HONORABLE MEN AND WOMEN SOUND DIFFERENT

Honorable men don’t whine and complain about how unfairly they are treated, then turn around and treat others even worse.

They don’t seek the easy way out of difficult situations, then preen and primp like they’ve just done the impossible that only they could do.

Most important of all, honorable men see through the smokescreen of a crooked life and would never follow or support a known jackass.

Or would they?

Money changes men. Big money can make big changes.

Make an honorable man an offer he can’t refuse, a big money offer, and watch them go.

The LIV Golf league, which reportedly saw another $2 billion round of Saudi funding this past spring, officially started competition last month in England and will continue next week at former President Donald Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, N.J. LIV Golf is led by former PGA Tour star Greg Norman.

The league has secured contracts from some of the biggest American PGA Tour golfers, including Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson. Each reportedly signed contracts with LIV Golf worth well over $100 million.

Families of victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks spoke out against Trump for hosting the Saudi-funded tournament at his New Jersey club. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001, were from Saudi Arabia. Mastermind Osama bin Laden was born there. The Kingdom has denied it was connected to the attacks. Trump’s golf course in Miami is set to host another LIV golf event in October.

Honorable Men Do The Work

Restoring dignity is hard work, your own dignity, and others’.

It brings questions, uncomfortable questions, like, “What happened to your dignity? Where did you put it?”

Whether you’re crawling out of a crater of addiction, reconnecting with family, or celebrating one of life’s moments a little too hard, personal dignity takes a beating.

You let your guard down and took Oxy pain meds after major surgery and now you can’t live without it. You can’t take a dump, either, but that’s another matter.

Or you volunteered to help heal family matters with non-judgmental listening and heard so much it broke your heart.

Just so you know, I didn’t take Oxy after surgery. I used medical marijuana instead. And it worked.

That I ended up in the ICU for observation after family healing seemed like a fair trade off.

When you stand with honorable men, and it’s the right place to stand, your dignity comes along.

Why Honorable Men Change

In the natural environment men and women enjoy the benefits of clean air and clean water.

Honorable men and women breathing clean air and drinking clean water work to provide the same for as many as possible.

We all need clean air and water for our best lives.

However, there is no honor in a man who willingly pollutes the air and water and works behind the scenes to keep at it because that’s where he makes his money.

And it’s big money for Joe Manchin:

The muddy mix of discarded coal and rocks is one of the most carbon-intensive fuels in America. And Manchin’s family business stood to benefit financially when it was reclassified as something akin to solar, wind and hydropower.

Selling the scrap coal has earned Manchin millions of dollars over three decades, and he has used his political positions to protect the fuel — and a single power plant in West Virginia that burns it — from laws and regulations that also threatened his family business.

The ash that’s left over from burning waste coal creates a significant environmental toll, said Mike Ewall, executive director of the Energy Justice Network. It contains high levels of toxic metals that can harm humans when it’s inhaled or leaches into drinking water.

Green Bay’s legendary coach Vince Lombardi is famous for saying, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.”

With that in mind, some of us try and be brave, we do the work we hope makes a difference in others.

If one reader comes away from this post with the idea of helping someone just because they can, then my work here is finished for the day.

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On the other hand, if a reader comes away from this post feeling burdened with expectations, how hard change is, and looking for a reason to say, “Fuck it, you dug your hole, now dig out,” then my work isn’t finished.

Misguided people do misguided things. When a cowardly leader cheers them on, things take a turn for the worse.

Sometimes they learn a lesson too late in life to help with.

The cold heart retreats into an icy chest and eventually freezes over.

A warm heart gives and gives and gives until there’s no more to give. Then they give more.

The hearts of honorable men and women beat in unison for better outcomes.

If you listen carefully you can hear it.