THE KIELTY KONSIDERATION - August 5, 2022
THE KIELTY KONSIDERATION - August 5, 2022
We once again have the pleasure of not being bombarded by the “Capitol Hill, January 6th Hearings,” though there is the simple joy of America’s loudest conspiracy nut, Alex Jones, being forced to pay the minuscule sum of $40 million to the family of a Sandy Hook shooting victim and admit that contrary to the conspiracy he has long shouted, the tragedy did quite actually occur. We also had the midsummer pleasure of Donald Trump first feeling the heat beneath his heels for his business shenanigans long before he attempted to pollute the free world with his egomaniacal lunacy and finally, for good measure, the fine Jayhawks of Kansas let the GOP know that party muscle doesn’t overpower common sense and decency, starting Red dominos rapidly falling back from their uncompromising views on abortion.
Of course, it’s a rare week of all good news lately and the news from Russia regarding American basketball star, Brittney Griner, is heartbreaking, confusing, and, as seemingly everything is in this country today: political. Trump made this dubious claim, calling her “a potentially spoiled person” (that is so rich I don’t need to say a word) who went to Russia “loaded up with drugs,” (in actuality under a gram but this is a mind and mouth that has never been gummed up with facts). Predictability, conservatives who missed their educated officials dishing facts on every cable news network but Fox fell immediately in line. Bombay-born (those pesky immigrants, again) conspiracy All-Star author, Dinesh D’Souza, who has already earned his far-right stripes for having been accused of physical violence by his former wife, received a presidential pardon from the deposed king for illegal campaign contributions said, “It seems like the Russians are doing to Griner what the Biden administration is doing to non-violent January 6 protesters.” Australian-born, Nicholas Adamopoulos (again why hasn’t Trump done anything about foreigners?) is an American conservative political commentator and author now named Nick Adams who went further conjecturing that Griner’s support of President Biden was to blame for the sentence and falsely claimed there would not have been an invasion of Ukraine had his master been president, “While discussing Brittney Griner’s prison sentence, I think it’s important to note that Russia would have NEVER invaded Ukraine with Trump still in the White House.” He must have skipped school when Trump responded to Russia and his childish idol’s aggression against Ukraine as, “Genius,” and "Savvy," and called him personally both, “Smart.”
Griner is obviously earmarked for international political pawn status in possibly the worst time in recent American-Soviet relations, likely as a participant in a prisoner swap. That is what all Americans can hope and pray for but while they’re at it they’d be kind to have a thought for the types of Americans who seem to be applauding a liberal activist fellow citizen’s arrest. “Make America Great Again,” right? Isn’t that how it goes?
-If you’re anything like me then you won’t find a better syndicated (network) television program than the original, “Law and Order.” One recently viewed episode jumped out at me for its prescience. In Season 12, Episode 23, titled, “Oxymoron” (originally aired on May 15, 2002) detective Mike Logan (Chris Noth) speaks of a new drug threat colloquially known as, “hillbilly heroin.” Later, District Attorney, Nora Lewin (two-time Academy Award winner, Dianne Wiest) asks when considering a plea, “We’re talking about a potential scourge in the order of crack cocaine, what if we’d been able to prevent that from taking hold?”
The drug, of course, would one day be known to all Americans when the scourge of oxycontin was the frontrunner of the “Opioid Epidemic.” Pretty far ahead of its time for a television show.
-Finally, the entire basketball world lost a true legend last Sunday when Monroe, Louisiana native, Bill Russell passed. The athletic 6-10, Russell amassed a resume unlikely to ever be matched: 11 NBA Championships (only Montreal Canadiens legend, Henri “Rocket” Richard, has won as many championships in a North American team sport) with the Boston Celtics, two National collegiate titles at the University of San Francisco (the only school that recruited him after he initially been cut by his high school team), and captained a Gold Medal winning team USA in the 1956 Olympic Summer Games. As a player/coach for the Celtics, Russell was the first African American Head Coach in an American professional sport, earning two of his titles in that capacity.
Quite a legacy, one that will likely stand alone and made even more impressive by the strength and resolve with which Russell achieved it. In a 1987 letter to the New York Times his daughter, Karen Russell, a Georgetown and Harvard Law grad, wrote that after one family three-day weekend they returned to find, “Our house was in a shambles, and ‘N***A’ was spray-painted on the walls. The burglars had poured beer on the pool table and ripped up the felt. They had broken into my father’s trophy case and smashed most of the trophies. I was petrified and shocked at the mess; everyone was very upset. The police came, and after a while, they left. It was then that my parents pulled pack their bedcovers to discover that the burglars had defecated in their bed.”
“Every time the Celtics went out on the road, vandals would come and tip over our garbage cans,” Karen wrote. “My father went to the police station to complain. The police told him that raccoons were responsible, so he asked where he could apply for a gun permit. The raccoons never came back.”
“We received threatening letters, and my parents notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Karen added. “What I find most telling about this episode is that years later, after Congress had passed the Freedom of Information Act, my father requested his FBI file and found that he was repeatedly referred to therein as ‘an arrogant Negro who won’t sign autographs for white children.”’
Russell later explained that rather than sign a piece of paper he would prefer to shake a fan’s hand, look in their eyes and say, “Nice to meet you.” Boston sports and their ardent fans have a lot to be proud of. Their treatment of Russell is more worthy of shame and ultimately make his accomplishments even more impressive.
