmouth and certainly not some soft-spoken lily of the valley who waffles and worries about political winds and elections.

With the announcement of Vladimir Putin that Russia no longer regards any nuclear arms treaties valid, represents the big red banner of nuclear war standing at the threshold. Western leaders, not just Joe Biden but all leaders of NATO and the free world should stand in resolve, and gird their nations for nuclear war. Unless someone can engineer a drone strike that can penetrate the bunker where Vladimir Putin hides today.

Biden Administration’s Increase of American Federalism at the Cost of American Wealth and Freedom

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by Taylor MacHenry

America’s second President, John Adams, would be elated with the dramatic increase of the strong central government in Washington, DC more stringently controlling the states and the people. Adams likened the Federalist Government to act in the same respect that a King would rule in a monarchy. Of course, Thomas Jefferson and his cohorts in the Republican Party (later called Democratic-Republican Party) led the Opposition to Adams and his Federalists who had cut their teeth on Thomas Hobbes Leviathan.

Generally speaking, most Americans embrace the ideals of Jefferson’s opposition to federalism, because it holds that Freedom is born with the People and Limited Powers are given to the Government by the People as the People determine that the Government needs to adequately operate. Yet, free money waved at the hungry masses always wins over sound thinking. So, the people take the money without considering the consequences of Socialism taking away their Freedom of Choice, Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Faith and Freedom to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

An overriding Federal Government, by its very nature, dictates to the People what the Government believes that the People ought to have and not have. It sees itself as the benevolent Great White Father, and Joe Biden is the embodiment of the Great White Father. And he knows best. Just ask him and he will tell you.

Hold on. So will Donald Trump. He is outspoken about being the smartest man in the nation, and he has no doubts that he can dictate to you how best you can live your life.

So, what’s the difference between Joe Biden and Donald Trump? Biden is soft spoken. However, as individual presidents, they are both driven by much the same engine. Neither man has many morals or scruples, and both men subscribe to any ideals that rewards them with power and dominion.

It would be nice to just elect a government rather than a person as President. Because it is the government that surrounds the President that matters. A collective mindset, Conservative or Liberal or a Blend of Both, that guides Economic Policy, National Defense, Foreign Policy and Domestic Policy (which includes Energy Policy).

Trump’s policies embraced many of President Ronald Reagan’s blend of Conservative and Middle-of-the-Road politics. Trump’s government was a long way left of Libertarian while still embracing Conservative ideals. It netted a result of a powerful economy and growing industry in America with lowering fuel and energy prices. However, the Chinese economic attack on the world, the COVID-19 Pandemic, derailed even the most powerful and energetic economies. It crippled the Trump government’s economic boom, and it paved the way for a far-left led, so-called Progressive (more Socialist than Democratic) victory in the 2020 election that made Joe Biden President.

Removing the Politics from the view, and just looking at the bare facts, the Biden Presidency has claimed the future happiness of most Americans, leaving nearly everyone deep in debt and struggling to make ends meet even with minimum wages set above $15 dollars an hour. Inflation is the cruelest of Poor Taxes. It robs families of food, warmth and clothing. It leaves working people enslaved to just surviving. And the wealthy, blind bastards who lead this government have not one clue.

Biden’s government brags today that they have heralded great success for America. Voters need to re-elect this presidency to keep the successes rolling.

Joseph Goebbels mentored Adolf Hitler in the 1920s and gave the Austrian paper hanger the central idea of Mein Kampf (My Fight): Say a Big Lie and keep repeating it as Truth. If we repeat the Big Lie long enough and people begin to believe it as Truth and repeat it as Truth then The Big Lie becomes Truth.

We do not portend that Biden nor Trump presidencies are anything akin to Hitler or his mentor Goebbels ideals, but both politicians do embrace the notion of selling America on their own Big Lie. And when people believe the Big Lie as Truth then it is always bad. Politicians since Caesar have had difficulty with Truth, especially when it gets in the way of their garnering power and dominion. However, the constant problem with The Big Lie is that it always hurts the People.

Just as in America today, The Big Lie has resulted in a nation polarized with Hate. And in the past three years, The Big Lie has resulted in a nation of people suffering under higher taxes, higher cost of living, less opportunity, borders in crisis, and a record national debt with no hope of ever turning it around. Most importantly, The Big Lie has resulted in Less Freedom by the railroading of Federal Laws and misguided State Laws, all written in the name of keeping people safe.

Here’s a secret: Laws do NOT keep people safe. People keep People safe.

Denver Broncos Leadership Considers Hiring Yet Another Head Coach with No Head Coaching Experience, While the Obvious Choice, Sean Payton, Stands In Front of Them

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by Taylor MacHenry

Several years ago, I watched a movie about the great golf legend, Bobby Jones. In one scene, Jones vied for a British Open championship at the Old Course at Saint Andrews, Scotland, and his ball had landed in a bunker with a high, green-side cliff. In several years past, when he had hit his ball into the bunker with the near-impossible green-side shot that required him chipping his ball straight up and landing it on the green, he lost the championship because he pressed himself to make the impossible shot. The multiple strokes he took each of the previous times had cost him the championship. This time, his caddy saw him about to take yet the same impossible shot once again and stopped him before he took the stroke.

