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Rumors: Lester, Bogaerts, Hamels
Big Papi would love to welcome home Jon Lester.
Arguably, only the 1977 album "Rumors", Fleetwood Mac's greatest (in sales) album, was more entertaining and talked about than baseball's hot stove. Believing the validity of MLB rumors is only slightly more dicey than the relationships in one of rock and roll's longest lasting quintets.
The Boston Red Sox had a big day on Monday, signing infielders Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval. One would assume that meant shortstop Xander Bogaerts would be used as part of a package to obtain a front line starter. But two team sources told the Boston Globe's Pete Abraham that Bogaerts is still considered the team's starting shortstop. That would mean a position switch for Ramirez. Do you buy that?
With Dustin Pedroia entrenched at second base, it would mean Ramirez would move to the outfield. Yoenis Cespedes is in left field with Rusney Castillo in center. Boston has right fielder Shane Victorino under contract for one more season (at $13MM). With David Ortiz at DH, something has to give.
Two #RedSox team sources say Bogaerts is still the SS. Didn't think that would change, but worth checking.
— Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) November 24, 2014
Despite adding an average of $41MM over the next four years (Only Sandoval has a guaranteed 5th year), Abraham reported that the Red Sox are also said to still be in play on their former ace Jon Lester. With the Sox going nowhere this past season, the team dealt Lester to the Oakland A's for the slugging Cespedes.
Source: #RedSox still very much engaged with @JLester31, process ongoing. Recent signings do not preclude his return. — Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) November 24, 2014
Lester made $13MM last season and is likely to land at least a five year deal that tops $20MM per season. Do you buy that Boston can still afford that?
It's possible Lester will give the Sox, for whom he played with for parts of nine seasons, a hometown discount. But this is a chance for Lester, who turns 30 in January, to land the biggest deal of his career and one of the largest in baseball. (The Yankees truly are crazy if they are not in on trying to signing him.) Boston, per USA Today's Bob Nightengale, has also had serious talks with the Philadelphia Phillies for lefty Cole Hamels. (The Dodgers are reportedly also in on the fray.)
The #RedSox, who also have an offer for Jon Lester, also have had the most serious talks with the #Phillies for Cole Hamels. — Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) November 24, 2014
Phils GM Ruben Amaro Jr. – how does this man keep his job? – is trying to unload salary. He failed to move anyone making substantial money at last season's deadline – Hamels, Ryan Howard, Cliff Lee (who injured his elbow during the post-deadline waiver period) – and needs to now. Hamels is owed $90MM over the next four years and has a possible 5th year (2019) at $24MM (vesting) or $20MM (team option).
Despite the claim by team sources, Bogaerts would most certainly have to be part of any package sent to Philadelphia along with one of Boston's top catching prospects, Blake Swihart or Christian Vazquez. It would all depend on how much money is picked up by Boston.
The feeling here is that if the Red Sox can't land Hamels or bring back Lester at a discount, they'll try to sign a cheaper option like James Shields.
There is action going on elsewhere in the AL East. Toronto, who already overpaid catcher Russell Martin, is said to be pursuing the Cincinnati Reds versatile outfielder, Jay Bruce.
Blue Jays are, however, working to add a left-handed bat to their lineup. One name they are talking about: Jay Bruce.
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) November 25, 2014
The left-handed hitting Bruce would be a great addition to any team. The Reds would have to be blown away by any offer though, since the 27-year old outfielder is under contract for the next two seasons at an average of $12.25MM and has a team option for a third year at a minuscule $13MM.
The outfielder is coming off a miserable year in which he hit just .217 and had a sub-.700 OPS. But in the three years prior to that, Bruce topped 30 home runs and averaged 101 RBI.
UPDATE – ComcastSportsNet's (CSNChicago.com) Dave Kaplan is reporting that the Chicago Cubs have made a "significant offer" of six years and a salary figure "north of $135MM" to free agent pitcher Jon Lester.
Posted in AL East, Boston Red Sox, Cincinnati Reds, MLB, NL West, Philadelphia Phillies, Toronto Blue Jays, Uncategorized and tagged Blake Swihart, Boston Red Sox, Christian Vazquez, Cole Hamels, Hanley Ramirez, James Shields, Jay Bruce, Jon Lester, MLB, MLB Hot Stove, MLB Trade Rumors, Pablo Sandoval, Philadelphia Phillies, Toronto Blue Jays, Xander Bogaerts on November 25, 2014 by d4assignment. Leave a comment
Trade Bait: B.J. Upton
Another at-bat, another out for B.J. Upton
When discussing baseball players, the media, the fans, and the players themselves all go to the numbers. But the numbers for B.J. Upton are misleading. He's not been as productive, and certainly not as consistent, as his career figures might indicate.
The Atlanta Braves, and more precisely ex-GM Frank Wren, did not use their heads when they signed Upton (along with a good signing of B.J.'s younger brother Justin) to a five-year, $75.25MM after the 2012 season. Upton's career splits in his eight seasons in Tampa Bay were average – .255/.336/.422 and despite averaging 25 HRs, 79 RBI, and 38 stolen bases his last two season with the Rays, there were warning signs.
The elder Upton's home splits in 2011 were .209/.300/.374; a year later he posted an .814 oPS at home, but .687 on the road. He had also had a miserable first half in 2012 with a .679 OPS in 71 games. His second half surge (21 HR 49 RBI in 71 games) made his overall numbers look better and certainly influenced Atlanta's decision to sign him.
Politics can play a big part in awards and rewards, but Upton never made an All-Star team, won a Silver Slugger Award or a Gold Glove. The Braves paid the then 28-year old as if he was that type of player. His two years in Atlanta couldn't have been much more disastrous than they were. A Brendan Ryan-like .557 OPS in 2013 (including a .184 batting average), followed by a .620 OPS last season. He had 33 doubles and 21 home runs…in two seasons combined.
The Braves can't get rid of Upton fast enough, but who is going to take him? The Braves will have to eat much of the $46MM-plus still owed to him to have any chance of a deal. Even then, they are not going to get more than middling prospects and no Major League talent, unless it's swapping one bad contract for another. Justin Upton becomes a free agent after the 2015 season. The Braves may have to deal the "good" Upton in order to keep the senior Upton.
Let the buyer beware.
Posted in Atlanta Braves, MLB, NL East, Tampa Bay Rays, Uncategorized and tagged Atlanta Braves, B.J. Upton, Frank Wren, Justin Upton, MLB, MLB Trade Rumors on November 14, 2014 by d4assignment. Leave a comment
Lester Scratched as MLB Deadline Nears
Will Lester get the ball back in Boston?
We're less than two days away from the Major League Baseball trade deadline and the number of rumors is starting to add up. The biggest name among them is Boston Red Sox ace Jon Lester. The veteran left-hander has been scratched from his Wednesday start, which means Boston will be making a heavy push to trade him for a boatload of prospects and/or Major Leaguers prior to Thursday's 4 pm EDT deadline.
With the team and Lester unable to agree on a new contract to keep the left-hander in Boston beyond this year – he becomes a free agent after this season – a trade is now very likely.
Lester's a grade 'A' player; a top performer, team leader, and whose departure would leave a major vacancy in the Red Sox rotation. The 30-year old, who beat anaplastic large cell lymphoma eight years ago, holds a 110-63 (.636) record as of this writing and is enjoying one of the best seasons of his career. His K's per nine innings (9.4) is the highest in four years and he has career bests in ERA (2.52) and WHIP (1.119).
He's also been solid in the post-season. Last year he helped lead the Red Sox to their third World Series title in 10 years. He won four games, including two in the World Series victory over the St. Louis Cardinals. It will be difficult to cut the cord, but if the Red Sox truly feel they cannot resign him, they might as well try to deal him. Needless to say, they've getting calls from many teams. That includes the Pittsburgh Pirates, who last night emerged as a "dark horse favorite".
