Posted on 06/05/2016 4:14:32 PM PDT by Loud Mime
A TALE OF TWO OBITUARIES
By Burt Prelutsky, 6/4/2016 I assumed I would have to wait until Jimmy Carter, 91, died before the outpouring of love and respect over the passing of a public figure would make me quite this nauseous, but, then, I hadn’t counted on Muhammad Ali passing at the age of 74.
Ali was a very good boxer. Some have insisted he was the best, while others have claimed Joe Louis or Sugar Ray Robinson were better. For the record, let me confess that in my opinion, being a boxing champion ranks near the bottom of the list when it comes to human achievements. Even serving in Congress is one step up.
It amazes me that a man who refused to serve in the military could be regarded by so many as courageous. This is a guy who explained he wouldn’t serve because “No Viet Cong ever called me a nigger.” Well, no Viet Cong ever paid his way to the Olympics so he could win a gold medal, either.
Furthermore, as excuses for not serving his country go, not having been called a name by the enemy is pretty pathetic. At least so far as I’m aware, not a single Polish American, Italian American or Jewish American, ever bugged out of WWII simply because no German had ever called him a wop, a Polack or a like.
As sportsmen went, he was the Trump of his generation. He referred to his opponents as “ugly,” “a bum,” “too dumb to be champion.” He referred to himself as “The Greatest,” but called Sonny Liston “a big ugly bear who even smells like a bear.” His singular achievement was that he was the first person to introduce trash talk to professional sports.
In his own personal life, he wasn’t much better. He was married four times and had seven children. He had another two with women he didn’t bother marrying.
Even after Ali was tested and found to possess an IQ of 78, (below 70 is deemed feeble-minded), he boasted “I said I was the Greatest, not the Smartest.”
Although he was born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., in honor of his father, whose own grandfather had been a slave, at the age of 23, Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali and converted to Islam. One might regard that as peculiar, seeing as how it was Arabs who had been the major slave traders in Africa, the very folks who had put his ancestors in chains. But, then, I suppose irony is lost on people with 78 IQs.
Not too surprisingly, Barack Obama, upon learning of the ex-boxer’s death, said, “Muhammad Ali fought for all of us,” going on to compare him to Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. Whether it comes to thieves or vile narcissists, it often does take one to know one.
• In seven hours of testimony during a deposition about Hillary Clinton’s private email server, Cheryl Mills, Mrs. Clinton’s counsel and chief of staff, replied “I don’t know” or “I don’t recall” 189 times. That works out to 27 times-an-hour.
Now I’m not one to call someone I’ve never even met a big fat liar, but Ms. Mills is only 51-years-old. So she is either a bigger fibber than Pinocchio and Brian Williams put together or she is clearly in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and should seek help immediately before she manages to forget her own name and where she parked her car.
• If race relations in America are worse than they were in 2008, I would venture it’s because, instead of seeing the likes of Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, Walter Williams, Condoleezza Rice and Jason Riley, being front and center, we’ve had an endless parade of arrogant black racists, including, but not limited to, the Obamas, Cheryl Mills, Susan Rice, Valerie Jarrett, Prof. Henry Gates, Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, Jeremiah Wright, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Marilyn Mosby and Obama’s go-to guy on racial matters, Al Sharpton. And when these vermin haven’t been telling lies about the unnecessary deaths of four brave Americans in Benghazi or trashing cops or shredding the Constitution, they’ve been hailing thugs like Michael Brown, Freddie Gray and Trayvon Martin, as paragons of virtue and martyrs in the cause of civil rights.
• I understand why, if the charges against Trump University are true, there would be a class action lawsuit. But keep in mind, the course at most cost $35,000. My question is why there aren’t similar lawsuits against most of the other colleges and universities in America.
In sums often running as high as several hundred thousand dollars, these institutions are ripping off students and their parents, offering courses and even majors in such obvious scams as Black Studies, Hispanic Studies, Lesbian Studies; and, for the more scholarly element, the history of comic books and the comparative study of TV sit coms in the various decades.
Even at the very pricey Yale, the students are petitioning to be freed of the requirement to read the likes of Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer and Swift, because they’re old, dead and white, although there’s nothing to prevent them from devoting their time to reading the drivel by the likes of Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison and James Baldwin. But it’s not the authors or the subject matter that really concerns them. It’s reading, itself, that puts them off their feed. But that’s what comes of raising a generation that writes with its thumbs, limits its communications to 140 characters and are convinced that “for” is spelled “4.”
At least the graduates of Trump U were presumably prepared to go out and make a living buying and selling something useful, like real estate.
• Although a few people had already let me know how offended they were by the amount of attention that was paid to the death of a gorilla and how little was paid to the crash death of Blue Angel pilot, Marine Capt. Jeff Kuss, I have decided that I would focus on the difference between the public send-off that Muhammad Ali, a draft-dodging braggart, received and the one given Air Force Col. Thomas E. Schaefer (ret.), who recently died in Arizona, at the age of 85.
Schaefer had been the military attaché at the U.S. embassy in Tehran when Islamists seized the compound on Nov. 4, 1979, and 66 people were taken hostage, all because Jimmy Carter had betrayed the Shah of Iran, ushering in the Ayatollah Khomeini and four decades of world-wide Islamic terrorism. From the beginning, Col. Schaefer was singled out for special attention. As the ranking military officer in the embassy, he was accused of running “a nest of spies” and treated or, rather, mistreated, accordingly.
From the beginning, Col. Schaefer was singled out for special attention. As the ranking military officer in the embassy, he was accused of running “a nest of spies” and treated or, rather, mistreated, accordingly.
