Have you seen the video of Steve Kerr on the shooting in Texas?  If not, go see it because I can't write better than what he said.  He said it with emotion and anger.   I can't duplicate or even approach that on paper.  But I share the same anger.  Enough is enough!

I don't understand the greed of the members o the NRA and all the politicians who are bought off by the NRA.  Don't these people have children, grandchildren and love ones.? Don't these people and their love ones go to church, grocery stores and schools?  I wonder if these people would still back the proliferation of guns if they or their ones were the ones in that grocery store in Buffalo or that church in Laguna Woods or that school in Texas?

What kind of democracy we live in when 90% of the people want stricter gun laws and an organization can buy off politicians to prevent these laws from passing?  I guess it is the same kind of democracy where politicians follow conspiracy theories rather than science leading to deaths of over a million people in a pandemic.  It is easy to say we love freedom.  But I say the first freedom that a government should protect is the freedom of knowing you and your love ones are safe.  There is no freedom if you are six feet under.

 Yesterday marked the end of the English Premier League season.  It was a fascinating day with Manchester City coming from a two goal deficit late in the game for a 3-2 win and beating out Liverpool by one point in the final standings.  Liverpool had been tied 1-1 in their must win game when they brought in an injured Mohammed Salah in desperation.  Salah scored a goal to help Liverpool win 3-1 to delight their fans until the bad news from Manchester.  It was quite a final day.

With the one goal, Salah finished with 23 for the season to win another golden boot as the league's leading scorer for the third time.  This time he shares it with Son Heung-Min of Tottenham Spurs.  Both beat out the great Cristiano Ronaldo who finished third.  In fact, eight of the top ten scorers are either non-white and/ or born outside of England.  I guess that is why despite having the top league in the world for many years now, the English national team has not done well in international competition.  But the diversity of the Premier League is one of the reason the league is followed by fans in most countries of the world.

Son is the first Asian to win the award and is not surprising that he comes from South Korea.  South Korea had done the best among Asian nations in international competition.  They finished fourth when they co-hosted with Japan.  They beat Italy and Spain on the way to the semi-finals.  This begs the question: why South Korea, with a much smaller population, is way more successful than China in soccer?

It can' be the lack of training or competition.  China has put in a lot of money to bring coaches from all over the world and to improve facilities.  China has been successful in the summer Olympics and has even made in roads in the winter Games this year.  But it has only qualified for the World Cup once!   They had a later start than Japan and Korea but they had caught up in other sports.  Their professional leagued is not as well known as the Japanese J League but has been bringing in foreign imports in recent years to improve the level of play.  Yet I would say that Japan and South Korea is more ahead of China now than China is ahead of Vietnam and Thailand.  So what is the problem?

Well, for some reason which I can't fully explain, it seems to me the communist countries don't do as well in soccer compared to other sports.  Russia and the former USSR were world powers in many sports but they were also rans in European soccer.  East Germany had more medals in Olympics than West Germany but West Germany was way better than East Germany in soccer.  Cuba is great in baseball and boxing but is very weak in soccer.  Does communism stifle creativity and soccer demands creativity?  Is this one area that capitalism always trump communism?  Well, China can still say it can beat Taiwan and Hong Kong on the pitch although that is no consolation. 

 Three months into the war in Ukraine and it is obvious that Russia is getting itself into a quagmire.  This was predictable given that Russia and the U.S. couldn't win decisively in Afghanistan.  As I said before, Ukraine is much more advanced militarily than Afghanistan.  Ukraine is also getting a lot of military aid from NATO.  So I don't know why Putin started out advancing toward Kiev which the Ukrainians would defend to the death.  I thought if he invaded, he would have just try to take the eastern region and declare victory and go home.  He may still be doing that but I think now that some in the West has actually predicting that Ukraine may win, Putin may double down to prove those analysists wrong.  This will make this whole thing a greater tragedy.

So there are three scenarios how this will play out.  One is that Russia wins.  Given all the money and arms the West have put in to defend Ukraine, I doubt that will happen.  There is no way that Russia will take Kiev and actually run the country.  

Unlike some predictions of Western analysists, Ukraine cannot win either.   No matter how many men and tanks the Russians lose, they will always have more men and weapons than Ukraine.  Ukraine cannot drive the Russians completely out of Ukraine.  Russia will likely be stuck holding on eastern parts of Ukraine but cannot move into the western regions near the capital.  They may resort to bombing Kiev on and off.  In this way, Ukraine technically have not lost but it really isn't functioning as a country and the refugees who have left will neve come back.  So Ukraine will never be the same again.

The actual worst scenario to me is if Russia start to lose even in the eastern region.  In that case, Putin may use nuclear weapons.  When a rat is pinned against the wall, it is going to bite.  He may not use Russia's most powerful nuclear weapons but anything nuclear is going to bring massive destruction to Ukraine and kill many more people.  And then would NATO and the U.S. retaliate with nuclear weapons?  This scenario is unthinkable and I hope it will never come to it.

Regardless, all three possibilities are bad for Ukraine.  Diplomatic solution is the only possible way out.  Maybe Putin is a madman and that he will not settle for eastern Ukraine.  But Zelensky cannot possible believe that even if Ukraine fight to the last man, Ukraine will ever be the same nation as before the war.  I don't think the West should encourage Ukraine to fight to the last man.

 Another post about sports and politics.  Greg Norman said that the new golf tour sponsored by Saudi Arabia will go on despite the set back caused by the comments of Phil Mickelson.  Couple of months ago, Mickelson said that Saudi Arabia is scary, killing journalists, sponsoring terrorism etc.  But he is able to overlook all of these things because he thinks that golfers need leverage against the PGA tour.  Those comments alarmed some of the top golfers who opted out of the Saudi tour even though that they had  signed up and received upfront money already.  Still, Norman says now there are enough big name players for the tour to go on, although with less tournaments.  The money is still big.

Mickelson was ostracized for his comments and he stayed out of the lime light for awhile, even missing the Masters.  But apparently he is scheduled to play on the new tour now.  I don't know how much money one needs or how much leverage against the PGA the golfers need.  I think they are very well paid now and certainly much better paid than tennis players.  Whereas many top tennis players worried about Peng Shuai's safety and the WTA boycotted events in China, these golfers have no problems playing on the Saudi tour, making the same money that funded Osama bin Laden and the 9/11  terrorists.  Well, I guess they are no different than the U.S. government who are willing to sell Saudi Arabia the best weapons so that they can commit genocide in Yemen.