Lester could be part of a Boston fire sale now that the Red Sox have dropped 12 games out in the AL East and 9.5 games out of the second wild card position. The team, which dealt starter Jake Peavy to San Francisco on July 26, has been fielding calls on John Lackey, Koji Uehara, Andrew Miller, and Jonny Gomes.
The Red Sox are also rumored to be interested in Matt Kemp, which makes no sense whatsoever. The injury-plagued LA Dodgers outfielder is owed $107MM over the next five seasons. The Red Sox would be better off spending money on starting pitcher. They don't have to look that far back to see how injured and/or overpaid players (Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez) failed in Boston.
The next best pitcher available is Cole Hamels. After not being able to pull off a Cliff Lee deal so far, the Phillies have reportedly either been shopping Hamels or steadfastly refusing to trade him. Even if Hamels is dealt, the Phillies would like to deal Lee and the minimum $37.5MM he stands to make the next two years. He's also owed the remainder of $25MM this season. Lee will not command the return of players he once was able to unless Philly eats the majority of the salary.
Hamels stands to make $90MM through 2018, with a possibility of making an addition $20MM-$24MM in 2019. Like Lester, Hamels is 30-years old and is having a very good season. Tuesday night he tossed eight shutout innings in a win against the New York Mets. It lowered his career-best ERA to 2.55 and a very good ratio to 1.128 His 9.2 strikeouts per nine innings is his highest total since 2006. The Phillies certainly won't give him away and are probably going to hold on to him.
Like the Red Sox, the Phillies could move several players. Outfielder Marlon Byrd is in high demand and inquiries have been made about A.J. Burnett. The Phillies would love to rid themselves of Ryan Howard's remaining $60MM over the next three years (the last year is an option with a $10MM buyout.), but that's not likely to happen.
Other pitchers that could move today are the Mets' Bartolo Colon, who has one year and $11MM remaining on his contract. The Minnesota Twins would part with Kevin Correia, though there isn't much demand for a pitcher who leads the AL in losses and whose ERA is over 5. The Twins have also been fielding calls for catcher Kurt Suzuki and outfielder Josh Willingham.
The Kansas City Royals will likely lose James Shields to free agency after the season, but with the team five games behind Detroit in the AL Central and 3.5 games behind Toronto for the second wild card, how could they not keep him?
The Cleveland Indians face a similar dilemma. They're 6.5 behind Detroit and sit five games in back of Toronto. Do they think they can make a run and become buyers or do they go ahead and become sellers? The Indians are a team that might try to do a little of both. Rumor has it they are trying to move starting pitcher Justin Masterson, who is having a disastrous season. Another player having a bad year is Nick Swisher (.615 OPS as of this writing), though the two years and $30MM will make it harder to move him. Add on his failure in several post-seasons, and Swisher won't bring much return at this point. Shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera could be in a new home by Friday, as he enters free agency after this season.
The Padres are reportedly shopping reliever Joaquin Benoit, who can either set up or close. Other players that could move on are pitcher John Danks, outfielder Dayan Viciedo, and 1B/DH Adam Dunn of the White Sox, pitcher Colby Lewis and outfielder Alex Rios of the Rangers, Cubs' Pitcher Edwin Jackson, Rockies pitcher Jorge De La Rosa, and Diamondbacks outfielder Gerardo Parra.
Cleveland sent Justin Masterson to the St. Louis Cardinals for outfield prospect James Ramsey. Masterson has been having an off-year in a contract year, but the Cards are hoping he can be the second coming of Jake Westbrook. The Cardinals depth in the outfield allowed them to deal Ramsey, the 23rd overall pick in the 2012 draft.
The Red Sox have traded a left-handed pitcher, but it's not Jon Lester..yet. They've sent Felix Doubront to the Chicago Cubs for a player to be named later. A Cubs official told Peter Gammons that Doubront was getting "One more change to grow up."
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Posted in AL Central, AL East, AL West, American League, Atlanta Braves, Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers, Florida Marlins, Free Agents, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Dodgers, Major League Baseball, Miami Marlins, Minnesota Twins, National League, New York Mets, New York Yankees, Oakland A's, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates, Tampa Bay Rays, Texas Rangers, Uncategorized, Washington Nationals and tagged Alex Rios, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, James Shields, John Lackey, Jon Lester, Koji Uehara, MLB Trade Deadline, MLB Trade Rumors on July 30, 2014 by d4assignment. 2 Comments
That's Not a July T-Storm, It's the MLB Trade Winds Blowing!
It must be July; Cliff Lee is on the trade block.
Major League Baseball is a week past the All-Star break, which means the MLB trade deadline is less than two weeks away. There's already been a major trade between the Oakland A's (Addison Russell) and the Chicago Cubs (Jeff Samardzija, Jason Hammel) that will have an impact on the AL West race. Teams have until July 31 to decide whether to be sellers, buyers, or to stand pat at the deadline. It gives them less than two weeks to figure out if they are really as bad as they might be playing or as good as they think they are. Should a team within striking distance of a playoff spot go hard after a big-name player or pull the trigger on smaller deals? Or should they stand pat?
There's precedence for just about every situation at the break. On July 31, 1997, the Chicago White Sox sat four games in back of the Cleveland Indians in the AL Central division. Despite their close proximity to first place in the standings, the White Sox went into "full sell" mode. They dealt starting pitchers Wilson Alvarez and Danny Darwin, and closer Roberto Hernandez to the San Francisco Giants for a half-dozen prospects: Keith Foulke, Bobby Howry, Ken Vining, Mike Caruso, Brian Manning, and Lorenzo Barcelo.
All three players dealt by Chicago were free agents after the 1997 season, so GM Ron Schueler cut his losses. (Of the six players acquired by Chicago, only Foulke and Howry went on to have successful Major League careers . The Giants won the NL West, but were swept in the first round of the playoffs by the eventual World Champion Florida Marlins. The following season, Alvarez and Hernandez went on to big money deals with Tampa Bay, while Darwin re-signed with San Francisco.)
It's difficult to tell fact from fiction this time of year, which is why the words "rumor" and "reported" are thrown around like baseballs. More often than not, the player attached to the strongest rumors does not get dealt, or goes to the team that had no rumored association with the player. (Think Cliff Lee.)
So let's take a look at some of the names being bandied about right now and those names that might be brought up once the deadline gets closer.
Jonny Gomes and Ben Zobrist: There are a lot of moves made at the deadline to shore up a position, or to get one or two more players that might put a team over the edge to make the playoffs and/or make a long run at the title. Gomes and Zobrist would fall into that category. Gomes had several big hits last year to help the Red Sox win their third World Series in the last 10 years. But, with Boston struggling this year, Gomes may be one of the guys to go. According to ESPN's Jerry Crasnick, the KC Royals have made Gomes a "potential trade target". KC is in contention with a group of younger players and could use some experienced, ring-bearing veterans like Gomes.
Zobrist's name has popped up in many rumors. Though the 33-year old's bat hasn't produced as much in the last two seasons, he's just three years removed from back-to-back 20-home-run seasons. Zobrist, Gomes' former teammate on the Rays, can also swipe a base when needed and defensively can play both middle infield positions, (second base is his best spot), and the outfield. With a $7.5MM team option for next season, Zobrist comes at a bargain price. That means better prospects will be demanded by the Rays in return.
Fishing for pitching is always a popular sport this time of year, and the biggest fish out there is a Ray. David Price, the 2012 AL Cy Young winner, won't be a free agent until 2016, but the Rays may deal him before then to haul in a big catch. Price made $14MM this season and will surely top that in arbitration or a one-year deal next season. The 6'6″ left-hander entered Monday's play leading the league in strikeouts and games started, and had pitched to a 3.06 ERA and a 1.041 WHIP.
