When the War is Actually Over

As I write this, missiles are being exchanged between Iran and Israel, a situation which, despite the lack of ground troops involvement, constitutes a "war."

The exchange is not being done by FedEx or UPS, and we certainly know it's not the US Postal Service, since at least some of the missiles are actually arriving on time. No, the missiles are being launched from hundreds of miles away, using sophisticated guidance systems.

So yes, it is war.  And for the most part, people do not want war and certainly don't enjoy it.  War is heck, to paraphrase General Sherman during the War Between the States.

OK, so no one wants it.  How do we end it?

Well, the first problem is two paragraphs back, in that little disclaimer "for the most part."  There are people who want war, because what they want to accomplish is conquest, and if you want to conquer another nation, as Putin does in Ukraine and the Iranian mullahs do in Israel and, for that matter, the whole Middle East, you need war.  The people you're trying to conquer are not going to roll over, you know.

As I write this, I'm thinking of the old Roman Empire and the legions sent into battle to expand the Empire, and Alexander the Great, and Genghis Khan.  Tons of soldiers sent into battle, hundreds of thousands killed but, for the most part, the borders of all these empires continued to change over the centuries.  Nothing was really permanent, and all those conquerors are dead. Memento mori.

I'm thinking of them, because it seems utterly ludicrous that a couple millennia later, there are still guys out there trying to do the same thing.  Since those old empires, we have implemented indoor plumbing, and electricity, and we can fly.  We actually have free nations without dictators.  Kingdoms have parliaments.  Civilization has advanced far beyond where we were back then.

And yet we still have dictators demanding that they conquer other nations.  We shouldn't have to have huge militaries and sophisticated armaments, given how far we have come in society.  But as the Iranian mullahs show, we haven't all come that far.

President Trump is, as we speak, deciding whether or not, and when, to provide Israel with a bomb capable of taking out what is believed to be the last nuclear bomb-development site in Iran, utterly wiping out the mullahs' ability to develop a nuclear weapon.  

Surely the left will be crying about "diplomacy", and how we just need to talk this through and achieve a negotiated settlement.  But here's the thing.  Much as I'd like to claim that I thought up this quote, it was probably Sun Tzu, or one of that crowd: 

The war is over when your enemy says it's over. 

Got it?  It's not when you think you've defeated them, but when they act in such a way as to concede defeat. Obviously, this is harder when the conqueror himself loses, because their concession of defeat isn't compelling unless they are, well, dead.

The problem isn't "Iran", as far as what is going on there; it is the Iranian leadership.  The people of Iran would be perfectly happy to live in peace with Israel, if only they were allowed to self-govern.  They are an intelligent and reasonably sophisticated people, sitting on enough oil to drive a thriving economy and enough brain power to manage it, if they could only implement a government whose primary objective was the elevation of the economy and the protection of the Persian people.

We wish we had a shred of confidence that a democracy of some sort could arise from the ashes, if the enemy "said the war was over" by being, you know, dead.  If the mullahs were wiped out, could a representative government be developed?

Remember -- the war only ends when the enemy says it's over.  The mullahs are never going to let it be over, let alone say it is, and Israel knows that.

I'm afraid that there has to be a complete wiping out of the leadership there in order to end the war, and someone has to be prepared immediately to create a government consistent with civilized principles before they get more mullahs.

The good news is that peace in the Middle East, an impossible task for centuries, could actually be possible (the rest of the Muslim Middle East has no use for the Iranian leadership either).  The "bad" news is that no one has a clue who's actually around to lead it.

Once, that is, the enemy has said it's over. 

Copyright 2025 by Robert Sutton.  Like what you read here? There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com and, after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around. Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton. 

Fluffy at the Vanguard

Gabriel Iglesias, as we all know, is a (quite) portly Mexican-American comedian, certainly among the most popular stand-up comics of any genre or characteristic, and the greatest Latino comedian of our generation.

He is commonly known as "Fluffy", as in "I'm not fat, I'm fluffy", and Americans know him well from his comedy specials (recorded stand-up sessions) aired on Netflix.  He has many of these available, and they are funny by any standard of humor.  