The caddy said, “The definition of insanity is to keep repeating the same mistake, and each time expecting a different outcome.”

The Denver Broncos appear to be trapped in that same bunker with the high cliff on the green side, and they seem determined to repeat the same mistake over and over while expecting a different outcome.

San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator, DeMeco Ryans, is without question a brilliant football coach, and at 38 years old, with his brilliance and great opportunities laid before him, he should only get better. Should, being to operative word. No one has a crystal ball, and no one can say that as a brilliant defensive coordinator of a team packed with talent and having the best defense in the NFL, would DeMeco Ryans expand that brilliance on the next level as a head football coach? Yet all the football pundits on television, radio and Sirius XM tout him today as the second coming of Mike Shanahan, the last great head football coach that the Denver Broncos have had.

Yes, John Fox and Wade Phillips were pretty good too. But Mike Shanahan is one of 13 head coaches in Super Bowl history to have won at least two Super Bowls. He is the winningest coach in Broncos history with a record of 146 wins against 91 losses, a career winning percentage of .616.

Broncos head coaching candidate, Sean Payton, as a head football coach in the NFL has over a 15-year career as head coach amassed a winning percentage of .631, with 152 wins against 89 losses. Just a tad better than Mike Shanahan. And from 1988 through 2021, a 33-year coaching career beginning at San Diego State University, he has had only 11 losing seasons. In other words, in 33 years from quarterbacks coach and assistant coach to head coach, he has been part of or as head coach produced 22 winning seasons. Most of the losing seasons, 7 of them in 11, he was not head coach but an assistant or a specialties coach. As head football coach, Peyton has had only 4 losing seasons.

It has been 6 years since the Denver Broncos have had a winning season. In 2016, the year after the Super Bowl win, the Broncos finished 3rd in the AFC West with a 9 and 7 record. Gary Kubiak and Joe DeCamillis coached the team, and this was the year after Peyton Manning retired with the 2015 Super Bowl 50 victory.

In those Broncos losing seasons across the past 6 years, Denver has languished with head coaches with no head coaching experience before their jobs leading the Broncos. Since Mike Shanahan, and not counting Gary Kubiak, who stepped in to fill the game for John Fox when his heart trouble took him off the field, Denver has had Josh McDaniels, John Fox and Jack DelRio (a tandem), Joe DeCamillis (who filled the gap when Gary Kubiak’s health failed), Vance Joseph, Vic Fangio, Nathaniel Hackett, and Jerry Rosburg (who stepped in as interim coach when Hackett was fired).

What jumps off the page is that all these coaches who busted their humps trying, were all out of their depths as a head coach who could lead a team to the Super Bowl. And it is the Super Bowl that Denver Broncos fans expect. So do the owners in the Penner-Walton Group too.

So, why does the leadership of the Denver Broncos appear hell-bent to hire yet another head coach with no NFL head coaching experience? Why?

Especially when standing at the threshold is none other than Sean Payton who has an even more impressive career record as NFL head coach than Mike Shanahan?

It is like the Denver Broncos are back in that bunker with Bobby Jones at Saint Andrews, sitting in that deep bunker with the high cliff on the green side and can only see the top of the flagstick on the green, waving above the Super Bowl hole, and they contemplate chipping that impossible shot from the bunker. Yes, that instead of laying out an easy shot onto the fairway at the entrance of the green, and making a reasonable putt from there. One more stroke but still finishing Par instead of another bogey or double-bogey or even triple-bogey or more?

Going for another candidate with zero NFL head coaching experience instead of making the obvious, logical choice to hire a head coach with a solid NFL career and a Super Bowl under his belt, a head coach that even surpasses Mike Shanahan, the winningest coach in Broncos history?

For the Broncos to pass on Sean Payton and hire DeMeco Ryans is literally the definition of insanity!

Love is a Dog from Hell

/ Charles Henderson / 2 Comments

by Taylor MacHenry

Not long ago, my friend and fellow writer, Kirk Ellis, posted his contribution to his friend Stuart Rosebrook’s challenge to post on Facebook banned books and drive Facebook censors crazy. Yes, a worthy cause.

Of course, my heart went straight to Harper Lee’s brilliant novel that won her the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1961 and was voted by the American people its favorite novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. A book that has been banned multiple times since 1968 through today with other people knowing best what a person ought to be ALLOWED to read. Set in a time when Jim Crow laws caused many innocent poor people to suffer terrible injustices, like the railroading of Tom Robinson, innocent but convicted anyway because he’s Black. That was a time when mentally challenged people like Boo Radley suffered persecution no different than Quasimodo. Scout and Jem and father, Atticus Finch, knew better, despite that ugly world that told an American truth that held up a mirror to our biased faces and helped make us better for it.