Price has been especially hot of late, with six earned runs allowed in 48 innings (1.13 ERA). He's pitched less than seven complete innings only once in his 13 starts and has thrown at least eight innings in nine of those starts. With the Rays playing better baseball of late – they've won five straight and 14 of 18 – Price may stick around Tampa until next season's trade deadline.
With Samarzdiga, Hammel, and Brandon McCarthy already moved, San Diego's Ian Kennedy has heard his name mentioned frequently. Recently, FoxSports' Ken Rosenthal reported that the Los Angeles Angels were very interested in Kennedy, but as of this writing, the teams have not been able to match up players for a deal.
Based on the way Kennedy pitched with the Yankees, you never would have thought he would be in demand. But scouts stood up and took notice when Kennedy finished 21-4, 2.88 with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2011. He struggled the following two years and was dealt to San Diego at last year's deadline. This season, Kennedy has turned things around and is back in demand. The USC product made $6.1MM in 2014 and is arbitration-eligible next year.
Scouts are showing up in droves for Philadelphia Phillies games, with the fightin' Phils not having a whole lot of fight in them. Teams have made inquiries about starters Lee and Cole Hamels, and closer Jonathan Papelbon. The Phillies would reportedly prefer to hold on to the 30-year old Hamels (They need someone to build around) and deal Lee. (Is it just my imagination, or does it seem like every year Lee is either looking for a free agent deal or he's the subject of trade rumors?)
The soon-to-be 36-year old Lee is owed the remainder of $25MM this season, another $25MM next year, and at the very least, $12.5MM in 2016. (The $12.5MM is a buyout; Lee can earn $27.5MM in 2016 if he throws at least 200 innings in 2015.) By comparison, Hamels is owed $90MM from 2015-2018. Just what was GM Ruben Amaro Jr. thinking with these deals and contracts like Ryan Howard's (min. $60MM owed for the next three years)? Perhaps the Dodgers could swap Matt Kemp's huge contract for Lee's?
Papelbon is owed $13MM next year and can get another $13MM in 2016 if he finishes 55 games next season, or 100 games over the current year and 2015 combined. After a shaky 2013 season, Papelbon has bounced back strongly this year. He's saved 23 of 25 games and struck out 33 batters, while he has allowed nine walks, and has a 1.17 ERA. Opposing batters have only managed to put together a .429 OPS this season. With teams always looking for bullpen help and with so many closers having off years, the Phils could get some very good return for Papelbon.
Well, there you have it for now. Stay tuned later in the week for another report as the calendar creeps closer to August.
Posted in AL Central, AL East, AL West, American League, Major League Baseball, NL Central, NL East, NL West, Trade Rumors, Uncategorized and tagged Ben Zobrist, Brandon McCarthy, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, David Price, Jason Hammel, Jeff Samardzija, Jonathan Papelbon, Jonny Gomes, Matt Kemp, MLB Trade Rumors, Ruben Amaro Jr on July 22, 2014 by d4assignment. Leave a comment


text:
The 20th century threw Latvia into endless trials and turbulences: a revolution, two world wars, freedom fights, several occupations, deportations, refugees and a large exodus among them. However, this was also the century when the Latvian state was created. In the aftermath of World War I, realising its right of self-determination the Latvian nation became a sovereign in the territory which since times immemorial had been inhabited by Latvians.
Establishing a country in turbulent times
Latvian War of Independence
Building the foundations of a state
End of democracy and the breeze of war
The Republic of Latvia was proclaimed on November 18, 1918, by the People's Council of Latvia which gathered representatives from most every ethnographic region of Latvia and declared independence at the National Theatre of Latvia in the city of Riga.
At the time, the territory of Latvia was overrun by the army of the German Empire. Yet the Empire lost the war and was shaken by a revolution. Therefore, the German army in the territory of Latvia agreed under Allied pressure to work together with the Army of the Provisional Government of Latvia against the Bolsheviks, who invaded in December 1918.
Latvians fought together with the remains of the German army until the Germans staged a coup and turned against Latvians in April 1919. They wished to make Latvia a duchy subject to Germany, however the Latvian Army defeated the German forces at Cēsis in June 1919.
Yet another attempt to subvert the independence of Latvia took place at the end of 1919. Former soldiers of German Empire and the Russian Empire were led by Colonel Bermondt against the outnumbered soldiers of the Provisional Government of Latvia. The Latvian drive for independence overcame the opponents who wished to resurrect the empires, as the Latvian Army achieved a victory on November 11, 1919. The army of Bermondt was driven out of Latvia by the end of the year.
After that the Latvia had to deal with a Bolshevik invasion and coup, as well. Latvia was victorious in 1920 and the Peace Treaty between Latvia and Russia signed on August 11, 1920 finalized the War of Independence. With the treaty Soviet Russia renounced all claims to Latvia "in eternity".
Despite the war, steps to build the newly established state were taken. National administration and court system, the police, Opera, Conservatory, Academy of Art, and the University of Latvia were all established in 1919.
Meanwhile, the Constitutional Assembly was elected and gathered on May 1, 1920, to create the Constitution of Latvia. Furthermore, the Assembly initiated the historical Agrarian reform, redistributing the feudal lands to the landless peasants and the veterans of the War of Independence.
The early 1920's was a period of rebuilding economy and establishing democracy. On January 26, 1921, the first Foreign Minister of Latvia Zigfrīds Anna Meierovics persuaded the Supreme Council of Allied Powers (Great Britain, France, Italy, Belgium and Japan) who recognized Latvia de iure. Latvia was accepted into the League of Nations.
The first Parliament or Saeima was elected on October 1922. The Saeima elected the prominent lawyer Jānis Čakste as first president of Latvia. For the first four parliaments 1922-1934, the Social Democrats always had the largest fraction of votes, however the runner-up conservative Farmers Union was usually the party which formed a coalition and led the government. Gustavs Zemgals was elected president in 1927 and was followed by Alberts Kviesis in 1930.
Latvia developed regional transit connections and ran international trade with the West and East. Strong agricultural foundation of the economy permitted Latvia to survive the Great Depression with lesser losses. By the 1930's the level of welfare in Latvia was comparable to developed European countries such as Denmark and Finland.
Kārlis Ulmanis, the prime minister at the time, organized a coup and seized power in May 1934. The state was ruled in an authoritarian way and liberties such as freedom of speech were limited. However, no violence or killings happened.
Political deals between the two totalitarian regimes in Europe – the Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union – interrupted the independence of Latvia. According to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 23, 1939, the Soviet Union claimed the Baltic States as its zone of interest. As the Nazi Germany invaded France in May 1940, the Soviet Union invaded Latvia in June the same year.
© Latvian Institute 2015;

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


National has a new leader - Simon Bridges.
Mr Bridges, aged 41, is the MP for Tauranga and was first elected to Parliament in 2008.
The caucus (all elected National Party MPs) gathered in Parliament to vote on the new leader on Tuesday morning. Each of the five candidates made a presentation, and then the vote will took place.
To win, a candidate needed at least 29 votes from the 56 National MPs. If there was no outright majority in the first round of voting, the lowest-scoring MPs dropped out and those who voted for them recast their vote.


Pennsylvania Democratic State Senator Daylin Leach has announced that he will end his campaign for US Congress. Leach has been accused of inappropriate behavior by multiple female employees and campaign aides. In a Facebook post on Saturday night, Leach said that "attacks" against his family and consideration for his teenage boys' lives led in part to the decision. He also stated "how unappealing Congress has become." Leach announced his candidacy for Pennsylvania's 7th district last summer. When the allegations emerged, Governor Tom Wolf and other Democrats urged the state senator to resign. Leach instead "took a step back" from the campaign. In January, Republican Congressman Pat Meehan of the 7th district announced that he would not run for reelection after reports of him using tax payer money to settle a sexual harassment claim. The former lopsided 7th congressional district is now incorporated into the new 4th, 5th, 6th, and 11th. Leach was running in the new 4th district which encompasses most of Montgomery County.
