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madewithonerib · 4 years

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How Do I Glorify GOD in My Daily Life? | John Piper

How do we glorify GOD in the little, day-by-day things?

The question comes up today.

“Pastor John, hello! My name is Trent. I’ve begun reading your book Desiring GOD, & I understand now what you mean by Christian Hedonism.

How wonderful it is to know that GOD commands our supreme happiness & joy in HIM!

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:31, ‘Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of GOD.’ How can I give the LORD glory by enjoying HIM through food?

Is it by knowing that the food for that day was provided for me by HIM & it’s OK to enjoy it?

Or another example would be happiness when our children do well in school.

I’m just wondering how to be happy in the LORD in the right way to bring HIM the most glory.

How do I do all things to glorify GOD?”

He brought up Christian Hedonism.

I’ll say a WORD about that & put everything in context here.

Christian Hedonism teaches that every person — all of us — should seek with all of our might to maximize the intensity & the duration of our enjoyment of GOD above all things, because GOD is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in HIM.

“We should live in order to display the supreme worth & beauty & glory of GOD.”

If you are most satisfied in family or job or fame or success or money or food or music or health or staying alive

— if you are more satisfied in any of those than you are in GOD

— then you diminish the glory of GOD, & you magnify the glory of what you’re most satisfied by.

And the BIBLE makes clear that we should live in order to display the supreme worth & beauty & glory of GOD.

That’s our primary reason for existence.

Pain or Pleasure

Now, there are two main challenges that Satan uses to diminish the glorification of GOD in our lives by causing us to value something else more than we value GOD:

one of those is pain, & the other is pleasure.

Those are Satan’s two strategies for ruining the way we glorify GOD.

1.] Pain can cause us to value something else more than GOD by making us angry at GOD that we have this pain, & making us want to be done with it more than we want to embrace GOD.

Which means that pain is a golden opportunity for us to glorify GOD, by showing how much more we value HIM than we value comfort or being free from this pain.

2.] Pleasure can also cause us to cherish something else more than GOD — not by making us angry at GOD, but by making us forget GOD, because we’re so satisfied in the pleasures that HIS gifts give us.

We can see that in Ezekiel 16:14–15, where GOD says to Israel,

And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you, declares the LORD GOD.

But you trusted in your beauty & played the whore.

In other words, GOD gave Israel the great gift of beauty, & instead of leading them to glorify GOD for the gift, they fell in love with the gift.

They preferred the gift over the Giver; they dishonored GOD by not being satisfied in GOD, but fell in love with GOD’s good gift.

“Pain & pleasure are Satan’s strategies that can ruin our glorification of GOD.”

Withholding good things can ruin us. Giving us good things can ruin us.

Both can be an occasion for dishonoring GOD & not glorifying HIM — or for indeed glorifying HIM.

And Trent’s question has to do with this last point; namely, How do you glorify GOD in the good things that HE gives us?

He mentions food & children.

If he wants a book-length answer to that, then he should read Joe Rigney’s book The Things of Earth.

GOD in the Good Things

I’m just going to point to a couple of passages that will give part of the answer, I think, to his question.

1.] In Philippians 4:11–13, Paul says,

I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.

I know how to be brought low, & I know how to abound.

In any & every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty & hunger, abundance & need.

I can do all things through HIM who strengthens me.

Paul makes clear that there is a spiritual secret, something deep & wonderful to be learned in the Christian life, that enables a person not

only to be brought low, but to abound; not only to hunger, but to have plenty;

not only to be in need, but to have abundance.

In other words, Paul is making it clear that abounding & having plenty & having abundance is as much of a challenge to the glory of GOD in our lives as is suffering.

So, Paul had to learn something peculiar & special & deep to help him know how to abound.

And that’s Trent’s very question.

And I think Paul’s answer of what the secret is for abounding is in Philippians 3:7–8.

The secret is not in discounting or diminishing the goodness of GOD’s gifts, but in knowing CHRIST so well & loving HIM so deeply & finding HIM so satisfying that good things can be received from HIS hand as CHRIST-exalting gifts, & good things can be torn from our hands as CHRIST-exalting discipline.

Here’s what he says in 3:7-8:

Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of CHRIST

[in other words, CHRIST is way better].

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth

[that’s the point] of knowing CHRIST JESUS my LORD.

For HIS sake I have suffered the loss of all things & count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain CHRIST.

The fact that good things are counted as loss or as rubbish does not mean they can’t be enjoyed, but it does mean that the moment they

compete with the superior beauty & worth & glory & satisfaction of CHRIST, they become an enemy; they become rubbish.

But Paul has learned the secret: if CHRIST is more precious than anything, then both the loss & the presence—the gain of good things — is an occasion for treasuring CHRIST.

2.] The other passage that I think points to the answer is 1 Timothy 4:3–5, where Paul says that some forbid marriage & require abstinence from foods that GOD created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe & know the truth.

For everything created by GOD is good, & nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,

for it is made holy by the WORD of GOD & prayer.

Oh my, every WORD there almost begs for a sermon or an essay or something.

3.] And then he adds in 1 Timothy 6:17 a warning for “the rich in this present age”

1 Timothy 6:17 | Instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be conceited & not to put their hope in the uncertainty of wealth, but in GOD, who richly provides all things for us to enjoy.

not “to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on GOD, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.”

Orange Juice to God’s Glory

Now, I wrote an article once ages ago called

“How to Drink Orange Juice to the Glory of GOD.”

And that’s what I’m being asked.

So let’s make orange juice the test case, & we’ll end with just a few illustrations of how you drink orange juice to the glory of GOD.

“All of the world is like a prism, giving us some new sight of the glory of GOD.”

1. I will affirm, joyfully, from the WORD of GOD, that the color yellow is a gift of GOD. The sweet taste is a gift of GOD.

The nourishment & the way my body uses it is a gift of GOD.

The sun & the rain that grew the oranges is a gift of GOD. The trucking & the grocery chain that brought it to me is a gift of GOD.

And the list could go on & on. I will gladly, joyfully, say that out loud I will feel that.

2. I will lift my heart & voice in prayer, thanking GOD.

And I will do this often so that others can know where all this came from, & how wise & strong & good GOD is.

3. I will remind myself that I do not deserve this juice. I deserve to be in hell today.

And so, I will give thanks that my sins are forgiven & that this pleasure is, in fact, bought for me.

This orange-juice pleasure is a blood-bought gift for this child of GOD on the way to heaven.

4. I will remind myself that this particular pleasure, this taste, this coolness on my tongue, this nourishment, reveals something of GOD to my senses & my soul that could not be known any other way.

That’s why the world was created, because all of it is like a prism, giving us some new sight of the glory of GOD.

5. Then, I will share this juice, in love, with others at the table; I won’t horde it all.

6. And finally, I will use the strength that it gives me to live for the glory of GOD.

John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org & chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of > 50 books, including Desiring GOD: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist

#CHRIST-exalting discipline #CHRIST-exalting gifts #Philippians 3 #Philippians 3:7 #Philippians 3:8 #gain CHRIST

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sage-nebula · 7 years

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every time i see someone (especially a particular guy i really should block at some point) bashing alan for being a creator's pet and immune to loss i twitch out of repressed disdain. did they even watch tsme. ash's role was literally to act as an accessory to alan's story. the league and the flare fallout was his climax, not ash's. did they. not see alan fall and fail so many times before this. HE'S STRUGGLED SO HARD FOR THIS? HE HAS ACTUAL STAKES IN THIS VICTORY? he is literally not tobias 2.0

Fam, I block Alan haters on sight and it makes my life 900% better. I mean, to be fair this means I have to block a lot of people (and considering I block people for other reasons as well I’m sure I have a couple thousand on my block list by now), and to be even more fair it might be “more mature” to actually engage them and verbally dropkick people in the face, but as I explained on another post I’ve done that so much that I’m just … really very tired. So yes, I really do encourage you to just block that trashbiscuit you mentioned. Someone like that is not someone worth sharing internet space with. People like that aren’t deserving of attention, honestly.