His comedy is a storytelling style, vignettes from his life, his family, his touring, and layered over everything is his being Mexican-American, with many asides in Spanish, though quite understandable even for those of us who don't speak the language.  But I don't need to get into it; everyone pretty much knows who Fluffy is.

The state of American comedy is really what this is about.  Fifty years ago, you could do ethnic jokes with relative impunity.  Polish jokes were common and perfectly acceptable, although the same exact joke would be told by Northerners to make fun of Southerners, or Nova Scotians to make fun of Newfies, or Minnesotans and Iowans to make fun of each other.

Then woke-ism happened. It became impossible for a comedian to leverage ethnicity, not his own and certainly not anyone else's, for his humor.  Comedians were kept off college campuses for perceived insensitivity to this or that favored group.  Were he still performing, the now 97-year-old Tom Lehrer would certainly not be getting away with singing "National Brotherhood Week."

At its worst, it took comics of the stature of Jerry Seinfeld and Dave Chappelle to take a courageous stand.  They would point out that comedy is often an art exaggerating the more stereotyped attributes of groups; at the same time the left was making group affinity ultra-important and ranting about "diversity."  

Seinfeld and Chappelle were prominent in pointing out that the protection of such sacred cows would lead to the demise of comedy. They needed to look no further than the pathetic performance of the hosts on most late-night talk shows, who were destroying the Johnny Carson legacy.  Succumbing to the woke mob, and sympathizing with them anyway, their monologues turned into leftist pap, devoid of comedy.

It took a few comedians with "FU money" -- successful enough to be able to say what was actually true without fear of cancellation -- to put a line in the sand and defend the integrity and freedom of comedians to say things that were truly funny, even if they might be a little offensive, and that the offended just needed to grow a pair. 

Ultimately, the revolt against the incompetence of the left, under Joe Biden and whoever was telling him what to do, led to the 4-year delayed re-election of Donald Trump.  Trump, of course, is part entertainer, meaning that his competence blends with a personality contrast with Biden to attract younger supporters.  Those younger Americans had already had enough of unfunny "comedy", particularly political attempted humor. It was pretty hard to be funny talking about now-president Trump when he was making eggs and gasoline affordable again, deporting illegals, and actually answering questions often and honestly.

So it was quite something when "Fluffy" recently released his latest comedy stand-up special, a live stand-up recorded in Miami and available on Netflix.  The something wasn't just that he did an hour-and-twenty-minute routine, far longer than the typical recorded stand-up show.

No, the "something" was that at the very start, Gabriel Iglesias, who is popular enough -- and self-deprecating enough -- to say whatever he wants and tell whatever stories he wants, made a little disclaimer to the huge audience.  He said, in so many words, that his audience should not expect the usual political garbage that most of them weren't going to want to hear.

His stories were going to be about things that were actually funny, and were not going to get half the audience to want to leave.  He was going to be Fluffy, and tell Fluffy stories, and make Fluffy jokes.  No one was going to tell him how he had to think.  No one was going to be able to cancel him.

It was almost ninety minutes of pure funny.  Political correctness was not an issue.

When it was over, and I had a chance to think about it, it was clear that he had indeed been funny as all-get-out without having to be political, just as promised.  And it became equally clear that his disclaimer and the subsequent storytelling were at the vanguard of what is hopefully a new era in comedy -- making jokes and telling stories that are actually funny, without the attendant political crap. 

Fluffy at the vanguard.  Who'd-a thunk it? 

Copyright 2025 by Robert Sutton.  Like what you read here? There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com and, after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around. Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton. 

 

 

Fire Extinguishers, Fives of Clubs, and Five-Irons

The latest kerfuffle in the whole California high school athletics drama took place, not over a boy pretending to be a girl and walking away with an undeserved medal.  It actually was a biological female who won a girls' track race in the selfsame state competition.

She decided that celebrating by hugging her coach and congratulating her competitors, what people with a shred of sportsmanship would do, well, that wasn't good enough.  It wasn't self-congratulatory enough.  It didn't portray the "I am wonderful, look at me, me, me!" message enough.

No, that girl, right after winning, decided to grab a nearby fire extinguisher (which she may have pre-positioned for the event, but I do not know).  She sprayed her feet with the fire extinguisher in celebration of her wonderfulness, to tell the crowd how "hot" her feet were.