Two people were killed in a crash on Route 202 in Chester County on Sunday morning. It happened after 8 a.m. in the southbound lanes between Swedesford and Mill Roads in East Whiteland Township. 62-year-old Melvin Baskerville was traveling the wrong way in the southbound lanes when he collided head on with 32-year-old Monique Pierre. Baskerville's car went off onto the shoulder. Pierre's car flipped over and continued down the road. The highway was closed for about seven hours as police investigated the incident.
Philadelphia Police are investigating a home invasion in the Oxford Circle section of Northeast Philly. It happened around 4 a.m. on the on the 2100 block of Fanshawe Street near Bustleton Ave. Two armed men wearing dark clothing, masks, and gloves kicked in the door. The residents, a 17-year-old boy and 37-year-old man, were sleeping. The suspects attacked the victims, pistol whipping at least one, and demanded money. One victim was able to get away and ran to a nearby Wawa to call 911. Police arrived to find the victims, at least one, with a serious head wound. They were taken to Jefferson Torresdale Hospital in stable condition. It is not clear what if anything was taken from the home. The investigation and search for suspects continues.


text:
A Psychoanalytic Perspective on an Interview with an Irish Republican Prisoner
Authors: {'first_name': 'Barry', 'last_name': 'Geoghegan', 'middle_name': 'Geoghegan'}
Taking an interview with an Irish Republican Prisoner imprisoned at the Curragh Internment Camp for the duration of the Second World War, the principle objective of this analysis is to demonstrate that psychoanalysis as a depth psychology, can transcend political/ideological considerations in respect of the justice or otherwise of a cause, or moral opprobrium over the tactics employed. Arguing that the context of every conflict is historically unique and using the notions of national identity and the intergenerational transmission of guilt, the analysis demonstrates that the psychic position of the individual terrorist is not necessarily pathological.
Keywords: nationalism, identity, trauma, transgenerational, guilt, mourning, revenge
5_geoghegan
The tendency amongst clinical psychoanalysts according to K.R. Eissler, is 'to look at a patient engaging in revolutionary activities or believing in revolutionary persuasion as acting out' (Eissler, 2002, p132). In the personality pathology theory of terrorism, the violent or aggressive 'symptomology' of the individual is extrapolated to this wider cohort, with the principle protagonist Jerrold Post having it that, for 'the paranoid individual seeking a "legitimate" channel for his aggression, the terrorist group provides an ideal venue. Because terrorists bring their personalities with them when they enter the group, the same personality distortions that led to their conflict and isolation in society will express themselves in the group' (Post, 1986, p 223).
This terrorist paranoia is considered by Post to be 'primitive form of narcissistic pathology', with narcissistic entitlement inevitably leading to frustration and retaliatory rage (Post, 2015, p 10). The initial narcissistic injury is seen as deriving from early faulty or traumatogenic object relating, in particular from cold or unempathetic care givers, and in respect of terrorism as Shmuel Erlich points out, it is the 'currently widely held psychoanalytic stance' (Erlich, 2003, p 148). Through Heinz Kohut's formulation of a mirroring 'narcissistic transference', Post posits a conceptualisation of the terrorist as being in a needy charismatic leader-follower relationship (Post, 2015, 74). The development of the charismatic leader's pathological 'grandiose self' is as Post describes Otto Kernberg's notion, that of extreme grandiosity 'associated with primitive and defective superego formation', potentially leading to the dangerous personality disorder of 'malignant narcissism' (Post, 1993, p 114). Gathering their followers from a 'disadvantaged or traumatized social group', the rejected and traumatised the leadership of the terrorist group according to Kernberg, often present with the 'syndrome of malignant narcissism' (Kernberg, 2003, p 958).
The purpose of this paper is to provide a culturally oriented and hopefully more nuanced psychohistorical alternative to the simple extrapolation of a putative individual narcissistic clinical pathology, in explaining the rationale of the insurgent or terrorist group. The paper proposes that instead of the acting out an individual narcissistic injury through the terrorist group, the individuals in that group may actually be rational actors seeking to assuage the narcissistic injuries inflicted upon a culture. These individuals are not necessarily individually narcissistically injured, traumatised and marginalised, but those who actually have a greatly heightened sense of belongingness and take it upon themselves to carry the burden of the narcissistically injured culture as a function of their own identities, actively seeking to lance the festering national wound. In this endeavour and in particular the phenomenological aspects, I have been greatly assisted by John Hunt who at 95 is the last of the old guard Republicans interned in the Curragh internment camp for the duration of the Second World War.
In early 1939, the IRA (Irish Republican Army) had launched a bombing campaign on mainland Britain, with Irish President Éamon De Valera's government regarding these IRA attacks against Britain as posing a threat to the Irish state itself. Recently uncovered archive material demonstrates that De Valera's belief was, that 'if his country was seen as a threat, London might decide to invade' (Thomson, BBC, 2011). Knowing according to Mike Thomson, that the 'hard rump of Republicans would never countenance being allied to the "old enemy" Britain, and that such an alliance could push Ireland into another bloody civil war', De Valera was anxious to maintain Irish neutrality in the forthcoming war (ibid).
Republicanism was as Jill Uris and Leon Uris put it, 'deep-seated and an alter ego for the masses', and as such there was difficulty in securing convictions against IRA members (Uris and Uris, 1977, p 155). So that under 'Emergency Powers Act of 1939 and the Offences Against the State (Amendment) Act of 1940' enacted by De Valera, civil liberties were suspended and internments without charge were introduced (Maguire, 2004, p 1). The men detained were held in what Uris and Uris describe as the notorious Curragh internment camp, where the 'horrors of imprisonment became legendary', with the IRA keeping up 'hunger strikes, riots, and daring escapes' (Uris and Uris, 1977, p 156). John, as documented in Uinseann MacEoin's book The IRA in the twilight years: 1923-1948 (1997), was for six years incarcerated in the Curragh.
National Trauma, Identity and Joining the Cause.
John describes the process by which a historical sense of grievance became imbued in his nationalist ideology in a societal environment where news and information was passed on by word of mouth;
John: 'So, people like me that came from a rural village in Ireland and, knew of the history that was being told in the small village. At the fireside, that is where I learned my history ...
But you always have something about the famine. It was a living thing. Now, I believe this, that, that was genocide. They wanted to spoil the Irish race. The Irish race had to be done away with'
(Personal Communication, John Hunt, 2014).
Through this osmotic bucolic process, John develops his historical sensibility as part of his identity. History and particularly the trauma of the Irish Famine which took place between 1845 and 1852, is still for John a 'living thing' (Personal Communication, John Hunt, 2014). This represents what Vamik Volkan terms the 'transgenerational transmission' of trauma, a process involving 'the depositing of an already formed self or object image into the developing self representation of a child under the premise that there it can be kept safe and the resolution of the conflict with which it is associated can be postponed until a future time. The "deposited image" then becomes like a psychological gene that influences the child's identity' (Volkan, 1998, pp 3-4). Such identity for Erik Erikson is primarily a social construct representing 'a mutual relation in that it connotes both a persistent sameness within oneself (self-sameness) and a persistent sharing of some kind of essential character with others (Erikson, 1960, p 38).