But all of that said? While I do block people after I see the garbage they spew, I still have to see the garbage in the first place in order to block them. And yes, it makes me so very, very, very angry.

I think that a lot of people in this fandom haven’t watched The Strongest Mega Evolution, or if they did they still somehow didn’t pay very much attention to Alan in it despite the fact that it’s his story (and was specifically created to be his story, as in, they didn’t create TSME to advertise anything, they specifically created it in order to tell his story because they knew they wouldn’t have room / time to do so in the main series). Therefore, they not only miss the times when he did face losses (e.g. against Siebold in TSME 1, against Mega Rayquaza in TSME 2, against Primal Groundon and Primal Kyogre in TSME 3), but they also missed everything about how much honest-to-god work he put into training, about how he and Lizardon dedicated their time to becoming stronger in every way possible in order to protect their loved ones, about how Alan underwent the mega evolution gauntlet as a form of training (as well as emotional reassurance) after he went through a traumatic incident that nearly cost him and Lizardon their lives. Alan didn’t undergo the mega evolution gauntlet because he wanted accolades or a medal; he underwent the mega evolution gauntlet because he was terrified that he and Lizardon* were not strong enough to protect others, because he and Lizardon both almost died out there on the ice. He wanted to reassure himself that he and Lizardon were strong enough to protect those they cared about, by specifically undergoing trials and battles to amass that strength. The bulk of TSME 4 was Alan specifically training, and doing so in a big way. It’s not as if the Key Stone and Charizardite X were “press A to win” buttons. Far from it. They worked for years to become as strong as they are. Blood and sweat went into their training, and that training paid off, even with the canonical losses they do have under their belts.

(*Alan never actually says that he’s concerned about Lizardon’s strength. Whenever he talks about being strong enough (or not being strong enough), the only one he ever calls out is himself. Whenever he talks about Lizardon, he instead talks about the strength of their bond, and how much he believes in Lizardon. So although I say that he’s concerned that he and Lizardon aren’t strong enough, I only say that because he was training Lizardon. In truth, Alan never once even remotely suggests that Lizardon is weak. The only one Alan sees and calls weak is himself. He only ever sees strength and reason to believe in Lizardon, and that’s canonical fact.)

On top of missing all of that, people miss and/or ignore everything else about Alan, too. They miss and ignore his backstory. They miss and ignore all aspects of his characterization. They pretend as though he has no personality, no drive, no feelings, and no characterization when that could not be farther from the truth. I could go on for paragraphs about things you can pick up from and read off Alan from the first ten minutes of TSME 1 alone. There is so much to dissect and study about his character, there is so much there, and yet people ignore it all in favor of looking for reasons to bash and tear him apart. Sometimes they even do this by downplaying or completely erasing the abuse he has suffered at Lysandre’s hands so that they can have an excuse to dismiss or criticize him. It’s disgusting and completely infuriating.

But back to the actual point—yes, exactly. The Flare arc was—and this really can’t be argued—the conclusion to The Strongest Mega Evolution. Without TSME, the Flare arc would not have occurred (or at least, it wouldn’t have made any sense, so I really just do not undersatnd the people who skipped TSME entirely, but whatever). And Alan was the central protagonist. As I’ve mentioned before, the writers did try to shoehorn more plot-centric significance for Ash in there by making up Lysandre’s interest in him in a really clumsy, ham-fisted way, but it’s as you said: Ash was really there to provide crucial emotional support for Alan. I won’t gush about their relationship again here because it’s not the point, but as we all saw on Prism Tower, Ash was the one who gave Alan the support he needed to temporarily shelve his issues to focus on the matter at hand. And later, Ash once again helped Alan by speaking to him in the garden at the lab (and being the only human to follow him out there—the only one who noticed what he was going through and approached him!), and their resulting conversation sounded so much like Ash was talking Alan down from suicide (or at least self-harm, something Ash had already witnessed Alan doing to himself atop the tower, so he really did have reason to be worried, even aside from the honestly alarming things Alan was saying right there in the garden). Ash was not the protagonist of this story—Alan was. And as much as their League match was their two stories intersecting (Ash chasing accolades and glory as always, Alan wanting both to feel actual happiness for five minutes and wanting to once again reassure himself that he had the strength necessary to protect those he cared for), Alan’s motivations for winning the League match were far more worthy than Ash’s. Ash just wanted personal glory and a trophy, as always. Alan wanted strength to protect others. Pokémon is a shounen anime. If you take out any and all personal biases and look at just their motivations and the genre they’re in, it’s blatantly obvious who will win, and who should win, based purely on that criteria alone.

(And that’s not even getting into how much more training and experience Alan has put in over Ash, or how blatantly outmatched Greninja was in comparison to Lizardon. The only one protected by plot armor in that match was Greninja, who should have experienced a sound OHKO the first time Lizardon used Thunder Punch against him. I’ve run the stats with battle damage calculators every which way, and the result is always the same: Lizardon OHKOs Greninja with Thunder Punch. But because Ash is the main character (kind of), Greninja instead got to pull out some anime-exclusive BS and block Thunder Punch with Water Shuriken (?!) to stay in the match longer. So even setting aside the fact that Alan’s motivations for that battle were far more admirable and worthy than Ash’s, Greninja was outclassed in a major way and only stayed in the fight as long as he did thanks to plot armor. Saying otherwise is ignoring basic facts. Alan won that battle because he and Lizardon deserved to win that battle, from every single conceivable angle. That’s all there is to it.)

So yeah, the way this fandom continues to treat Alan is beyond ridiculous (and comparing him to Tobias is so nonsensical that I just—Tobias didn’t even have a story, he had no backstory, he was never seen before the League, he had no characterization whatsoever, and he cheesed his way through his battles with legendaries, there’s literally just no logical comparison here). It’s especially ridiculous when people call him a Creator’s Pet / Stu, when (as I pointed out in the tags that I’m pretty sure prompted this), if anyone checks those boxes at this point, it would be Ash, to the point where the writers are now trying to be all “look how clever we are by pointing out Ash’s special specialness, teehee!” as a way to excuse the fact that they’re not having him earn things like his Z-Ring and connections with Ultra Beasts and legendaries, they’re just dropping those things in his lap and calling it a day. Sorry, but lampshading it doesn’t change what you’re doing. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s blatantly obvious that Ash has special Main Character privileges, however much you want it to.

(And no, I’m not hating on Ash for this, I still love Ash to pieces! I’m just saying, it infuriates me when people call Alan a Creator’s Pet for working himself to the bone, sweating and bleeding, for everything he has and suffering for it practically every step of the way, while at the same time being thrilled when Ash literally has Z-Rings, Ultra Beasts, legendaries, et cetera dropped right into his lap without having to work for any of it. Yeah, Lysandre gave Alan his Key Stone and Charizardite X (just as Steven Stone gave Shouta his Key Stone and Sceptilite, hmm), but in exchange Alan had to give up his freedom and isolate himself from the only family he had, something he only agreed to because Lysandre made him think it was the only way to protect said family. Ash? Ash gets a Z-Ring from Tapu Koko because … uh, because he’s the main character. And aside from learning the Z-Move dance and maybe practicing a little, there are no strings attached to this, no consequences. He just gets it because he’s special and masters it in no time at all. And people think Alan is the Creator’s Pet? Is this a joke??)

So yeah, I just … I get really beyond frustrated and angry at the way this fandom treats Alan, and I block people who treat him this way on sight. No regrets. I really recommend anyone who likes Alan do the same, tbh.