The California geniuses who run interscholastic sports there then compounded the idiocy by denying her from receiving her medal for winning the race. They wouldn't dare come down hard on boys pretending to be girls and walking away with undeserved medals, but they pull the medal from a girl for an overzealous, self-indulgent, unsportsmanlike act after the race was over.

Of course, lots of people are screaming about the action being racist (the girl was black), or noting, as I just did, the weird hypocrisy of the California athletic overlords in letting boys win medals in girls' sports.

You see, that's the problem.

We should be talking, not about the punishment she received in being denied an earned medal, but about the poor sportsmanship she showed in showing up her competitors whom she had just defeated.  

Here's the difference: I don't really want (or need) her to be punished.  I simply want her never to do anything so rude again, and I certainly don't want anyone else imitating what she did.

The consequences should be between her and her coach, school, and parents, more than between her and the California interscholastic sports federation.  But let's not talk punishment; let's talk about teaching sportsmanship to athletes who so badly need it.   

For many years, my Best Girl and I have played a Tuesday night card game with a neighbor couple who are close friends.  The game is for teams, and we cycle through the various pairings -- couples teamed up, then the next week guys vs. gals, then cross-spousal teams.

I would say that the games are very competitive, even with no stakes involved other than bragging rights. Losing is not fun, and although the cards may cause irritation, it is never against the opponent but just an expression of frustration.  It would never occur to us to allow our competitiveness to be focused on the opponent.  It's a game of cards, and if you draw a four of clubs instead of a five of clubs, well, that's the luck of the draw.

More importantly, it would be abysmal sportsmanship either to gloat over winning or to step on the losing team.  We simply do not do that.  Making a losing opponent feel bad isn't in our repertoire of acceptable behaviors.

Spraying one's feet with a fire extinguisher may push that line a bit.  If it turns out that she had staged the fire extinguisher herself prior to the race, though, it crosses the line into abysmal sportsmanship.

I would rather she fix her need to express her belief about how wonderful she is.

I'd like for her to take up golf.

Right now, the world of professional golf is dominated by Scottie Scheffler, the young Texan who is not only #1 in the world rankings for many months now, but who has established the biggest computed gap between #1 and #2 in over 20 years, since a fellow named Tiger was markedly the best.   

If the young lady runner were to take the game of golf up with the same diligence with which she turned herself into a winning runner, she would surely learn a few things.

She would observe Scottie Scheffler as he goes around the course in a tournament, focused on his plan for each hole and managing the course. She would observe his calm demeanor, and the way his temperament is so contained regardless of the score on a given hole.

Also importantly, she would observe how he wins. The last putt drops on the 18th hole of the last day, and Scheffler smiles, embraces his caddie, and then shakes the hand of (and often bro-hugs) his opponent playing partner and shakes hand with the other player's caddie.  The handshakes and embraces include kind words for the opponent's play and best wishes for him. He then walks off the green with waves to the crowd, is embraced by his wife, and carries his infant son over to the brief TV interview that follows.

Most of all, the young lady runner would come to realize that all the pros do pretty much the same thing. There is nothing more sportsmanlike than the behavior of professional golfers.  As frustrated as the game may get them, their behavior toward opponents is universally respectful and generous.  They're all playing against the course, not to celebrate another's defeat.  I executed that five-iron shot on #18 and won today, but your day will be tomorrow.

If that wasn't too meandering a tale for you, you'll have seen that what is needed is not punishment, but a lesson in sportsmanship that this young runner -- and many of her generation -- so desperately need.  

She needs to learn to compete the way older card playing neighbors do, with regard for the feelings of the other team and players.

She needs to learn to compete properly at a high level, the way professional golfers respect the work put in by their opponents.

She needs to learn that self-aggrandizing moments are for the self-important in our society.

She can do better.  Let's teach her. 

Copyright 2025 by Robert Sutton.  Like what you read here? There are over 1,000 posts from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com and, after four years of writing a new one daily, he still posts thoughts once in a while as "visiting columns", no longer the "prolific essayist" he was through 2018, but still around. Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton.