Puffs

I’ve mentioned before that I like high school and some college basketball games, but I’m not thrilled by the National Basketball Association’s style of games.

They just recently had the NBA ‘All-Star’ game. If that is what you want to call it.

Did you see the final score: 211-186?

I did not see the game. I enjoy seeing points score, but that is ridiculous. A game without defense being played . . . is not a game. It is just a scoring practice.

Hopefully, they will either drop the game, or else change it to include some sort of defensive effort.

A O

I’m not sure when the change was made, but at one time the Nebraska Legislature met only every other year. The only information I could find was that the change was probably made in the early 1970s.

The exact date isn’t important, but at the time the prevailing feeling was that there was a real need for the legislature to meet every year. There were major problems to solve and meeting every other year just was not good enough for Nebraska’s residents.

Today . . . I’m not so sure there is a real need to meet every year.

I know the world is complicated and it changes every year, and it seems to change faster and faster most every year.

It seems that some people think “change” is good, and in some instances, it is good. However, change, just for change’s sake is not always good.

I get the weekly publication of the legislature, called “Unicameral Update.”

It contains information on the bills introduced to the legislature and some information on their status.

Interesting, but just a lot of information to absorb. I don’t read it word for word and I confess I don’t understand it all.

Some of the items being considered this year:

• Bill to mandate hotel employee trafficking training. (Trafficking, as I understand it is a bad thing, but will this help end it, or just add more regulations to our world.)

• Special ed teacher loan forgiveness considered. (Sounds something like President Biden efforts to do away with all student loans?)

• Providing menstrual products in schools proposed. (Maybe a good idea, but do we need a state law to do it when the local school districts could do just as well.)

“Hundreds” of ideas are introduced every year. Many seem to be interested in expanding some kind of ‘Social’ action. I’m sure most are ‘well-intentioned’ but many seem intent to make the government as the source of everything, rather than accept that all right are “God Given” as noted in our federal constitution.

Maybe meeting every other year would necessitate the need to introduce the plethora of bills we now see to just those most important.

Think we could sell the public on that idea?

A O

I recently finished reading a book about a man in Cuba who stood up to the Castro government for many years. It covered mainly the last 1990s and early 2000s and showed how the Cuban, communist government handled opposition so that the government would not be threatened. The book notes that the ideas came from communist in East Germany and they included:

“Disinforming,

Disorganizing,

Paralyzing and crushing” any opposition.

Gosh . . . I hate to say it as I have many good friends who are Democrats, but doesn’t that sound somewhat like the National Democratic Party does a lot of.

I don’t know if the leaders of the abortion movement in the U. S. were all Democratic, but when they convinced people that 10,000 women a year died because abortions were unsafe, wasn’t that a case of ‘disinformation?’

Are not the Democrats ‘paralyzing’ the government when they reject the Republican suggestions on stopping the southern border problem and then blame the Republicans for not accepting their suggestions as being the cause of the problem.

Going back even further in history and out of the U. S. Are not those concepts what happened with Stalin in Russia and Hitler in Germany?

We have ‘God Given’ rights as noted in the beginning days of the U. S. history. However, since then, it seems that a lot of what we do takes away that source of blessings and tries to make the government the source of blessings.

Government has its place, a necessary place, and it takes a dedicated public to understand that and to control that.

A O