A Policeman's Widow and Nike

This is a very powerful story of why Nike's Colin Kapernick campaign has rubbed so many people raw. It's a letter from the widow of a policeman killed in the line of duty. Shelly Graham-Potter, widow of Tim Graham and mother of two young children at the time of his death, wrote Nike an eloquent letter about her sweat-stained Nile hat of 13 years that had been a symbol of her persevering after his tragic death. She writes, in part:

I had no choice but to move on. We trudged zombie-like through our days for weeks and weeks on end. I never left the house except to drive the boys to school, or buy food we barely touched. I realized that I had to do something. I had to move my body or I was going to crawl out of my own skin. So I put on the only cap I had and I went for a run. It was short, it hurt and it was ugly. But I felt, just for those few moments on that road, like a normal person. So I kept doing it. I put that hat on and I ran every day. Sometimes I had to stop and sit down because I was sobbing so hard. Sometimes I was so angry I ran until I thought I my heart would stop, sometimes I would just scream over and over again, but it still felt better than doing nothing.

That black cap became a symbol to me, it is sweat stained and it’s shape is gone, the buckle in the back barely closes; but that hat represents my family’s rise from the ashes. It stands for the strength and the sacrifice we made loving a man who had a job that we all knew could end his life, every time he walked out that door. And it did. And I accept that.

I still wear this hat, I wore it on my run this morning.

And then I heard about your new ad campaign.

Please take the time to read her whole letter and then her poignant conclusion. Some very powerful emotional currents  are running here and Nike is running upstream.

www.dailywire.com/news/35608/widow-slain-police-officer-writes-open-letter-nike-hank-berrien

Democratic Senators Prepare to Question Judge Kavanaugh

The New Hero of the Empire

Cory "Spartacus" Booker. Can it get any worse than this? Geez I hope not. Just confirm Kavanaugh, already.

GIGO

Nike is taking a lot of heat for its new Colin Kapernick meme. For the life of me, I just don't see why:

www.snopes.com/fact-check/kaepernick-wears-castro-t-shirt/

The shirt shows Castro shaking hands with Malcolm X. I particularly like the slogan on the t-shirt, "Like minds think alike." OK Colin, I think I got the picture. Perhaps thinking like the fact in the 1980s Castro was urging the Soviets to make a nuclear strike against the U.S.

www.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/science/22nuke.html

But wait, there's more!

Police pigs socks. Nice touch! Et tu, Nike. How very avant garde! Well played all around!

www.dailywire.com/news/35539/nike-hit-more-bad-news-wake-kaepernick-sacrifice-amanda-prestigiacomo

Astounding Political Insight

That great sage, Chelsea Clinton, recently said that if former Breitbart editor Steve Bannon appeared at a couple of political symposiums, it would be a "normalization of bigotry." OMG! I can see the white robes and burning crosses now! 

In the meantime, her father, the Not-so-Honorable William Jefferson Clinton, sat on the same stage at Aretha Franklin's funeral with Louis Farrakhan. You know, the same guy who has made peaceful and civilized comments like:

"The Jews don’t like Farrakhan, so they call me Hitler. Well, that’s a good name. Hitler was a very great man."   

"The white man is our mortal enemy, and we cannot accept him. I will fight to see that vicious beast go down into the lake of fire prepared for him from the beginning that he never rise again to give any innocent black man, woman or child the hell that he has delighted in pouring on us for 400 years."

and everybody's favorite -

"White people deserve to die, and they know, so they think it’s us coming to do it."

Ain't no bigotry here. Yes indeed, young people are the great hope for the future of our country!

www.dailywire.com/news/35388/chelsea-clinton-says-hosting-bannon-normalization-hank-berrien

A Successful Marriage

Another nice story in the Daily Wire today - actress Kristen Bell's lovely post to her husband, Dax Shepard, on 14 years of sobriety. It is well worth reading the whole post. One paragraph gives a good idea of the tone:

I will forever be in awe of your dedication and the level of fierce moral inventory you perform on yourself, like an emotional surgery, every single night. You never fail to make amends or say sorry when it’s needed. You are always available to guide me, and all of our friends, with open ears and tough love when it’s needed most.

I'm glad for them. This is success on a level that public people do not often understand or have the patience to seek. Blessings to them as they continue through life together.
www.dailywire.com/news/35370/actress-kristen-bell-posts-heartfelt-message-her-frank-camp

It's a Piñata Party!

Trump-bashing was the order of the day at several funerals this week. At John McCain's funeral, pretty much everybody who spoke took a shot - it was sort of a verbal piñata fest. In fairness, President Trump did say several years back that McCain was not a war hero because he got captured, which was a nasty and mean-spirited comment. McCain never forgave him and the late Senator was, among other things, not a person to lay down a grudge. Apparently, that has extended to the family as well. 

Just as McCain was a complex and often contradictory personality, though, the President is too and often what he does, as opposed to what he says, is different. What he did for the the late Senator and the McCain family was to dispatch Air Force 2 to fly McCain's body from Phoenix to Washington, D.C. for the state viewing at the Capitol Rotunda and then transport the body and the whole family home again for the funeral when the Washington services were done. That is a story that I have not seen widely reported. Complicated men, both of them, but it is important to try and look at the whole picture in trying to take their measure and not just the bad moments of which both were - and are - so very capable. 

www.dailywire.com/news/35364/good-trump-president-lends-air-force-two-mccain-joseph-curl