In a form of mourning process, the trauma representing a real or imagined disappointment in an original object attachment shatters the object relationship, and the result as Freud has it, is 'not the normal one of a withdrawal of the libido from this object and a displacement of it on to a new one, but something different ... an object-loss was transformed into an ego-loss and the conflict between the ego and the loved person into a cleavage between the critical activity of the ego and the ego as altered by identification ... The narcissistic identification with the object then becomes a substitute for the erotic cathexis, the result of which is that in spite of the conflict with the loved person the love-relation need not be given up' (Freud, 1917, XIV, p 249).
The trauma to the nation in effect becomes a narcissistic aspect of the collective ego, and it is clung to as a badge of honour reflecting a sense of national identification. Thus the object introjected that is to say the Irish sense of loss, is transmuted onto the individual ego in a narcissistic identification. As John was 'bred to believe, that there should not be a foreign flag in any part of that island', the presence of one is akin to an epigenetically transmitted narcissistic wound which must be dealt with as manifesting a cultural stain on the national and no individual psyche (Personal Communication, John Hunt, 2014). John's core identity is then narcissistically bound to his mourned object, he becomes effectively a representation of Ireland indeed his very being is Ireland.
Describing this formative psychic 'breeding' process of 'introjection, identification, and identity formation', Erikson has it that the 'mechanism of introjection (the primitive "incorporation" of another's image) depends for its integration on the satisfactory mutuality between the mothering adult(s) and the mothered child. Only the experience of such initial mutuality provides a safe pole of self-feeling from which the child can reach out for the other pole: his first love "objects." The fate of childhood identifications, in turn, depends on the Child's satisfactory interaction with trustworthy representatives of a meaningful hierarchy of roles as provided by the generations living together in some form of family' (Erikson, 1968, p 159).
Commenting on Freud's own soul searching in relation to his Jewish identity, Erikson remarks that 'identity points to an individual's link with the unique values, fostered by a unique history of his people. Yet, it also relates to the cornerstone of this individual's unique development ... It is this identity of something in the individual's core, with an essential aspect of a group's inner coherence, which is under consideration here: for the young individual must learn to be most himself where he means most to others–those others, to be sure, who have come to mean most to him' (Erikson, 1960, p 38).
Volkan posits that a 'chosen trauma' 'refers to the mental representation of an event that has caused a large group to face drastic losses, feel helpless and victimized by another group, and share a humiliating injury ... I believe that it reflects a group's unconscious "choice" to add a past generation's mental representation of an event to its own identity ... A chosen trauma is linked to the past generation's inability to mourn losses after experiencing a shared traumatic event, and indicates the group's failure to reverse narcissistic injury and humiliation inflicted by another large group, usually a neighbor' (Volkan, 1998, p 4, emphasis in the original). If the succeeding generation is unable to successfully 'mourn the loss or reverse the humiliation, it will in turn deposit this mental representation in the next generation' (ibid). The chosen trauma becomes then, woven into the fabric of ethnic group's identity.
Basing his analysis on Freud's notion of adult mourning in his Mourning and Melancholia (Freud, 1917, XIV), and extrapolating from a clinical to a psychohistorical perspective, the traumatised society for Volkan, behaves like 'an individual who suffers from perennial mourning' (Volkan, 2007, p 5). In Freud's theory 'mourning is regularly the reaction to the loss of a loved person, or to the loss of some abstraction which has taken the place of one, such as one's country, liberty, an ideal, and so on. In some people the same influences produce melancholia instead of mourning and we consequently suspect them of a pathological disposition' (Freud, 1917, XIV, p 243)
There is then something pathological in this melancholic aspect Irish society in failing to successfully resolve the mourning process deriving from the trauma of the Great Famine. The distinguishing mental features of melancholia are for Freud a 'profoundly painful dejection, cessation of interest in the outside world, loss of the capacity to love, inhibition of all activity, and a lowering of the self-regarding feelings to a degree that finds utterance in self-reproaches and self-revilings, and culminates in a delusional expectation of punishment' (Freud, 1917, XIV, p 244). This process need not though result in merely sullen depression but on the contrary according to Freud, such melancholic's 'make the greatest nuisance of themselves, and always seem as though they felt slighted and had been treated with great injustice. All this is possible only because the reactions expressed in their behaviour still proceed from a mental constellation of revolt, which has then, by a certain process, passed over into the crushed state of melancholia' (ibid, p 248).
Psychoanalytic enquiry has demonstrated according to Volkan, that this transgenerational transmission of trauma induced melancholia, is more than, just 'a child mimicking the behavior of parents, or developing his or her own ideas based upon the stories told by the older generation. It is the end result of mostly unconscious psychological processes that influence the child's identity and unconsciously give the child certain tasks' (Volkan, 1998, p 4). Similarly, the collective group experience is more than the sum total of the 'many individuals of that groups sharing similar symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, utilizing similar defense mechanisms, or exhibiting symptoms of similar psychological problems. Such traumatic events affect all those under the ethnic or national tent, and all are subjected to societal processes, many of them unconscious, in response' (Volkan, 1998, p 4). Taking on their own specific characteristics, the transgenerational transmissions of trauma are then collective phenomena, which reflect societal processes or indeed political ideologies.
Particular individuals though, John clearly being a case in point, feel the weight of this national seemingly epigenetically transmitted melancholia bearing down on them more acutely than on others, with a psychic need to take upon themselves the reparations needed to grieve, and thus resolve the mourning process. The loss and mourning for an ambivalently loved object gives rise in Melanie Klein's schema, for a concern to put matters right which she terms 'reparation' (Klein, 1987). The reparative process involves not only restoring the obsessively mourned object, but in shoring up the psyche of the individual himself, and for Klein 'it is not only an object about whom guilt is experienced but also parts of the self which the subject is driven to repair or restore' (Klein, 1987, p 187).
If the sense of guilt is though overly strong according Klein, 'this identification may lead to an entirely self sacrificing attitude which is very much to the child's disadvantage. It is well known that a child who has been brought up by a mother who showers love on him and expects nothing in return often becomes a selfish person' (Klein, 2002, p 318). The reparative self-sacrifice is then repaid by the object as represented by the Irish State, by furthering its own 'selfish' geopolitical concerns. This resulted in the imprisonment of John and his IRA colleagues who reflected a projective mirror of the object's guilt and humiliation, as the government was comprised entirely of former IRA members.
John: 'rebelled against the authority because the authority ...
To keep the order, the law and order, that that state or foreign government wanted ... And they're Irishmen. And as long as they keep backing that foreign power, I'll keep fighting them'.
Unlike for Volkan who sees resurrected trauma as being deployed as an agitating tool by malignantly narcissistic leaders, the Irish Famine for John was an always already living thing, a function of his ego identity. From his personal perspective, John eschews the notion of this trauma as an incitement to dehumanise a hated 'Other'. John has it rather that, 'they're human beings the same as I am', and that he has 'no quarrel with the English people', only an English Government that he believes has oppressed his ancestors and was in league in the immediate pre-war period as the newly released documents actually confirm, with the Irish Government (Personal Communication, John Hunt, 2014; Thomson, 2011).
Relating to the Wider Context of Terrorism
Terrorists according to Post, draw their membership 'from marginal, isolated, and inadequate individuals from troubled families, so that for many, belonging to the terrorist group is the first time they have truly belonged to any group' (Post, 1986, p 211, emphasis in the original). John though was born into a reasonably prosperous professional and merchant family well integrated and respected in his locality. John's identity is the wider but actually for him the more visceral sense of being Irish;
John: 'That's, that's my core and my identity' ... It's, it is a love ...
