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Month: September 2025

Perfect Pitch

The Ryder Cup, golf’s most prestigious team competition, where the best in golf from Europe, compete against the best America has to offer.

A difficult sport that tests patience, control and the mind, rather than brute force athleticism.

Even our President and golf aficionado, appeared to the thunderous accolades of a supportive American crowd.

A crowd that then followed his “America First” agenda, chanting “f%@k you” at the opposition. Screaming as the Europeans tried to take a shot. Even hitting their star’s wife with a perfectly pitched container of beer when she appeared to try and support her husband.

Tom Watson, one of America’s golf greats and our former Ryder Cup captain: “I am ashamed.”

Richard Kimball

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Medium.com at: https://medium.com/@daffieduck2016

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Education Long term vs. Money Short term

I was 6, maybe 7 when I learned what a great university was, and its name was Stanford.

Sitting in our game room playing Fish with my best friend, I heard that name. “We can become another Stanford of the west,” my father said, not to me, but to a best friend sitting at the bar.

His friend happened to be the President of the University of Arizona (U of A). He and my dad, once their lawyer, was now Majority Leader of the State Senate and filling the idea with the needed funds.

30 years later, as a State Senator myself, I looked back on their time.

The U of A went from 5,700 students to 26,500.

Growing from 1,100 faculty to 7,500, continually increasing faculty time per student (Stanford).

In their time, ballooning resource and facilities the U of A became a nationally recognized institution and were well on their way.

That was just over 50 years ago.

Last week, the U of A was passed by another 18 universities, dropping to 127th in national rankings.  

Stanford’s ranking? #4.

Tis no matter, a $285,000 BONUS was awarded the U of A president for his efforts or his attendance.  Not sure which.

Follow the money at your school!

Richard Kimball

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Medium.com at: https://medium.com/@daffieduck2016

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ALL HAVE STORIES TO TELL

My wife once led an effort to do oral histories of old timers, the movers and shakers of yesteryear.

I decided to help out, but not with aging movers and shakers of times gone by. 

I started with my barber Johnny Gibson. Johnny had learned his trade as a member of the 101st Airborne during World War II chopping the locks of those he served with, including the buddy he got shot down with behind enemy lines.

They squirreled together in the rubbled remains of a house for days. Without food they finally made a break for it, back through German lines.

Somehow, they both survived, and Johnny would keep cutting locks at his local shop, becoming the most popular barber in town.

Many years later Johnny had enough money to take a trip back east, see some of the sights he’d missed on his way to war.

In New York, he dropped in to say hello to his old friend from the rubble but was sternly stopped by a matron insisting that he was far to busy to receive any unscheduled guests.

“Well,” Johnny said, “Please, just let him know that Johnny Gibson stopped by to say hello,” and then walked out the door and on down 5th Avenue.

Two blocks down the road, he could hear his name being screamed as his old buddy came blasting out his store door.

“JOHNNY, JOHNNY WHERE ARE YOU!”

Johnny turned around to see who it was.

Charles Louise Tiffany and he spent the next two days touring New York City.

Richard Kimball

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Medium.com at: https://medium.com/@daffieduck2016

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BIG KILLINGS MAKE BIG BUCKS

Overheard two old white men talking about Charlie Kirk’s murder this morning. The conversation went pretty much like this:

“Killings are just everywhere, every day.”

“Cities are becoming death zones.”

“Our country is just going to Hell!”

People think that way because bad news sells. If you watched any media this past week it is just filled with the Kirk assassination, just as it once was for Minnesota legislator deaths or attempts on Pelosi, Giffords, school shootings or even Trump.

Suggesting that things are bad, very bad and that your listeners, viewers or readers are in danger, sells audience and audience means money.

Not much money in covering, recovering and recovering good news like: The FBI reports that murders are down over 30% these past four years and down over 60% since the 70s, 80s and 90s highs.

Be scared and buy, buy, buy.

Richard Kimball

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or Medium.com at: https://medium.com/@daffieduck2016

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The Caucus Bus

Fifty years ago, I had a boss, a congressman, that liked to say the difference between a cactus and a caucus, is that on a cactus all the pricks are on the outside.

I was 28 when I attended my first party caucus as an elected official.

At first, I was thankful that the others were all older and seemed to know how to organize things and what to do.

I was young and naïve, but not entirely witless. By meetings end I got it, sharing information about legislation sat in the back of the bus.  You were in that bus to discuss ways of driving it over the opposition.

Richard Kimball

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Medium.com at: https://medium.com/@daffieduck2016

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NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO BE COMMUNIST

If people were good, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” would come naturally and be the way the world would be.

Alas, so many humans are not good, but selfish, greedy and dishonest, communism is instantly corrupted, making democracy’s wager that more of us are good than bad, the better bet.

Richard Kimball

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Medium.com at: https://medium.com/@daffieduck2016

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I HAD A DREAM

Don’t enter politics unless you like to make sausage. In politics, laws are made from the leftover meat scraps of what might have been a good idea, then adding organs, connective tissue, skin, even bones and other parts not fit for human consumption.

I once lived in this process, both in the nation’s capital and my own state’s. I hated working for elected officials, but not as much as I hated being one. The discussions were rarely about what was right or best, but what advantage could be gained over the opposition.

That was long ago, when sausge making was largely corralled by known truths. As one of my early bosses famously said, “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”

Today, truths have disappeared, not because they do not exist, but because the trusted arbiters of what is fact and what is not, are now blended in with opinion to lure larger audience and the advertising dollars that come with it. In time, without trusted sources for the facts, Lincoln’s, “Government of the people, by the people, for the people,” would parish from the earth.

Lincoln’s “by the people” can only lead if they have some means to acquire abundant, accurate, relevant information about those they choose as representatives.

My dream came in a hut (no joke), in a little fishing village without cars, streets or phones.

First, find political enemies who thought as I did, that facts mattered. I found two former presidents and a few dozen Senators and Congressmen each partnered with one of opposing views. Even my own opponent for Goldwater’s seat in the U.S. Senate, a young congressmen named John McCain joined in the effort, along with Barry himself.

Second, use teams of students and volunteers to collect reality: the candidate’s bios, stated issue positions, financial sources, public statements, voting records, even the reviews of every opposing interest that existed. In time thousands joined in the effort.

Third, don’t use tainted money. Nothing from selfish political interests, no corporations, unions, lobbyists of any sort. It had to be funded by the American people or not at all.

Fourth, no mistakes. Every documented fact had to be checked and double checked. Each would be entered and then proofed three times, at least once with known errors to make sure the proofing caught all the known errors and nothing else at all.

Fifth, no interpretation, no opinion of any sort, just the facts.

Over three decades the system slowly gained traction, growing from hundreds of thousands into the millions and then into the tens of millions.

It was a success by everyone’s measure but mine. Artificial Intelligence (AI) was on the horizon, and it forecasted an ability to defend democracy with the truth or an ability to confuse, manipulate and destroy that one requirement of successful self-governance: The people’s need for a trusted source.

In my 70s, I entered discussions with Google about how to protect facts, even increase their numbers and usefulness with AI. But I knew I was out of my element and the political world I had known and was so familiar, was crumbling under my feet.

It was time for me to back away and turn my dream over to younger leaders, who might be better in that new realm, and I did.

Turned out that they had different dreams and what was mine, is no longer.

“WHAT WE LEARN FROM HISTORY,” said Warren Buffett, “IS THAT PEOPLE DON’T LEARN FROM HISTORY.”

Richard Kimball

Sign up on my Blog at: richardkimball.org

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Medium.com at: https://medium.com/@daffieduck2016

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