#em-exceeds-change-zearu

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bountyofbeads · 4 years

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THREE time DRAFT DODGER Trump hides behind his Twitter account throwing gasoline on the 🔥 fire in Iraq. Trump threw his America First policies is making America less safe by going America alone. He has exasperated the situation with Iran by pulling out of the Iran Nuclear deal, siding with Saudi Arabia (MBS), abandoning our Kurdish allies in Syria, siding with hardliners in Israel, etc.

America is tired and exhausted with the endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that have cost our country trillions$$$ and blood of our sacred soldiers, many of whom are severely injured or suffer debilitating PTSD with nothing to show for it. Trump and his Republican allies know how to start war but don't have a clue as to how to get out of them. If they get us into a war with Iran expect to see our young people drafted because there are not enough military personnel to fight a war with Iran( who has Russia, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon militias as well as our arch enemies Al Qaeda, ISIS and the Taliban) to fight against us. ENOUGH WITH THE FUCKING ENDLESS WARS ALREADY!!!

Trump threatens Iran after embassy attack, but remains reluctant to get more involved in region

By Anne Gearan, Philip Rucker and Josh Dawsey | Published December 31 at 5:43 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted December 31, 2019 |

President Trump on Tuesday was pulled toward the kind of Middle East tinderbox he has tried to avoid, as he blamed Iran for an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq that further damaged U.S. relations with Baghdad and appeared to put Trump’s hopes for diplomacy with Tehran further out of reach.

Hundreds of supporters of an Iranian-backed militia chanted “Death to America” as they breached part of the outer security layer at the vast compound in Baghdad’s protected Green Zone.

U.S. diplomats were barricaded and unharmed inside the $750 million embassy, built as a powerful symbol of U.S. permanence after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that Trump has derided as the worst U.S. foreign policy blunder. But the hulking structure may now serve as a symbol of how difficult it can be to disentangle U.S. interests from Iraq and the region despite the president’s stated desire to get out of “endless wars” and reduce the United States’ footprint in the Middle East.

Trump now faces a situation where the United States and Iran are elbowing for influence in Iraq as U.S. allies Israel and Saudi Arabia, along with some of Trump’s in-house advisers, urge a more forceful confrontation with Tehran over its aggressive tactics across the Middle East — a potentially combustible situation.

The president struck a bellicose tone Tuesday, but it’s unclear what moves he will make next as he feels the tug between taking a tough line with Iran and trying to avoid getting more involved in the region.

“Iran will be held fully responsible for lives lost, or damage incurred, at any of our facilities. They will pay a very BIG PRICE! This is not a Warning, it is a Threat,” Trump tweeted late Tuesday afternoon from Florida where he is spending the holidays at his Mar-a-Lago resort. “Happy new year!”

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, the president held what he called a good meeting with advisers and approved sending a small contingent of Marines and two Apache helicopters to reinforce security at the embassy while tweeting that “The U.S. Embassy in Iraq is, & has been for hours, SAFE!”

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a Trump ally and foreign policy adviser, had breakfast with the president Tuesday and said in an interview that Trump was determined to “have no Benghazi on his watch,” a reference to the 2012 attack on U.S. government facilities in Libya that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.

Republicans harshly criticized the Obama administration and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the response to the Benghazi attacks and Trump’s wariness over any comparisons between the two events was publicly on display Tuesday.

“The Anti-Bengahzi!,” he tweeted about his administration’s response to the situation in Baghdad.

Graham said Trump is not looking for a fight and hopes that Iran will take steps that allow tensions to be ratcheted down soon.

“The goal is to de-escalate, but it takes two to do that,” he said, adding that Trump and his national security team are discussing “a lot of options” he would not detail.

In general, the United States has options to confront Iran indirectly through military action against its proxy forces in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere, and to increase economic and political pressure on Tehran. The United States could also retaliate against Iraq, an ally of both Washington and Tehran, for failing to do more to protect the embassy and the American contractor whose death Friday at the hands of an Iranian-backed militia set off the current crisis. The United States responded to the contractor’s death by carrying out airstrikes Sunday against Kataib Hezbollah bases near the Iraqi-Syrian border.

“The president is determined not to let Americans be attacked without them paying a price,” Graham said of Iran.

The developments in Baghdad came on the eve of the new year, when Trump is seeking reelection on a platform that boasts of strong international leadership and a commitment that the United States will not be a global policeman for age-old conflicts.

“They’re fighting for 1,000 years, they’re fighting for centuries. I want to bring our soldiers back home,” Trump said in October, as he announced that U.S. forces had killed Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. “I had absolutely nothing to do with going into Iraq, and I was totally against it.”

Trump has long viewed U.S. involvement in the Middle East as a political loser that only leads to the loss of money and lives, according to a Trump adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the president’s views.

“I can tell you 100 percent that the president has no desire to get into some kind of new conflict in the Middle East during 2020,” the person said.

This fall Trump withdrew all but a few U.S. forces from Syria to make good on his promise to shake off the sand of faraway Middle East conflicts, but the move was condemned by both Republicans and Democrats because it allowed Turkey to move against the Kurds, who had been allies of the United States in the fight against the Islamic State. Trump sought to portray his decision as a win after a cease-fire was declared, but his detractors countered that only occurred because Turkey had already achieved what it wanted in the region at the expense of the Kurds.

Trump has distanced himself from the current Iraqi leadership and criticized its stewardship of oil resources. The White House issued only a cursory summary of a phone call Tuesday between Trump and the country’s placeholder prime minister.

“The two leaders discussed regional security issues and President Trump emphasized the need to protect United States personnel and facilities in Iraq,” the statement said.

“Regional security issues” is often shorthand for the White House view that Iran stirs up trouble throughout the Middle East and endangers Israel. Some of Trump’s advisers view Iraq as a long-term U.S. partner and a foothold of U.S.-backed democracy in the Middle East, while others mainly see Iraq through the prism of its next-door neighbor Iran.

Trump has wanted to talk to Iran’s president in an effort to strike some kind of deal, a move opposed by many in his administration, that he contends would be far better than the nuclear agreement that the Obama administration struck with Tehran and that Trump abandoned soon after taking office. But there has been little progress on that front and the attack on the embassy appeared to make those talks even less likely in the near future.

Tensions were also high between Washington and Baghdad before the embassy assault, as officials traded accusations over Sunday’s U.S. airstrikes that Iraqi leaders called a violation of their country’s sovereignty.

“I think the first thing he should be thinking about is stabilizing the Iraqi government and not putting more pressure on it,” said Christopher Hill, a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq. “If the net result of all this is an unstable Iraqi political situation, we will be sucked into it one way or another.”

Ryan Crocker, also a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, said Trump should think carefully about how his next steps will be viewed by Iran, which has its own calculations to make about how far to go in flexing its influence. Crocker welcomes Trump’s stated interest in negotiating with Iran eventually, but said the president is raising the likelihood for conflict or miscalculation now.

“Trump sends a lot of different signals,” that Iran may not be able to interpret, he said. “I just hope that they took that into account before those F-16 strikes that with that level of force, the chances of some kind of response are pretty high.”

Former Army general Barry McCaffrey, who has led troops in Iraq, said Trump is making it harder for Iran to back down.

“The economic sanctions on Iran are choking them and they’re looking for a way out. Our own demands have been maximalist — and in public,” he said. “It’s a pressure cooker and it’s going to blow.”

McCaffrey and Hill noted that Iran has more military resources in and around Iraq than the United States.

“Trump has dealt with this in the worst possible way. He’s publicly, not privately, confronting the Iranians not on a conflict of our choosing but of their choosing,” McCaffrey said.

Iraqi security forces appeared to do little to prevent the initial assault on the embassy perimeter but later intervened, erecting a steel barrier at the smashed gate into the compound’s reception area.