It's a real thing to me ... I live it every day
Very confident and assured in this personal and national identity, John does not seek to shore it up by group affiliation indeed that the group must reflect his identity and national ideology;
John: 'If there is an organization let them be called the IRA, let them be called anything they like. If they're for the good of my country. If they, if their ideas are the same as mine, I am with them. I am with them'
Rather than the crudely ethnic enmity projected out as described by Volkan, who has it that the terrorist's 'targets of his violence are symbolized as unwanted and dangerous elements that originated from his internal world', John's enemy is the ambivalent institutional manifestation of his own introjected object, Ireland and indeed the Irish (Volkan, 1998, p 162; Robins and Post, 1997). The conflict he is engaged in could be seen in fact, as an attempt at repairing this internal ambivalence of the transgenerationally transmitted humiliation and guilt which is at the same time the source of his core identity and self worth. Whilst an extremely devout Catholic, John is at pains to point out that he bore no sectarian animosity, having it that 'my best friend was a Protestant and he was executed' (Personal Communication, John Hunt, 2014).
The notion deployed by Volkan of a dichotomous borderline conceptualisation of splitting and projective ethnic enmity is not only inherently reductive, but actually subverts by subsuming the ideological complexity of these conflicts (Volkan 1998). Similarly Post's notion of the terrorist group's borderline splitting off the all bad and hated aspects of its collective group self, and projecting them onto the enemy, does not reverse engineer to reflect a similar individual developmental process or outcomes (Robins and Post, 1997). Belying the essential borderline symptomatic pattern of unstable and intense relationships which Post associates with the traumatic psychic injury and the splitting and projective identification that delineates his terrorist cohort, John was happily married to the same woman for some seventy years, and he rejects any association with the borderline traits of impulsivity, addiction and associated criminality, but does not deny its existence in his movement (Post 2007).
John: 'I don't, I'm not a dope addict and I'm not a drunk. I am an ordinary, honest, living person. Who would like, to cause no problem to any individual ...
But then you always have the opportunist who will come in and create that problem which will create a far, a bad impression on the rest of Ireland. I'm not saying, every man in jail for the republic is that. But you have characters that, that sell dope'.
(Personal Communication, John Hunt, 2014)
In so far as he 'followed' leaders, they represented a tool for John to address the ambivalences of his ego identity. John emphatically eschews the notion that he had been inspired by his leaders or followed them because of their charisma;
John: 'I didn't follow anybody.
They were a part of the same history and the same culture I was ....
they shared my philosophy'.
John was not then one of what Post describes as 'alienated, frustrated individuals' drawn in by the charismatic leader (Post, 2005, p 8). He was pulled into a conflict as a means of making reparations with his introjected object, his 'father' (Ireland);
John: 'I never thought the world against me ...
No not one was not against me. The people who took my father were against me ... And I would want to die until I got that father back'
Effectively a prisoner of conscience, John's experience does not reflect Post's notion of the lock and key fit between the mirror-hungry personality of the charismatic leader and the ideal-hungry personality of the follower (Post, 2004). There was though a traumatising catalyst for his career as a rebel, however it happened not to John but a cousin of his;
John: 'Three miles from me there was, four men arrested, sitting on a bridge, and the black and tans [a specially recruited British force, notorious for its ill discipline] come in, they arrested the four men.
They put them, they took them to the other side of the ditch, and off of the road and they shot three of them and one man got away ... They killed them and brutally murdered them ... And the, one of these people was a cousin of mine'
John's was not then a personally traumatic event of narcissistic wounding as described by Volkan analysis. John claims to have had a very happy childhood and loving relationship with his parents so he does not appear to have been narcissistically wounded as per Post's early traumatogenic object relating formulation (Volkan, 1998; Post 1986). John's reaction to the incident would though seem to relate to a desire for revenge, as reflecting the darker side of a sense of injustice, recognised according to David Silke, to be 'for most terrorists a key motivation for joining a terrorist organisation' (Silke, 2003, p 39).
This desire for revenge is again not necessarily pathological per se, because as Cota-McKinley et al's research shows, that in Western culture revenge 'fulfils a wide variety of goals, including righting perceived injustice, restoring the self-worth of the vengeful individual, and deterring future injustice' (Cota-Mckinley et al, 2001, p 344). Revenge is also tied according to Cota- Mckinley et al, to the self worth of the individual, so that frequently it is individuals with little power who 'seek revenge against powerful adversaries even though the action has overwhelming costs' (ibid). Indeed terrorism is effectively the tactic of the weak deployed against the strong.
Addressing Post's central tenet that the 'cause is not the cause ... individuals become terrorists in order to join terrorist groups and commit acts of terrorism', John's story categorically rejects (Post, 1998, p 35, emphasis in the original);
John: 'The real man is not doing it for self interests.
He's doing it for a cause that he thinks is just.
What is a cause? A cause is a problem.
A foreign power in my country'
Whatever other particular and personal psychic impulsions John may have had, the decision to dedicate his life and to an ideal and the consequent disruption of his life was a momentous one;
John: 'My social life was interrupted by a foreign power ...
And as long as there's a foreign flag in Ireland, I will fight until the day I die to get rid of that ...
I wouldn't, you wouldn't call it happiness ... That I took this stand in life ... But I, I took it as a natural event ... Of course, I am, very proud of it ...
When a man lays down his life for his principles, there must be something in it'
For Jerrold Post and the personality pathology theory of terrorism 'political terrorists are driven to commit acts of violence as a consequence of psychological forces, and that their special psycho-logic is constructed to rationalize acts they are psychologically compelled to commit' (Post, 1998, p 25, emphasis in the original). Normatively locating grievance and its outcome within the psyche of the 'Other', has the effect of enlisting psychoanalytic conceptualisations in support of one particular side in a politico/ideological conflict. As Raymond Corrado argues, political terrorists are then seen as engaging 'in gratuitous violence, which reveals psychopathological rather than socio-political' causes (Corrado, 1981, p 295). The policy consequences are that if terrorists are pathological, 'their political demands can be ignored and the strategic focus will be overwhelmingly a military response. If terrorists are political idealists, then it raises the possibility that complex political and social issues must be addressed by governmental policy' (Corrado, 1981, p 293).
Although the personality pathology model is the dominant psychoanalytic paradigm in explaining political violence, there is though no reason in particularly Freudian depth psychology, why either social upheaval or individual participation in it, should be regarded as normatively pathological. The culture wide melancholia induced by the Great Famine was reflected in a universal nationalist aspiration, so that individuals acting upon that sentiment could not in Freud's terms be regarded as individually pathological because 'for an individual neurosis we take as our starting-point the contrast that distinguishes the patient from his environment, which is assumed to "normal". For a group all of whose members are affected by one and the same disorder no such background could exist' (Freud, 1930, XXI, 144).
Similarly, such revolutionary activity may be viewed as psychohistorical evolution as with, in Freud's terms, 'victors and vanquished who turn into masters and slaves. The justice of the community then becomes an expression of the unequal degrees of power…the oppressed members of the group make constant efforts to obtain more power…from unequal justice to justice for all…a solution by violence, ending in the establishment of a fresh rule of law' (Freud and Einstein, 1933, XXII, p 206). Hegemonic normative forces induce psychic crises, with authoritarian regimes Nancy Caro Hollander argues, splitting the world 'into good and evil–Western Civilization vs. "subversion;" the projection of everything bad onto a hated object (the "subversive") with the consequent need to control it for fear of being controlled by it' (Caro Hollander, 2006, p 4). Revolutionary violence could then as Caro Hollander claims, derive from the resultant trauma, deprivation and frustration, with 'groups seeking a radical change in the social order, often based on attitudes of love, concern, and responsibility for others' (ibid, p 3).
The principle objective of this paper has been to demonstrate that psychoanalysis as a depth psychology, can transcend political/ideological considerations in respect of the justice or otherwise of a cause, or any overlapping moral opprobrium over the tactics employed (i.e. terrorism). The aim has been to provide a psychoanalytic analysis relating to notions of identity individual and national as they affect the individual's psyche and the individual's psychic responses to national trauma and conflict.
