Random Notes from a Crank

I finished the documentary on the ABA the other day titled Soul Power: The Legend of the American Basketball Association.

It's quite good, and I learned that the ABA started the three-point shot and the slam dunk contest. And during the 70s the ABA served up a better brand of basketball than the NBA. 

I'm not much of a watcher of the current NBA although I grow up watching the Bulls on WGN when they were a bad team, suffering through Jordan's Bulls losing to the Pistons, and finally reveling in the glory of the Bulls dynasty. 

If you want to slog through the lies and bullshit that were spewed on Tuesday night by President Adolf, check out "Read NPR's Annotated Fact Check of President Trump's State of the Union." 

I've gotten to the age that half the time I don't know much or if anything about the guest host of SNL. And I usually don't like the musical guest. 

One of the books I'm currently reading is Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. 

After he finally took over as Khan and united all kinds of clans on the steppes, he instituted "The Great Law of the Genghis Khan" that, for its time, was quite progressive and helped stop the cycles of exploitation and violent paybacks.  

The Great Law of Genghis Khan instituted these rules (and I'm quoting directly from the book):

• "forbade the the kidnapping of women"
• "forbade the abduction and enslavement of any Mongol"
• "he declared all children legitimate, whether born to a wife or a concubine" 
• "forbade the selling of women into marriage"
• "outlawed adultery" - "adultery applied to relations between married people of separate households. As long as it did not cause a public strife between families, it did not rank as a crime." 
• "made animal rustling a capital offense"
• "forbidding the hunting of animals between March and October"
• "decreed complete and total religious freedom for everyone" 
• "exempted religious leaders and their property from taxation and from all types of public service"
• "extended the same tax exemptions to a range of professionals who provide essential public services, including undertakers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and scholars"

So in the 13th century, the Mongol leader instituted reforms that would reduce strife and conflict, moved the perception of how women should be treated, created a hunting season, established religious freedom, and gave tax exemptions for people who work for the public good. 

I would especially like that tax exemption for teachers and scholars.