Aft times gang agley

So the thing of it was, I had plans, big plans, to get another screed done in no time at all and post it, but things have gone awry, as they are wont to do, and I figured I should explain what happened.  This planned screed, which is actually half way done, was not one of the usual pieces that I put up here, a bit of lightweight fluff about nothing very important, but a deep, really deep, think piece about the NFL players in London a few weeks ago kneeling for The Star-Spangled Banner and standing for God Save The Queen.  I had all manner of facts and figures and I was marshalling all sorts of arguments to prove my point—I can do that, you know, it’s a free country—in order to show that the NFL players were historical idiots, but I had other things to do at work and at home that had to get done; I'm sure you know how that is; and so I had to put a hold on proving my point and go do them. It’s all very boring when not actually being tedious, but most of life is boring when not actually being tedious; what can you do?  Having to put the piece off annoyed me no end because they—the NFL guys, I mean—were being historically ignorant, you know. Think of it like this: There were over six hundred thousand slaves in the United States at the time of the 1790 Census, which is only fourteen years after the United States declared its independence, only seven years since the 1783 Treaty of Paris that formalized American independence, and just three years since the United States adopted the current Constitution.  So it makes sense that except for the youngest of the slaves, most of those six hundred thousand people were born here or they or their ancestors were brought here by the people who ran the United States before the United States became the United States.  The people I speak of were, oddly enough, the British, whose flag is apparently not a sign of racism and oppression nowadays despite their being the people who caused America’s problems with racism and oppression in the first place. This is a bit of a conundrum for me, but I guess that I am the only one who feels this way.  The NFL was playing in London that day and criticizing the British role in the American slave trade was not on, if only for reasons of political tact. Personally, I do not see the reason for this sudden reluctance to point out the obvious, unless the NFL players did not know that they were in the presence of America’s original racist oppressors.  This is very possible, given that K-12 education in the places where most NFL players come from tends to be execrable in the extreme and that their college educations consist largely of remedial classes and in-depth studies of underwater African-American lesbian basket weaving.  It may be too much to hope for historical literacy under those circumstances; it is enough that they are literate enough to sign their names at the bottom of their lucrative contracts without using an X.  That can be very embarrassing, or so people tell me.

But I haven’t had a chance to get all of this good stuff down on paper, so I guess I should apologize for that and let everyone know that I am working hard on the piece and that I will put it up here just as soon as I can. And I trust you are all in good health and enjoying the weekend. Good night.