Some of the Iraqi protesters set up tents outside the compound Tuesday night, condemning the airstrikes and vowing to stay until all U.S. troops and diplomats leave Iraq.

The strikes against the Iranian-backed group Kataib Hezbollah killed 25 militia members and injured more than 50.

Douglas Ollivant, a former Army officer and National Security Council official who served in Iraq, questioned why Trump didn’t retaliate for the contractor’s death with a strike on Iranian assets in Syria rather than in Iraq. The United States has no stake in the Syrian government the way it does in the Iraqi one, and both have interwoven ties with Iran, Ollivant said.

The militia attack that killed the U.S. contractor “clearly gave the Iran hawks the justification they needed to strike Iranian-affiliated groups inside Iraq,” said Ollivant, now managing partner at the Iraq-focused consultancy Mantid International.

As for what Trump does now, Ollivant said the president may have less leeway than he imagines to reduce U.S. involvement in Iraq.

“We’re now on our second president in a row that seems unable to disentangle themselves from this just by clearly wanting to,” he said.

*********

Militia supporters chanting ‘Death to America’ break into U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad

By Mustafa Salim and Liz Sly | Published

December 31 at 1:01 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted Dec 31, 2019

Supporters of an Iranian-backed militia besieged the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday in retaliation for U.S. airstrikes, breaking through the first layer of security at the embassy compound and damaging a reception area before being expelled by Iraqi security forces. Here’s what we know:

●The U.S. Defense Department is sending two Apache helicopters and a “small contingent” of Marines to reinforce security at the embassy.

●President Trump accused Iran of “orchestrating an attack” on the embassy, where protesters ransacked a reception area and set fires.

●Iraqi security forces later intervened and set up a barricade, but protesters threw gasoline bombs into the compound.

●The Kataib Hezbollah militia vowed to force the embassy to shut down, and protesters set up tents outside the gates as night fell.

BAGHDAD — Hundreds of angry supporters of an Iranian-backed militia shouting "Death to America" broke into the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad on Tuesday, trapping diplomats inside in response to U.S. airstrikes that killed or wounded scores of militia fighters.

The protesters breached the vast embassy compound's outer security but did not reach the main chancery building.

Iraqi security forces later intervened, erecting a steel barrier at the smashed gate into the compound's reception area and forcing the protesters to leave. However, protesters remained outside the gates, taunting the guards inside with chants denouncing America, attempting to tear down razor wire atop the compound's walls and tossing molotov cocktails over them.

After darkness fell, some of the protesters stormed and burned the embassy's second reception gate, as others set up tents for the night beside the embassy gates. They vowed to stay until all U.S. troops and diplomats leave Iraq.

They did not, however, enter the sprawling embassy compound, where diplomats and embassy staff sought refuge in a reinforced safe room.

President Trump responded angrily Tuesday to the protesters' actions, charging that Iran was behind a deadly militia attack that led to the airstrikes and blaming Tehran for the embassy siege.

"Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many," Trump tweeted from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. "We strongly responded, and always will. Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. They will be held fully responsible. In addition, we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified!"

He added later in a separate tweet: "To those many millions of people in Iraq who want freedom and who don't want to be dominated and controlled by Iran, this is your time!"

Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said the Pentagon has taken "appropriate force-protection actions to ensure the safety of American citizens, military personnel and diplomats" in Iraq "and to ensure our right of self-defense." He added in a statement: "We are sending additional forces to support our personnel at the Embassy."

As the chaos erupted, U.S. military officials were left to determine how to respond without further inflaming the situation. They settled on dispatching two of the Army's Apache gunship helicopters to provide overwatch and security, and deploying scores of Marines from a crisis-response unit in Kuwait to reinforce those already guarding the embassy.

Earlier, angry demonstrators defied appeals delivered over loudspeakers by the group’s leaders not to enter the embassy compound and smashed their way into one of the facility’s reception areas, breaking down fortified doors and bulletproof glass and setting fire to the room.

American guards inside the embassy fired tear gas to keep the militia supporters at bay. U.S. troops could be seen nearby and on rooftops, their weapons drawn, but they did not open fire. Embassy civil defense workers just inside the gates attempted to put out the fires with water hoses.

The protesters also smashed security cameras, set two guardrooms ablaze and burned tires. They made a bonfire out of a pile of papers and military MREs (meals ready to eat) found in the reception area, where guards normally search visitors. Kataib Hezbollah flags were draped over the razor wire protecting the embassy’s high walls.

The embassy’s sirens wailed continually as dense black smoke billowed into the air.

Inside the embassy, U.S. diplomats and embassy staffers were huddled in a fortified safe room, according to two reached by a messaging app. They declined to give details but added that they felt secure.

By early afternoon, tensions had eased somewhat after an Iraqi army commander showed up and ordered Iraqi security forces, who had initially made no attempt to intervene, to prevent the demonstrators going farther inside the facility. The security forces formed an impromptu buffer between the demonstrators and the American guards inside.

Shortly after that, acting Iraqi prime minister Adel Abdul Mahdi appealed for calm and urged the demonstrators to refrain from entering the compound. He said in a statement that it is the government’s responsibility to protect foreign embassies.

In Washington, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke to Abdul Mahdi and Iraqi President Barham Salih separately by phone Tuesday and “made clear the United States will protect and defend its people, who are there to support a sovereign and independent Iraq,” department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said. “Both Abdul Mahdi and Salih assured the secretary that they took seriously their responsibility for, and would guarantee the safety and security of, U.S. personnel and property,” she said.

The State Department said later that “U.S. personnel are secure” and that “there are no plans” to evacuate the embassy. U.S. Ambassador Matt Tueller was away on previously scheduled personal travel and is returning to the embassy, it said.

In his statement announcing the dispatch of reinforcements to the embassy, Esper noted: “As in all countries, we rely on host nation forces to assist in the protection of our personnel in country, and we call on the Government of Iraq to fulfill its international responsibilities to do so.”

Marines from the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group are tasked with guarding U.S. embassies around the world. The additional Marines heading to Baghdad will reinforce those who were already there guarding the embassy.

To former U.S. ambassador to Iraq Douglas A. Silliman, Tuesday’s protests appeared to reflect an effort by “pro-Iranian elements to try to take advantage of what they’re going to define as a disproportionate American response to the killing of an American military contractor and to Iraqi police officials.” He added, “This is not a massive popular anti-American demonstration.”

Rather, he said in an interview in Washington, it “appears to be an attempt by Iran and pro-Iran factions in Iraq to take pressure off of themselves” because massive demonstrations in the past few months “have been anti-Iranian and anti-government corruption and anti-militia.”

The embassy compound lies inside the heavily fortified Green Zone, which is normally off limits to ordinary people. But earlier in the morning, thousands of people walked unimpeded into the zone to join the demonstrations. Iraqi security forces simply mingled with the crowd, and some joined in. One member of the force that guards the zone’s checkpoints was photographed helping the militia supporters smash the bulletproof glass at the embassy reception gate.

Their chants of “Death to America” carried echoes of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, when Iranian students seized control of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and detained American diplomats and other personnel for 444 days.

Many were wearing militia uniforms and carried flags signifying their allegiance to the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia, which had vowed to retaliate for the U.S. airstrikes on Sunday that killed 25 militia members.

Among the crowd were some of Iran’s most powerful allies in Iraq, including Hadi al-Amiri, leader of the Badr Organization; Qais al-Khazali, who heads the Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia and was once imprisoned by the U.S. military; and Jamal Jaafar Ibrahimi, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, who spent years in prison in Kuwait for bombing the U.S. Embassy there.

The demonstrators daubed graffiti on the embassy walls signifying their allegiance to Iran: the names of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and powerful Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani. Other slogans simply read: “America get out.”