Barry Geoghegan is a PhD student at the Centre for Psychoanalytic Research, Middlesex University.
Coogan, T. (1993). The IRA: a history, Niwot, Colorado: Roberts Rinehart Publishers.
Corrado, R. (1981) 'A Critique of the Mental Disorder Perspective of Political
Terrorism', International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, Vol.4, pp, 293-309.
Cota-McKinley, A., Woody, W. and Bell, P. (2001) 'Vengeance: Effects of Gender, Age, and Religious Background', Aggressive Behaviour, Vol: 27, pp 343-350.
Eissler, K. (2002) 'On Hatred: With Comments on the Revolutionary, the Saint, and the Terrorist' in Covington, C., Williams, P., Arundale, J. and Knox, J. (Eds), Terrorism and War: Unconscious Dynamics of Political Violence, London, Karnac.
Erikson, E. (1960) 'The Problem of Ego Identity' in Stein, M., Vidich, J. and White, D. Eds, Identity and Anxiety: Survival of the Person in Mass Society, Illinois, The Free Press of Glencoe.
Erikson, E. (1968) Identity: Youth and Crisis, London, Faber and Faber.
Freud, S. (1917 [1915]-2001), Mourning and Melancholia, S.E. XIV, London, Vintage.
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Psycho-Analysis and Other Works, S.E. XXII, London, Hogarth Press.
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Klein, Melanie (2002) Love, guilt and reparation: and other works 1921-1945, Volume 1, New York, Simon and Schuster.
MacEoin, U. (1997) The IRA in the Twilight Years: 1923-1948, Dublin, Argenta Publications.
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Robins, S. and Post, J. (1997) Political Paranoia: The Psychopolitics of Hatred, London, Yale University Press.
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Psychological Forces' in Reich, W. (Ed) Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind, Washington, Woodrow Wilson Center Press.
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It happens to the best of us, sometimes when we are least expecting it. This is a travellers must read.
When my sons were 12 and 13 I took them on a three week taste test of Asia. We only visited three countries; Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia but it was a great introduction for two kids who have grown up in Australia in suburbia.
I was somewhat affected by the sights, smells and sounds but put on a brave face for the boys. However my 13 year old was a mess just from the short trip from getting off the plane to getting to our hotel. He got out of the hotel transfer car white as a sheet and shaking.
The traffic in all its crazy glory and near misses was too much. And within an hour of that he was googling all the nearest hospitals, the location of the Australian Embassy, refusing to eat and coating himself with hand sanitiser.
I was really unsure of how to manage it, we had a couple of chats, but I didn't want to make a big deal of it and make him feel bad or make things worse. Kids are resilient, and luckily by the next day he was crossing Ho Chi Minhs crazy streets like a local and eating street food with no concerns.
It's not a sign that you are not meant to travel and explore the world if you suffer from culture shock, it happens to the best of us!
But what are the signs, and what can you do to ensure you still have fun on your trip?
So what causes culture shock?
Of course, there are many things but those are the most common reasons travellers find they don't feel like their usual self.
So what can be done so you can enjoy the trip you've been planning endlessly?
Do some research before you go – Learn some easy phrases and find out the local customs. This will help you communicate on a basic level and give you some understanding of the locals.
Read as many reviews as possible about your location or accommodation so you know what to expect when you arrive.
Explore the area and interact with the locals. You'll find a couple of haunts that you are comfortable with and maybe make a few new friends who can help you explore further afield.
Find some expats or other travellers. You can talk about home but most importantly they have probably felt the same way as you at some time and may be able to provide some insight into how they managed their feelings.
Keep a journal. Let it all out!
Keep in contact with friends and family back home. Just because you are travelling doesn't mean you have to isolate yourself from your support system.
Look after yourself. Make sure you are sleeping enough, don't drink excessively and eat well.
Do something familiar regularly. It may be as simple as finding a restaurant that has a menu like home, going to the gym or participating in a hobby you did before you started travelling.
Culture shock can sometimes hit unexpectedly, but by recognising the symptoms hopefully you can prevent it from ruining your travel plans.
If you feel you are experiencing severe anxiety, stress or depression you should seek advice from a medical professional.


I am not sure who the original source is but after a quick search I found that a Finnish opera singer, Tom Krause, should be the source. Actually the source is not important; the quote is good anyway.
The quote stresses how thoughts become your destiny following a pattern that makes your thought become your reality.
Let us say that you have a negative thought… but where does that thought come from? Did you wake up this morning saying: "Today I will have only negative thoughts!" No, I do not think so. The thought is always induced by something; maybe it was induced by some experience or event. This means we need something prior to thought in the pattern from the quote – like 'event'?
Yes, event makes sense, but it will not fit the quote because you cannot watch your events; they would be out of your control. But what is not out of your control is your perception of events. You can choose how you will perceive an event or experience. You have the power to choose to see life from a positive angle rather than a negative. I think that is what the quote is trying to tell us.
If you choose to perceive events from a negative focus you will convey the experience in negative words and they will induce some kind of negative action. If you keep doing this then your negative attitude will become a habit. From one of my other posts you know that habits are the building blocks of your life and if you choose to build your personality from negative building blocks then your life and destiny is going to be a negative experience.
Do you want that? No, you do not – that is not the nature of man. We want security and happiness and you can get that if you start watching your thoughts.
I have made it a habit, or routine, to listen to YouTube seminars while riding my bike every day. My bike is the best mean of transportation I could ever think of. I never get stuck in traffic and I am not dependent on buses or other kinds of public transportation. My bike is the ultimate mean of transportation because it makes me feel free.
I travel between 10 and 30 km every day on my bike and yesterday I had a 20 minutes ride; just enough to listen to some wise words of the Shaolin monks. There was a story about a monk wanting to teach how to throw a punch. The student had a lot of experience in martial arts and was interested in the advanced stuff of the Shaolin monks.
The teaching of the Shaolin monk was that knowing how to do advanced stuff does not make you a master. You become a master by mastering the basics. I have practiced taekwondo for almost 20 years; I stopped practicing a couple of years ago. I did not find the joy in practicing as I used to do; I did not feel challenged. It was great physical exercise and it felt good being able to do things that few can do, but after a while I wanted to do more than that. But there were not anymore techniques to learn. For about 12 years I instructed beginners in the basics of taekwondo and I found it very rewarding. By teaching others I learned much more myself.
Today I practice swimming and the first three years of swimming I felt an enormous progress, but now I am stagnating. For a while I have been thinking if I should become a swimming instructor? On the side I experienced with rowing and I became quite good at it and I also became a rowing instructor. I have proved several times that I am good at sports, but I am not a master although I can do a lot of the advanced stuff.
In taekwondo my greatest success was doing the side kick; it became good and powerful and it still is. For me it was one of the most difficult techniques to do and I decided to become good at it. Four to five times a week I practiced the side kick in slow-motion; I did hundreds of repetitions for a whole year and I finally got good at it.
I used the power of habits to learn every single movement of the leg to perform a side kick. That is the closest I ever got to master the basics in taekwondo although I was generally good at it. The words of the Shaolin monk made me think about this. He made me think about my life in general.
I think a lot of people want to be experts and masters at something and the practice hard and they learn a lot of techniques in whatever they are doing, but they never become experts; they never become masters. I think that the true masters of a discipline are not trying to become masters. They are studying every aspect of the basics; they have done an in depth research and they now everything that you can possibly know about the basics.
By mastering the basics of your life you have an excellent foundation to perform the advanced stuff upon. By mastering the basics using good habits you can become the master of your life and the master of your destiny.
According to the dictionary a habit is: "… a routine behaviour that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously." We need habits to make a solid foundation upon which we can build our life. Sometimes these habits become a hinder to what we want because they have turned into bad habits. That often happens when conditions in our environment change and we do not change with these conditions.