Oh, but why even enter such things in the mind? We must control the narrative that the people hear, so they can act pure and be pure and not hate. Right, that’s called brain washing. Censorship is in a way a means to wash the minds of the people, so they will agree on the prescribed politically correct path.

Me? I was always the kid who wondered why books got banned, so I searched out underground copies of the forbidden texts and read them.

Hate is hate. Thus, censors scurry today to rid us of such trash that perhaps might offend us or cause us hurt. So, they ban To Kill a Mockingbird, and of late, they remove from publication six books penned by Dr. Seuss, yanked by the sensitive publishers at Penguin Random House. Because they might be hurtful.

And that brings me to my entry of books best consumed in brown paper wrappers, for fear that the thought police might see us reading them.

As a writer, I find inspiration from an odd assortment of authors, poets and novelists, all tormented by inner demons, with which I use to mold myself into the writer I want to be, and perhaps explain why I share such demons with them. Among this sordid cast of mostly human trash, foreign to polite society, living in the shadow of down-looking noses, rises perhaps my all-time favorite, Charles Bukowski.

I find connection with such nihilistic social rejects as Hank Moody, the main character in Tom Kapinos’ creation, Californication. Totally depraved and yet inspiring. It did seven seasons on Showtime, so someone watched it. Besides me.

I liked it because I know Hank Moody’s heart. Since I have not talked to Tom Kapinos about his inspiration for Hank, I can’t say for sure. But I suspect that Kapinos, like me, draws much inspiration from the insufferable reprobate Charlie Bukowski and his even more deplorable alter-ego, Henry “Hank” Chinaski.

Hank Moody and Hank Chinaski are their own worst enemies. Very much alike. If you’ve watched the seven seasons of Californication, and related to Hank, then you must also read Bukowski’s five novels that take us through the life of Hank Chinaski.

Read the five novels in this order:

First, read Ham on Rye, then next slum your way through the pages of my offering for the list of books that offend the Facebook censors, Factotum. You’ll be hooked with Ham on Rye, and Factotum picks right up.

Then you can settle into the steamy drunk pages of Post Office, where we journey with Hank Chinaski, aspiring to be a novelist but needing to eat, gets a job delivering mail. That, and seducing women, and staying drunk as he tries to write, and keep afloat, resisting everything except temptation. Yet Hank finally reels out his first novel, as Post Office slides to a slow stop.

Next on the reading list we find Bukowski’s introspection of himself through Henry Chinaski in his novel called, Women. In it, life gets good for Henry Chinaski after his first novel takes him to stardom. Down on life, down on stardom, cynical yet fun-seeking, Hank Chinaski and Hank Moody would live well together, if they ever met. And somehow, I believe that Tom Kapinos probably did just that with these two howling mad writers.

A trail of lost loves in his own life, shown to us in the life of Hank Chinaski, I am not surprised that Charlie Bukowski wrote a book of poems entitled: Love is a Dog from Hell.

While the last in the life of Hank Chinaski, the novel Hollywood takes our hero to the land of crazy, phony and glitter, Los Angeles. Here we see Henry Chinaski write the screenplay called, Barfly.

And while Hank Chinaski lives the depraved, careless and self-absorbed life of a writer spinning out of emotional control in the novel, Hollywood, Charles Bukowski lives a similar, depraved life for real as he writes the screenplay for the 1987 feature film, Barfly, which starred Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway.

When you finish reading Hollywood, get a copy of the book form screenplay, Barfly. It’s the final edit of the script, all written by Charles Bukowski.

Charlie Bukowski died in San Pedro, California on March 9, 1994, at the age of 74 years old. Same as my age now. And just as cranky and cynical.

He got his first story published in 1944 and never stopped smoking and drinking and living life with little to no control. His physical body’s worst enemy and his emotional being’s champion of self-abuse, Charlie never stopped writing for the next 50 years.

That’s when God stopped him.

Dead.

In his tracks.

A few weeks before the Grim Reaper took Charlies Bukowski down for the count, Black Sparrow Press published the first edition hardcover of Charlie Bukowski’s (Hank Chinaski’s) final novel, Pulp.

While looking Lady Death square in the kisser, Bukowski dedicates his story told in Pulp to “bad writing.”

His novel, you see, takes dead center aim at writers and publishers and spoofs their pretentious, over-inflated, narcissistic world.

No ground is sacred.

Replete with everything vile and reviling, lewdness, drunkenness, debauched, hurtful, insulting, immoral but downright funny and heartbreaking.

No Facebook censor could ever allow any of these novels to appear on these hallowed, sensitive and politically woke webpages.

So, I offer to the Facebook censors Charlie Bukowski the man, and Hank Chinaski the fictional hero, and maybe his sidekick, Hank Moody. I guarantee them to be fairly and justly insensitive, insulting and hurtful to all.

But, God bless them, our world would be pretty sad without them.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/factotum-charles-bukowski/1100609520?ean=9780061842412