Some protesters began erecting tents nearby, indicating that they intend to remain for the long haul. Jaafar al-Husseini, a Kataib Hezbollah spokesman, said the group plans to encamp outside the embassy until it closes and all U.S. diplomats and troops leave Iraq.

U.S. Embassy officials did not respond to requests for comment, and it was not immediately clear how many U.S. diplomats or troops were trapped inside the 104-acre compound, the largest U.S. diplomatic facility in the world. Opened with much fanfare over a decade ago as a projection of American influence in Iraq, on Tuesday it seemed as much a symbol of U.S. vulnerability in a country where Washington now has few friends.

The demonstration comes amid an outpouring of rage in Iraq directed against the United States for carrying out airstrikes Sunday against Kataib Hezbollah bases near the Iraqi-Syrian border. The strikes were in response to the death of an American contractor in a rocket attack last Friday on a base housing U.S. troops in Kirkuk. The United States blamed the rocket attack on the Iranian-backed group.

U.S. officials said the airstrikes were “defensive” and aimed at deterring further rocket attacks against U.S. personnel by Iranian allies in Iraq.

But in Iraq they have been widely denounced as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and of the rules governing the presence of the approximately 5,000 U.S. troops based there to help in the fight against the Islamic State.

______

Sly reported from Beirut. William Branigin, Alex Horton, Carol Morello, Philip Rucker, Dan Lamothe and Paul Sonne in Washington contributed to this report.

*********

‘Death to America’ chants heard in Baghdad echo the Iran hostage crisis

By Hannah Knowles | Published Dec. 31 at 4:50 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted December 31, 2019 |

The chant was already familiar when students scaled the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979, kicking off a hostage crisis that ended diplomatic relations and kept 52 Americans captive for more than a year.

“Death to America!” protesters had cried months earlier as they marched by the embassy in the tens of thousands. A U.S. flag burned that day amid other menacing words aimed at President Carter and the prime minister of Israel.

Popularized during the Iranian Revolution, the “Death to America” slogan would greet the U.S. hostages at their release and mark the anniversary of the embassy’s takeover for decades. It would ring out again Tuesday at another American embassy under siege, as supporters of an Iranian-backed militia, furious over deadly U.S. airstrikes, broke into a Baghdad compound before Iraqi security forces pushed them out.

The use of “marg bar Amrika” underscores the militia’s loyalty to Iran and its backer’s enduring hostility to the United States, experts say, a month after the State Department marked 40 years since the Tehran embassy’s takeover with a reminder of Iran’s danger “to the United States and the world.” Outside the site of the old embassy, Iranians burned effigies of the president.

But scholars say phrase that made headlines again Tuesday is also slippery in meaning. Often translated to the less threatening “Down with America,” “marg bar Amrika” gained prominence in protests against what Iranians viewed as the United States’ imperialist meddling — and over the years, it’s come to capture both metaphorical and more violent forms of anti-American sentiment, said Phillip Smyth, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“Sloganeering is the art of presenting many messages in a cohesive one,” Smyth told The Washington Post. “And it can play differently to different people.”

Those nuances behind “Death to America” declarations were present back in May of 1979. Banners took issue with policy, not citizens, as marchers swarmed near the U.S. Embassy in Tehran: “We like the American people, we hate the American government,” one read, while another called the U.S. Senate the “house of war, corruption and injustice.”

And the demonstrators “generally did not seem terribly worked up about the U.S. policy they were protesting,” The Post’s William Branigin wrote at the time.

The atmosphere on the streets could verge on that of a carnival as Americans such as members of the press mingled with protesters unharmed, said Ervand Abrahamian, Professor Emeritus of Iranian and Middle Eastern history and politics at Baruch College. The phrase “Death to America” drew on another slogan heard during the Iranian Revolution: “Death to the Shah.” Iranians’s displeasure with a leader that a United States-backed coup installed in 1953 was mixed with broader resentment of a country many feared would continue to interfere in domestic affairs.

College students stormed the embassy in Tehran as a show of defiance, Abrahamian said, seeking to assert independence from a foreign power.

Americans saw an outrage of a different kind, as hostages’ lives were upended in fear and as president Jimmy Carter decried “blackmail.”

Some Iranians have opposed the use of “marg bar Amrika” in recent years, recoiling from its violence with chants of “marg bar hichkas” — “death to nobody,” said Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, an emeritus professor at the University of Maryland who specializes in Persian language, literature and culture. In 2015, Iranian state media showed men painting over the words “Death to America” on the walls of the former Tehran embassy, leading the Jerusalem Post to hail a potential harbinger of “a new era” amid popular Iranian support for the United States’ now-scrapped nuclear deal with its longtime foe.

The Obama administration’s willingness to negotiate with the Iranian government exemplifies how some leaders have been willing to look past the chants, scholars said. But conservative lawmakers in particular have seen the words as signs of why working with Iran would prove dangerous.

“When someone chants, ‘Yes, certainly, death to America,’ we should take him at his word, and we shouldn’t put him on the path to a nuclear bomb,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said of Iran’s leader as he joined other Republicans in fierce opposition to the talks sought by President Obama.

Throughout the debate, “Death to America” has continued to show up at gatherings in Iran — and also in Iraq, where Iran has sought influence. This fall, CBS News reported, the slogan popped up on billboards in Baghdad with menacing pictures. One showed a black-clad statue of liberty that seemed to have Donald Trump’s detached head in her hands.

Officials saw Iran’s sway in the signs.

The billboards “are evidence of the government’s inability to control pro-Iranian groups who want to drag Iraq into an international conflict that endangers the country’s future on behalf of Iran,” Atheel al-Nujaifi, the governor of Iraq’s Nineveh province, said, according to the network.

Smyth, the fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, sees many groups’ English translations of “marg bar Amrika” as “Down with America” — and their accompanying claims of no violent intent — as “posturing.”

He imagines the phrase falling more literally on certain ears, he said — like those of someone who just lost a family member to the American airstrikes cited this week by people trying to storm the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

***'*****

Why Iraq is at the center of the dispute between Iran and the United States

By Adam Taylor | Published December 31 at 1:37 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted December 31, 2019 |

Tensions between the United States and Iran have escalated throughout 2019, but on New Year’s Eve these tensions were illustrated by a dramatic new image: the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad under siege.

That militia supporters targeted the embassy in Iraq was no surprise. For the United States, which has no diplomatic relations with Iran, Iraq has become a flash point for tensions with the Iranian regime.

A rocket attack Friday on a base housing U.S. troops in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk killed an American contractor. The United States blamed an Iran-backed group for the attack and in response on Sunday launched airstrikes against bases along the border with Syria used by the group Kataib Hezbollah, killing 25 militia members and injuring more than 50.

The airstrikes drew condemnation from not only Tehran but also Baghdad, which declared they were a violation of Iraqi sovereignty. As a crowd of hundreds, many armed, broke into the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad on Tuesday, they shouted, “Death to America.”

Why are the United States and Iran at odds?

Iran was a close ally of the United States during most of the reign of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. But Pahlavi was overthrown by the 1979 Iranian revolution and replaced with a Shiite-led Islamic Republic. That November, Iranian militants took about 70 Americans hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. The hostages were held for 444 days. Iran’s relationship with the United States rapidly deteriorated and has remained strained since.

Some point to U.S. meddling in the Middle East and alliance with Israel and rival Sunni powers as justification for Iranian suspicions, while others argue that Iran itself is an expansionist power, eager to push the influence of the Shiite branch of Islam across the Middle East. Washington and its allies in the Middle East also suspect that Iran is seeking to develop a nuclear weapons program.

Both sides have intermittently tried to lower tensions, emphasizing that their issues are with the respective governments and not the people of the nation. Protracted negotiations resulted in a 2015 deal between Iran and a number of world powers, including the United States, that sought to place restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program.

Why are both the United States and Iran interested in Iraq?

