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Riding With The Enemy One Last Time
IamnotafanoftheNew England Patriots. I don't know if it's because they were
caught cheating some years back ("spygate" followed by "deflategate"), because they represent Boston or because their quarterback, Tom Brady, likes to sport Make America Great Again caps, but I simply can't stand the team.
With all of that being said, though, it's still hard for me to bet against them. Like a wise man once told me, "you never let personal feelings get in the way of business." And, since business doesn't get much big- ger than wagering on the Super Bowl, I've never allowed my disdain for the grey, red, white and blue prevent me from riding their colonial coat- tails all the way to the payout window.
To be honest, that is really all this game is worth to me these days. Since the Colin Kaepernick fallout the thrill I used to receive from watch- ing the event has greatly di-
minished. If the opportunity to profit didn't exist I probably wouldn't bother paying atten- tion to the game at all.
During the Patriots’ nine trips to the championship in the Brady/Bill Belichick era, I've gone against them once. That was last year when it seemed like the Philadelphia Eagles were flirting with des- tiny. And, thankfully, I was right.
This time around, I would feel foolish going against TB12 and the mad genius for several reasons: 1.) It's hard for me to imagine them losing back-to- back Super Bowl contests; 2.) Belichick has proven to be a master at beating his oppo- nents by taking away what they do best; and 3.) I'm deathly afraid of the bad karma the Rams have brought upon themselves.
I get that Los Angeles is a great team with star players on both sides of the ball, but the way their owner dumped all over the city of St. Louis just to
move back to California, along with how they were gifted a spot in the biggest game of the year due to the refereeing crew, who were conveniently from L.A., blowing a pass in- terference call in their game against New Orleans, makes me skeptical about placing my money on a team that may get some serious blowback from the universe when they least expect it to show up.
Granted, the Patriots have done their fair share of dirt as well. But at least they didn't piss off a Voodoo queen from the Big Easy.
In this instance it would seem to be a much safer bet to go with a proven commodity over a flash-in-the-pan squad that may be overwhelmed by the moment.
Seventeen years ago, Brady won his first ring against these same Rams. And, since this could be Brady's last appearance at the dance considering he's already 41, I wouldn't be surprised if he made the best of this opportu- nity by beating the same team on his way out the door.
Like I always say, I could be wrong. But, to me, it makes perfect sense.
Reality On Ice is © by the Florida Sentinel Bul- letin Publishing Com- pany. You can contact Mr. Barr at: cbar- ronice@gmail.com.
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Donald Trump And The Wall Of China
is name is Qin Shi Huang (pronounced
“Hwahn”). And he will go down in history, not only as being the first official emperor of China, but more importantly as being the man most responsible for the building of the Great China Wall, a monument that stands more than two thousand years later.
Huang’s wall was built to keep out marauders such as Huns and other nomads. Add to the fact that its con- struction bankrupted the Chinese people and cost thousands of lives as it was being hoisted. Did it work? Not really. But at least, it looked good.
Now, fast forward several millennia to the current ham-fisted philosophy in the United States that “good walls make good neighbors, and that a nation can be made to cry “Uncle” by a president who believes in bul- lying and arm-wrestling, and we meet the god-father himself, Teflon Don Trump, no doubt, America’s an- swer to Qin Shi Huang. Except this time, the modern Huang didn’t get his way.
So, what does this modern wall mentality mean to a nation primarily based on the policy of “open-door?” And is the Mexican-American wall the main issue or is there something hiding under a rock in the shadows?
Behind not-so-closed doors, people are beginning to speculate the possibility of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi being the David to Trump’s Goliath since she’s already been the Joshua to his Jericho Wall. But Trump – in his best rendition of Monty Python’s re- fusal to admit defeat even though his arms and legs have been looped off, promises to hold his breath until Santa Claus or the Senate grants him his wall money.
Meanwhile, America (unlike ancient China) has shown that it is still not ready to be bullied into accept- ing a dictatorship. For, no wall is worth such.
Black Concentration Camps
A little known story about a concentration camp in Natchez, Mississippi called “The Devil’s Punch- bowl,” where tens of thou- sands of freed slaves were forced to live and die during and after the Civil War, is cir- culating online in Messenger. There have been at least six other concentration camps for Blacks in other countries throughout our world history. Half of the stories are un- known because of attempts to hide the atrocities against Blacks. No, Germany and Adolph Hitler were not the only ones who established concentration camps for
Blacks. That’s right!
Between 1933 and 1945 in
Nazi Germany and German- occupied territories, Blacks were subjected to isolation, persecution, sterilization, medical experimentation, in- carceration, brutality and murder as were the Jews. In fact, they were placed in con- centration camps along with Jews.
The concentration camps for Native Americans (Dakota, Cherokee, Navajo, etc.), and the Japanese are this country’s dark history that America wishes would go away. How- ever, the concentration camp for Blacks in the 1800s, Amer- ica wishes no one knew about it.
After and during the Civil War, millions of freed slaves were sent to concentration camps near Union Army bases where unsanitary conditions and the lack of food con- tributed to their sickness, star- vation, and death. While the Devil’s Punchbowl is the most notorious concentration camp, there were others located next to Union camps.
An official estimate places the death toll at the Punch- bowl at 20,000. When slaves were freed, they fled to Natchez, boosting the city’s population by more than ten times (10,000 to more than 120,000) overnight.
Sadly enough, the women and children were left behind
in thick walled camps and were left to die of starvation and diseases such as smallpox. When slaves died, they were given shovels and told to bury their own loved ones where they dropped dead. The area was named the Devil’s Punch- bowl because of the area’s landscape shape – at the bot- tom of a cavernous pit sur- rounded by trees on the hilly bluffs above.
Today, the area has wild peach groves from which the local citizens will not eat any of the fruit because of their knowledge of what fertilized the trees. When the Missis- sippi River floods the area, skeletal remains wash up from the graves. Though overrun by a tangle of lush green, the ghostly area is haunted by the voices of men, women, and children who begged to be turned loose so they could re- turn to the plantations. You can only imagine the horror of the Punchbowl which slaves sought to escape back to slav- ery.
Yes, America has left a trail of bodies from the shores of Africa to America. Now you know the other piece of the puzzle that claimed the lives of thousands of slaves in the Mis- sissippi Delta. Sleep well. Har- rambee.
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