He was paraded blindfolded in front of TV cameras and threatened constantly with immediate execution. He would eventually spend 150 days in solitary confinement in a freezing cell, with damp floors and only a thin blanket for warmth.
He would later report that he used a pin to punch a code into his Bible on a daily basis to help him endure the ordeal. “They were breaking me down both physically and mentally. I could feel myself losing it.”
Release came after 444 days of captivity. It was no coincidence that the hostages were released on Jan. 20, 1981. It was the very day that several thousand miles away Ronald Reagan was inaugurated.
On the flight home, by way of a symbolic salute, the co-pilot gave up his seat to Col. Schaefer just as the plane entered U.S. airspace.
After retiring from the Air Force, Schaefer spent many years speaking to students and adults on the subject of facing and overcoming adversity, a subject he knew far better than any decent American ever should.
In 1998, Schaefer said that the United States should re-establish relations with Iran for strategic reasons. But in 2013, he denounced the Iran nuclear deal, calling it “foolish.” I suspect that “foolish” was the word he used for public consumption. In private, I’m sure there were several other words he used in describing it and the men, Obama and Kerry, who brokered it. He said he didn’t know any Iranian leader who could be trusted. I suspect he said much the same about the American leaders at the time.
Col. Schaefer is survived by his wife of 63 years, Anita; two sons; six grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. Not to mention a grateful nation.
There will be a service at Arlington National Cemetery in the Fall.
Speaking of the Army -
I have never heard of Elvis Presley changing his name and/or religion to avoid the service. Have never really been a fan of Elvis’s music the man stood up to be counted and put on the uniform...Cassius Clay did not/would not.
Elvis interrupted his skyrocketing career without complaint to serve our country. Cassius Clay would have had to stand on his mother’s shoulders to kiss Elvis Presley’s ass.
No doubt this is the most intelligent thing this racist moron ever uttered.
Perfectly accurate.
“Apparently, the 78 IQ score was from when he was given an IQ test by the US Army.
I think he botched the test on purpose.”
Were that the case, the Marines would have taken him :)
I’m going to go sell my house now and find a hole in Antarctica to live in after that joke :)
Liston admitted he threw the fight....
And further commented that he had to literally flop because Ali had nothing that could hurt him...
Thus the INVISIBLE Punch
DRAFT DODGER
Ali was a good boxer, and I could appreciate that, but I detested the mainstreaming of trash-talk in sports, and he was the one who legitimized that.
LOL They’ll find you and they wouldn’t want him either.
Would a low score keep him out in those days?
Yep. I did not admire him - I never saw a reason why I should.
May God bless Colonel Shaefer and his family. I am part of a grateful nation that is most appreciative of his service to our country.
As to Muhammed Ali, admittedly, I just did not like him, his politics, his attitude, his refusal to serve, etc., etc.
Having said that, imagine my conflict (hypocrisy if you will )as I journeyed into Phoenix every few weeks for three years to take my husband to the Muhammed Ali Parkinson Center for treatment. I was so grateful to have a caring, state of the art facility that provided support and care for my husband. Of course Muhammed Ali lent his name and support to the organization.
And now, I guess I should also pray for forgiveness for my attitude and be grateful for his contribution to medicine and research. I will also pray for both families.
interesting article ping
I hadn’t thought about it before but maybe he deliberately blew the test.
Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.), Saturday, June 11, 2016
Remembering Col. Schaefer’s unbreakable spirit
By Steve Barnhoorn
Last week, we lost a hero: Col. Thomas E. Schaefer, U.S. Air Force, a Rochester native who was among those taken hostage in Iran in 1979. Despite 444 days of captivity, Col. Schaefer never allowed his captors to defeat him. Instead, he became an inspiration.
When I was growing up on Honeoye Lake in the late 1960s and ’70s, the Schaefer family owned a summer cottage near our home. Our family rarely saw Tom after he went into the Air Force, but got frequent updates on how he was doing.
In September 1978, Tom sent a cassette tape home with his eyewitness account of unrest in the streets of Tehran. In the background, we could hear the protests, violence, demonstrations and chants against America. This would ultimately result in the toppling of the Shah of Iran, and the return of Ayatollah Khomeini.
On Nov. 4, 1979, the U.S. Embassy in Iran was seized by student militants, and 60 Americans taken hostage. When our family received a phone call from “Grandma” Schaefer letting us know that Tom, a senior military attaché to the Embassy, was among the hostages, we were devastated.
For the next year, I was glued to the TV, radio and newspapers for word on the hostage crisis. In the early days of his captivity, Col. Schaefer was held in a 6-by-9-foot room he dubbed “Mushroom Inn” because it was cold, dark and musty. He waged a five-day fast to protest his captivity, which ended when he was forced at gunpoint to eat a plate of spaghetti. Later, he was moved into a 12-by-20-foot cold storage room, enduring frigid outside air brought in through a blower.
Throughout his ordeal, Col. Schaefer’s determination and spirit never flagged. As part of his daily routine, he read (eventually finishing over 250 books) to keep his mind alert; studied the German language; and walked over 200 miles in his room to keep warm.
Finally, on Jan. 20, 1981, the hostages were released. I joined my family in welcoming him home at a public celebration at the Rochester Community War Memorial.
That spring, as a senior in high school, I wrote a term paper about Col. Schaefer’s ordeal. It earned not only an “A,” but a letter from him. “Your name will always be remembered as one of several close supporters from Honeoye,” Col. Schaefer wrote.
I will never forget how Col. Schaefer not only survived adversity, but triumphed – a true testament to the unbreakable human spirit.
Steve Barnhoorn of Honeoye is a member of the Richmond Town Board
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