Iraq is Iran’s neighbor. The two nations share a 900-mile-long border. Historically, Iraq had formed part of Persia for hundreds of years. Roughly 70 percent of its population is Shiite, with most of the remaining population Sunni (in Iran, more than 90 percent of the population is Shiite), though Iran has almost four times the territory as Iraq.

In the modern era, the two countries have had a tense relationship: Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980, prompting an eight-year war that left hundreds of thousands dead. However, after Saddam’s Sunni-dominated government was toppled by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iraq came to be dominated by Shiite political groups, some of whom were allied with Iran.

The United States was opposed to Saddam’s Baathist government but provided support for Iraq during its war with Iran. Later, after Iraq invaded U.S. ally Kuwait in 1990, the coalition defeated Saddam’s forces in the Persian Gulf War. President George W. Bush labeled both Iraq and Iran part of the “axis of evil” in a 2002 speech, despite their opposition to each other.

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 ousted Saddam, but U.S. troops remained in the country to combat a violent insurgency. Although the administration of President Barack Obama completed the withdrawal of troops in 2011, troops were redeployed to the country in 2014 to combat the Islamic State, an extremist Sunni group.

What effect did the rise of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq have on the U.S.-Iran relationship?

The Islamic State has its origins in Iraq, but it came to prominence in the chaos in the war in neighboring Syria that began in 2013 and is ongoing. At its peak in late 2014, the self-proclaimed caliphate controlled an area the size of Britain and used it as a base to call for attacks on both U.S. and Iranian interests.

Iran and the United States were backing opposing sides in the Syrian war. Tehran viewed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as a key ally in the region, whereas the United States and other Western powers had backed rebels who opposed his government. But for both, the Islamic State presented a more pressing problem.

With U.S. airstrikes, as well as the intervention of forces loyal to Iran and the Russian military, the Islamic State ceded the last of its territory earlier this year. However, the end of that fight raised the possibility of new conflict between Iran and the United States. President Trump has taken a critical view of Iran since taking office in 2017.

The tension between the United States and Iran was especially noteworthy in Iraq, where about 5,000 U.S. troops are deployed ostensibly to aid the Iraqi fight against the Islamic State. Powerful Shiite militias, many allied with Iran, expanded their reach during the battle to liberate land held by the Islamic State as part of the Popular Mobilization Forces, a state-sponsored organization of militias.

What relationship does Iran have with groups in Iraq and Syria?

Iran has long been accused of running a network of proxies across the Middle East, using Shiite militias and political parties to undermine rival governments. Often, the exact nature of its relationship with these groups, and the level of autonomy from Tehran, is hard to gauge for outsiders, which critics say gives Iran a degree of plausible deniability for anti-U.S. actions.

In Iraq, there are a variety of Shiite militias. Not all formed at the same time, and they do not have identical interests, but they have had increasing political clout since the battle against the Islamic State, gaining almost a third of seats of Iraq’s parliament in 2018 elections.

Over the past year, frequent rocket attacks on bases used by U.S. troops in Iraq have led to increasing tension. After the strikes against Kataib Hezbollah on Sunday, a senior U.S. State Department official briefed reporters that the blame lay not just with Iran but also with Iraq. “It is their responsibility to protect us, and they have not taken appropriate steps to do so,” the official said.

The apparent ease with which supporters of Kataib Hezbollah and other Shiite militias were able to reach the U.S. Embassy, which lies in Baghdad’s secure Green Zone, surprised many observers. On Twitter, Trump tweeted Tuesday that he expected Iraq to protect the embassy.

How has Trump changed the relationship with Iran and Iraq since entering office?

Trump viewed the Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran with suspicion and argued that the previous administration had not done enough to curtail Iranian influence across the region. The president pulled the United States out of the deal in May 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran.

The United States has since specifically targeted Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a religious and political figure who is the ultimate decision-maker in the country; it has also designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.

Despite the political and economic pressure on Iran, there has been no indication that support for foreign militias has been curtailed. Iran has been linked to attacks on a Saudi oil facility, as well as foreign tankers in the Persian Gulf. Though most parties to the nuclear deal remain in the agreement, Iran has also started enriching and stockpiling at a higher level than allowed by the deal.

At the same time, tensions between the United States and Iraq have escalated under Trump. In early 2019, Iraq’s President Barham Salih said his country would reject Trump’s idea that the United States could keep American troops in Iraq to “watch” Iran. Iraqis argued that Sunday’s airstrikes were an affront to their nation’s sovereignty and broke the status of forces agreement that allows U.S. troops in Iraq.

But Iran’s influence in Iraq is also a point of contention for many: As thousands took to the streets to protest the government this fall, some targeted Iranian interests, even burning down the Iranian Consulate in Karbala in early November.

In a later tweet on Tuesday, Trump appealed to the Iraqis who were tired of Iranian influence:

"To those many millions of people in Iraq who want freedom and who don’t want to be dominated and controlled by Iran, this is your time!"

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junker-town · 7 years

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The Numerical: Why the SEC’s disappointing *again*, despite having Alabama

The most important numbers of Week 5, from gunners to big plays to the SEC East’s chronic disappointment.

1. Overachiever watch

Through the first month of the season, I used part of this weekly Numerical space to take a look at which teams and conferences were over- or underachieving, compared to their S&P+ projections (which were still mostly grounded in the preseason numbers).

Now that most teams have played at least four games, and their ratings are therefore at least 50 percent based on in-season results, let’s rotate the prism a bit and look instead at achievers. Five weeks into the season, what conference has been the best in the land?

We’ll look at this answer in two different ways. First, average rating.

FBS conferences in order of average S&P+ rating

SEC (+9.7)

ACC (+8.7)

Big 12 (+8.5)

Big Ten (+8.3)

Pac-12 (+7.6)

AAC (-2.1)

Mountain West (-4.5)

MAC (-6.1)

Conference USA (-8.1)

Sun Belt (-8.6)

The SEC is still on top, though it’s only by a margin of “we have Alabama, and you don’t.”

The main story here might be how close all the conferences are. Each has at least two teams in the top 15; the Big Ten has four, the Pac-12 has two, and the others each have three.

Of course, this is an average, which means conferences can be dragged up or down by outliers. What if we look at the ratings midpoint of each conference?

FBS conferences in order of median S&P+ rating

ACC (+8.9)

Big 12 (+8.4)

SEC (+8.1)

Pac-12 (+7.5)

Big Ten (+5.4)

Mountain West (-4.1)

AAC (-4.5)

MAC (-5.2)

Conference USA (-6.5)

Sun Belt (-10.3)

Now things get interesting. With a lack of Bama Effect, the SEC gets dragged down, while the incredibly top-heavy Big Ten gets dragged down by not having many middle-class teams. There are four B1G teams among the top nine, but only two others are in even the top 40.

Granted, preseason projections do still play a role here and will continue to do so until each team has played at least seven games. But your eyes have not deceived you: despite returning a ton of last year’s production, the SEC isn’t really any better than it was last year.

The other conference with a particularly high level of returning production, the Big 12, has improved as expected. The SEC has not.

There’s plenty of blame to go around.

The SEC West hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory. Alabama is Alabama, Auburn has shown some sustained flashes, and Mississippi State and Arkansas have played at basically the expected level (though MSU has done so in a hilariously volatile way). However, Texas A&M has underachieved a bit, LSU has obviously disappointed, and Ole Miss — the hardest team to project besides UAB — is on the verge of collapse.

Still, the primary blame here lies in the East. Again.

SEC teams’ current S&P+ rankings vs. 2017 projections

Georgia: +11 (projected 21st, currently 10th)

Mississippi State: +3 (projected 33rd, currently 30th)

Alabama: 0 (projected first, currently first)

Vanderbilt: -1 (projected 58th, currently 59th)

Auburn: -4 (projected eighth, currently 12th)

Arkansas: -4 (projected 29th, currently 33rd)

Florida: -10 (projected 15th, currently 25th)

Texas A&M: -13 (projected 22nd, currently 35th)

Ole Miss: -13 (projected 23rd, currently 36th)

LSU: -15 (projected fourth, currently 19th)

Kentucky: -24 (projected 45th, currently 69th)

South Carolina: -26 (projected 39th, currently 65th)

Tennessee: -27 (projected 25th, currently 52nd)

Missouri: -31 (projected 47th, currently 78th)

Georgia is doing great, and Vanderbilt has performed as expected (again, in rather volatile fashion). But Florida has underachieved by 10 spots, and the other four teams have all underachieved by at least 24. Guh.

Typically when I talk about the preseason projections, a portion of readers and/or commenters respond with a snide remark about recruiting rankings. It’s true that recruiting affects SEC teams in a net positive manner. But recruiting rankings in general have long proved to be statistically predictive of team success, and an overestimation of recruiting doesn’t entirely explain the 2017 SEC’s four biggest underachievers.

Kentucky and South Carolina both projected to improve primarily because of returning production, more than recruiting. They each ranked in the top 10 on that list. But while other teams atop the list — TCU, Oregon, Wake Forest — have taken steps forward as projected, the Wildcats and Gamecocks have not.

Injury has played a major role. UK lost No. 2 returning receiver Dorian Baker to a preseason ankle injury and starting left tackle Cole Mosier to an ACL injury, while South Carolina star Deebo Samuel was playing at an All-American level before suffering a Week 3 leg injury.

Consequently, both offenses have collapsed. South Carolina ranks 87th in offensive success rate, and Kentucky ranks 102nd. Kentucky’s Benny Snell Jr., so incredible as a freshman in 2016, is averaging 3.8 yards per carry, while the Cocks’ Rico Dowdle is averaging 2.8. That’s putting a lot of pressure on QBs to play beyond their capabilities, each with a banged up receiving corps.

Missouri was in a similar preseason position. The Tigers ranked 31st in returning production, 10th on offense, and looked to keep advancing offensively and rebound from a 2016 defensive collapse. Instead, the offense has stagnated (the Tigers are 61st in success rate, powered by a great performance against Missouri State) and have somehow managed to get worse defensively. They are 118th in defensive success rate and 119th in explosiveness.

Head coach Barry Odom made a point of moving toward a base nickel defense. The nickel has been by far Missouri’s worst set. Whoops.

And then there’s Tennessee. The Vols have a pretty good pass defense, and running back John Kelly is one of the conference’s most fun players to watch. He is pulling off a poor-man’s-Saquon act, leading the team in both rushing and receiving. UT’s return game is strong, too.

I just listed all of Tennessee’s strengths. The run defense is miserable, place-kicking is unreliable, and after Quinten Dormady’s overwhelmed performance against Georgia, let’s just say the Vols aren’t any further along with their QB situation than when the season began.

Tennessee had to deal with more turnover than any East team not named Florida, and the Volunteers’ projections were propped up by recruiting rankings. LSU’s, too. But the league’s primary issue appears to be more on the developmental side. Key players at Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, South Carolina, LSU, Texas A&M, Florida, and Arkansas have either regressed or failed to improve.

This brings up a philosophical question of sorts: Are SEC athletic directors focused too heavily on finding recruiters for head coaches?

The SEC's love affair with recruiting biting it in the ass now. You could argue the worst collective group of P5 HCs reside in SEC.

— Sam McKewon (@swmckewonOWH) October 1, 2017

Recruiting is an immense part of coaching, so you can’t frame it that way, but in terms of development & deployment, it’s hard to disagree. https://t.co/Y9alMgJbSA

— Bill Connelly (@SBN_BillC) October 2, 2017

Coaching is part of recruiting, but it's easier for any HC, even bad ones, to recruit 4 stars to SEC East vs. Big Ten West.

— Sam McKewon (@swmckewonOWH) October 2, 2017

A fair way of looking at it. Does a blue blood need to hire a "recruiter" when the school recruits for itself? https://t.co/R4yK3UJxLV

— Bill Connelly (@SBN_BillC) October 2, 2017

Of top 12 Rivals classes in 06, 11 teams have also had a top-12 class in the last 2 years. (Only one that didn't: ND, which was 13th twice.) https://t.co/o4FJQt62yd

— Bill Connelly (@SBN_BillC) October 2, 2017

The SEC has been Sabanized; Nick Saban’s almost unfathomable level of sustained success at Alabama has driven every other school crazy, and quite a few have attempted to find their own Sabans.

Typically that means either finding a former Saban assistant, finding an elite recruiter, or both. (It also often means finding a defense-first guy more than happy to play big, conservative, rocks-bashing-together football.) But Saban’s success has come not only because of elite recruiting but also because those elite recruits learn, develop, and grow throughout their three to five years in Tuscaloosa.

Either a lack of development, tactical miscues, or both have dragged down Saban imitators. (And in Florida’s case, an incredible run of non-success at quarterback has held the Gators back.) We’ll see if this ever changes.

2. Big play watch: Oklahoma State vs. Penn State, Week 5

Each week in the Numerical, I’ve been comparing the big-play exploits of the two most fun offenses in football. Four weeks into a 12-round fight, OSU has won two rounds, PSU has won one, and one was a draw.

Round 5 goes to the Pokes (making it 3-1-1 on the year), who responded to a loss to TCU with what we’ll call anxious aplomb. They beat Texas Tech 34-27, despite a long pick six and a fourth-quarter surprise onside kick, and they did so mostly because of — you guessed it — big plays. (A blocked punt helped, too.)

OSU vs. Tech: 82 snaps, 25 gains of 10-plus yards (30 percent), 10 gains of 20-plus (12 percent)

Penn State vs. Indiana: 74 snaps, 13 gains of 10-plus yards (18 percent), seven of 20-plus (nine percent).

Granted, PSU won some bonus points by solidifying Saquon Barkley’s September Heisman with a kick return touchdown and a touchdown pass. But the 2017 Nittany Lions have been more efficient and less big play-oriented this fall — their success rate ranking has risen from 80th in 2016 to 18th thus far, but their IsoPPP (explosiveness) ranking has fallen from second to 33rd. That’s great for your long-term title prospects; it’s less great for winning this competition, but that’s probably fine with PSU.

3. Gunner of the Year Watch

Photo by Jason Behnken/Getty Images

Nate Ferguson is your GOTY leader as we approach the season’s midway point

Out of pure curiosity, I’ve been tracking special teams tackles this year. Maybe we’ll give a pretend award out to whoever has the most of them at the end. Winner of the award gets it named after him.

Your fake award watch list at the moment:

USF’s Nate Ferguson continues to shine on special teams. The junior cornerback is tied for the national lead with 7.5 special teams tackles, and the averages are still excellent; opponents are averaging just 5.7 yards per punt return and 20.7 yards per kick return when he’s in on the tackle.

WMU’s Alex Grace makes his first GOTY watch list appearance. He has tied Ferguson with 7.5 tackles, and his averages are solid, too: 8.3 yards per punt return and 19.3 yards per kick return.

BC’s Isaac Yiadom remains one of the best punt return defenders. He’s made six total special teams tackles, but the three punt returns he’s helped to stop have averaged just 2.7 yards.

South Alabama’s Deonta Moore is the Yiadom of kick returns: he, too, has six total special teams tackles, and the four kick returns he’s helped to stop have averaged a paltry 16.5 yards.

Be on the lookout for Arkansas’ Ryder Lucas. The junior DB has made five total special teams tackles, and most have come on kick returns — the five KRs he’s helped to stop have averaged just 12.4 yards.

0 notes

lulew1988 · 7 years

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Graves disease has robbed me

Marie-Louise Pawsey, a lifestyle and dating coach from Australia, who also suffers, like myself with Graves Disease has very kindly offered to share her story on The Thyroid Damsel.

Here is Marie-Louise' story!

Ten years ago, I was a newlywed. I’d met the man of my dreams a couple of years before, and we were fortunate to be living in Melbourne’s CBD in an apartment, unlike most of my friends and family.

During our first year or so, I’d had some issues with my eyes. I couldn’t explain it properly but they were sore, and I had vision issues. All my life my parents had gotten their eyes checked regularly; both wore glasses and my mum had had cataracts. So, I’d been getting my eyes checked every year since I was a teenager and I knew something wasn’t right. We weren’t living near my usual optometrist, so, I made an appointment with an optometrist nearby.

I was pretty much told that there was nothing wrong, but I knew there was, so I went to a second clinic, and was told a very different story but it still didn’t seem to really account for the issues I was having. Ugh!! So, I figured, I’d get a tie breaker, and went to a third. There, I was told that I needed glasses and they’d be prism lenses. I’d never heard of such a thing, but as I’d now had three very different stories, I did a fairly dumb thing, and I ignored them all. I battled on and just went about my business, planning my wedding, and my future. It’s amazing what you can put up with if you put your mind to it.

Six months later, we’d just moved into our new house. Within weeks I knew something was wrong. All the weight I’d been trying to lose in the leadup to our wedding was suddenly falling off, and I couldn’t figure out why. We’d moved from a one bedroom apartment to a three bedroom house, but I didn’t think that the extra walking around as I unpacked could have made such an impact. I didn’t even have much time to exercise since I’d given up the gym which had been in our apartment building, and now I had to commute 45min each way for work. So how was I shedding weight?

I started taking notice of everything. My appetite changed, I couldn’t sleep, but had heaps of energy, my heart race seemed to be that of a thoroughbred even as I woke in the morning, and I couldn’t concentrate on anything. And my eyes seemed to be getting worse all of a sudden.

So, I made an appointment with the GP I’d gone to for years- now that we were back in the area in which I’d grown up.

He’s amazing. I told him my symptoms and he immediately sent me to have blood tests to have my thyroid checked.

Within a week I was at an appointment with one of Melbourne’s leading Endocrinologists and the diagnosis was clear: I had Graves Disease.

When we’d moved, I’d taken a week off work to unpack, and during that time, I’d dropped in my old gym boss who had, on the spot, offered me part time work as a personal trainer. It was fine for a little while, but my diagnosis meant that I couldn’t demonstrate exercises I wanted my clients to do, or workout alongside them. So I had to adjust by demonstrating once, and then issuing instructions to them verbally. I also had to explain to them what was going on with me, which was scary and revealing, as I didn’t fully understand it yet.

I found I could eat anything I wanted and not gain weight, but I didn’t have much of an appetite. My husband had to beg and plead for me to eat, and sometimes he’d resort to spoon feeding me. Looking back, I’m sure that there were times when I was determined to put the surprise weight loss to good use and capitalise on it. Other times I gorged on chips and chocolate, revelling in the idea of not gaining weight. I was all over the place, mentally and emotionally.

But as the 15 tablets a day (14 x neomercazole and 1 beta blocker) kicked in, that all changed, and all the weight I’d lost came back with a vengeance. Alas, the snacking habit was a hard one to break, and it’s still one I battle now.

I also experienced trembling legs, increased bowel functions (spontaneously at times), anxiety, intolerance to heat (and I was diagnosed in summer so that explained why I complained more than others did!), erratic sleeping patterns and a myriad of eye problems that effected my work, driving and leisure time.

I’d gone to my original optometrist about my eyes and he’d recommended an ophthalmologist who diagnosed Thyroid Eye Disease. That explained a lot! The problem was that it meant that I’d need special glasses, (prism lenses, can you believe it?) and until they could get them, I wasn’t allowed to drive. I was the sole driver in the family, so that threw our whole routine out. We could no longer visit friends and family on the weekends if it meant driving and our shopping had to be done locally. All of this was a massive adjustment for us, and it caused a great deal of cabin fever for a couple who was used to going to the country every few weeks and being able to do normal day to day activities without restraint.

Not driving was a really good idea too, because despite being back in my old neighbourhood, I suddenly had memory problems. I found, and still find, that I could drive to the same place two days in a row, from the same starting point, and I’d get lost on the second day. I can envisage where I have to get to, and I know where I am, but can’t figure out a way to go, and even if I do figure it out, I’m uncertain about it. Google maps has become a very handy tool for me, but road works and detours completely throw me.

That’s okay now, but back then, I worked at night and drove across town to work. Fortunately, my boss was willing to adjust my hours, so I worked 4 longer nights a week, and was able to get there by train. This meant walking to and from the station, and anywhere else, which added a little more exercise into my routine.

I’d increased my exercise output, but was constrained to walking because I wasn’t allowed to get my heart rate up. I was never really able to convey the fear I felt about having a heart attack. I wore a watch with a pulse monitor and checked it repeatedly, but even when I wasn’t wearing it (in bed, in the shower) I could tell when it was high because my heart would race and then seem to stop. Ten years later, I still have those palpitations and when they become too regular, I go and get checked again.

I began walking 2-4 hours a day. It was one thing that helped me feel as though I had some control over the disease. I really put a lot of effort in, and changed my diet after seeking the help of a nutritionist.

I viewed some of these lifestyle changes as adventures. Certainly, going to work for 4 days was a nice change, and my increased energy meant that I didn’t struggle to work those 12 hours in a day. Seeing the world through a train window gave me new insight into those around me. But those things, I could take or leave.

Inside, however I was changed forever. I determined that I wouldn’t see myself as a victim, but went about making the necessary changes, and following instructions from my doctors.

Along with my endocrinologist, I had my optometrist, ophthalmologist, nutritionist, GP, and later I added a fertility specialising gynecologist. I did the rounds regularly, and it was an emotional and costly venture. The endo appointments need to be paid in full on the day, but are then reimbursed in part by Medicare. The appointment cost around $120 and I’d get about $70 of that back, if I recall. But that meant going to a Medicare (in the early days) office to lodge and claim. Those offices aren’t everywhere, so I’d tend to build up a few claims and do them all at once. So this meant that I was out of pocket all the appointment money until I could get to an office.

In Australia, not all tests are covered by Medicare, and it also depends on which doctor you go to, as to whether your appointment is bulk billed or not. Bulk billed means it’s free for the patient, but other places charge, usually $30-$60. When you factor in appointment costs, on top of medication costs, my extremely expensive glasses, money spent on healthy food, public transport when I was using it etc, all added up and my new life was costing me a small fortune.

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One such instruction that my endo issued was that we had to put our baby making on hold. We’d planned to move into our house, live there for a year or so to get used to married life, and then start having babies.

We were told that that plan was on hold until I was told otherwise. That was heartbreaking for me. I wasn’t someone who’d yearned for babies all my life, but now that I’d found my husband, I was keen for them.

Except that was a decision which was taken out of my hands.

For three years, I took my medications, walked and walked, ate, and managed my illness as well as I could, and finally, I received the news I wanted to hear: I was in remission.

I didn’t realise at the time, but I’ve been experiencing anxiety for a long time now. I’ve always been organised but wouldn’t have said I was a control freak, but now, if plans change too greatly, the effect on me is immense.

Over the years, I’ve realised that the disease has flipped my life completely, and if I could control anything- when the disease controlled me- it gave me a sense of balance. But there really is no balance. The disease is in control, and in some ways, the sooner I realised that the better. It wasn’t going to adjust to me, so I had to adjust to it.

But along the way, it robbed me of so much, and that’s something I struggle to accept, even today.

If you loved Marie-Louise' post as much as I did. You can follow her on social media and at her blog!

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