E.g. every day you drive the same way for work, and you have done it for years. If someone at work would ask you how many traffic lights you saw on the way and how many of the traffic lights were red, then you would not be able to answer. Driving to work is a routine that you do not think about and your subconscious mind has taken over most of your driving.
Many years ago I drove my car the same way every day and one day I missed a traffic light and ran through a red light. How could that happen? Well, the traffic light was new and it had never been there before and was not a part of my unconscious routines. My old habit suddenly had to change or it would turn into a bad habit of running through red lights.
Habits are very powerful because they are actions that we do without having to think about what we are doing. That is why you can take charge of your own life and destiny as soon as you learn how to control your habits. Old habits are very difficult to break and new habits are difficult to make because the routines of the habits are programmed into your neural pathways and you need to reprogram yourself to control your habits.
Aristotle said that virtues are habits and the good life is a life of mindless routine. Basically this means that your life equals your habits. If your habits are good you will have a good life, if your habits are bad you will have a bad life. Take a look at your life and see if you succeed in what you are doing. Are you happy? If not, then maybe you should consider doing thing differently.
Stephen R. Covey is the author of the book "7 Good Habits of Highly Effective People" and he found that habits are the sum of our knowledge, desire and skills. I highly recommend this book and in my upcoming posts I will show you how important emotions are as well.
"Who am I?" gave 45 million results on Google and the term "Who are you?" gave 74 million results. It seems like 45 million people do not know who they are and about 74 million people want to tell you who you really are.
Well, I know that conclusion is a bit off, but it is thought provoking that 45 million people question themselves. They must be somebody and if they do not know who they are, then who does? Do you know who you are? Are you in charge of your own life?
You should spend time every day of your life to discover yourself and develop yourself. Take charge of your life and do not let other people tell you who you are and what you should do. The only way you will be happy is by being yourself and living your life.
Everything you are and everything you want to become is inside yourself just waiting to be discovered. Most people do not realise how much influence they have on their own destiny. Some people are unhappy and discontent with who they are and what they have become and if I ask them to do something about it they reply – I cannot change who I am, or – this is my destiny.
You know what? – They are right about the fact that they cannot change who they are, so why do they keep trying? Without knowing they are trying to be what they are expected to be by their friends, family, colleagues, fellow students etc. These people think that this is who they are and they just have to settle with that. But that is not how it is.
Did you know that you can see yourself reflected in other people? Your mood will be adapted by people around you and if they like you the will mimic you. You do this as well; it is something you do unconsciously. If you do not take charge of these reflections then your social circle will define you.
I suggest that you spend some time alone with yourself every day. Discover what your needs are, what your dreams are, what you feelings are, how you would like to be. Then start communicating what you discover, start being with people that reflect your values and your dreams.
Take charge of your destiny!


Since I know a few people heading to Maui or are thinking about heading there this year, I thought I'd finally write a blog about everything you need to see and do while on vacation in Maui!
The cheapest way to find travel and lodging in Maui is to set up alerts with Google Flights to track the price of flights and to browse Airbnb and VBRO for vacation rentals. Hotels are crazy expensive there, and you can save money by getting a fully stocked condo unit and preparing a few meals at your condo. TIP: Look early and often (6 months or more out) as the good ones book up fast. We had to split our time between two vacation rentals because we couldn't get the one unit for two weeks together.
We ended up getting plane tickets on Air Canada for $450 CAD each round trip, and two weeks of accommodation for $1,025 CAD each. Not bad, considering last time we went to Maui in 2013 we spent $1,400 each on flights and condo rental for just one week! That same vacation (flight on WestJet and accommodation at the Aston Maui Banyan booked through Expedia) was $1,800 this time around. We also went in January this time instead of March, which is a less expensive time to go. January tends to be a bit rainier and windier than March, but is still beautiful, sunny and warm.
After you book your flights and vacation rental, book your Jeep (yes, get a Jeep because they're fun and awesome) with Kihei Rent A Car – they're the most affordable and nicest family run car rental business on Maui. They'll pick you up and drop you off at the airport in a shuttle from their central location in Kihei for free. We paid $1,492 for a two-week rental ($373 each), drove all around the island and only had to fill the tank a few times.
One other thing you'll need before you go (aside from your bathing suit and flippy floppies!) is Maui Revealed: The Ultimate Guidebook. We were lent a copy and found it super helpful when circumnavigating the island around the north-west tip and on the Road to Hana. The book also points out interesting sights, stops and tips along the way, such as weird food truck stops that are good (like Julie's Banana Bread) and ones that are not-so-good (like Teddy's Burgers – trust me, it looked sketchy), as well as historical tidbits that make your travels much more interesting.
After visiting Maui four times now and staying in four different places, I still recommend Kihei as your home base for laid-back beach vibes that's close enough to markets and restaurants so you don't spend half of your vacation driving around in the car. If you're looking for more of a quiet beach vacation and would rather lie poolside/beachside with a book for the majority of your vacation than go adventuring, stay up in Kaanapali.
Kamaole Beach 2 in Kihei – quiet at 7 am during a morning run!
Kaanapali is more of a resort town, and I think next time we go I'd like to stay here and spend a bit more time on the beach there, which is beautiful. Kihei's beaches are also beautiful but smaller and often busy. Kaanapali is about 45 minutes from Kihei, so it's a bit more of a drive from central activities.
This time we split our time between Kihei and Lahaina. Lahaina is the royal capital of Maui, and is a fun little village/town with lots of shops and markets. I wouldn't stay here again, as there isn't really a beach nearby and the condo resort wasn't as nice. Although it was cool to be within walking distance of all the shops (and a delicious gelato store on the corner), I'd rather come here for a day trip than to stay here for the duration of our time in Maui.
Wailea is also a beautiful place to stay (it's just east of Kihei), but can be pretty pricey. The North and East sides of Maui tend to get more rain and are more residential than resort towns, though I'm sure you could find some lovely vacation rentals out that way, too.
These condos are in the prime part of Kihei across from the beach that look awesome. I've stayed in the Maui Bayan and Maui Kamaole.
The condos/resort hotels in this area are all lovely but pricey, so here are a few of the cheaper/nice ones. I've stayed in the Aston Kaanapali Shores.
Stay tuned for next week when I recap what you must do while on Maui if you have one week or two weeks.
I already want to go back!!
I heart Maui so much!
I am jonesing so hard for Hawaii now! I've never been to Maui before but I love the North Shore of Oahu so much.
Great tips! I have just travelled around my country so I always want to take a trip abroad. If i get a vacation and save enough money, Hawaii will be one of my first destination.
It's never that crowded on Maui! I'll be writing a post about where to eat and what to do/see next week so stay tuned!
Thanks a lot. You did a great review. I think I will start saving money from now for a trip to Maui. The scenery is amazing.


The next UI I have been working on is the Colony listing — available via the "Planets" tab. One has to play the game a bit to get enough data to test this screen and I was soon sidetracked by a bunch of little annoying bugs that I was compelled to squash before continuing. Those were all taken care of today, allowing me to smoothly progress from a single, starting colony to the entire galaxy with no issues at all. Below is a screenshot example. I use the Silicoid race for this testing since they do not require discovering colonization techs to expand.
All of the systems, except for two without planets, have been colonized. I've highlighted the Orion system (its Guardian ship will be added in Phase 3 or 4) and you can see that the randomly generated planets can have ice caps now. Realistic clouds are on the list to be done soon!
Below is a very early mockup of the Colony list. It still has a lot of work left but this is where I stopped to focus on bugs. The columns are sortable (unlike the original game).
I expect this UI to be done next weekend.


text:
Alabaster Reporter
Harpersville
Helena Magazine
Indian Springs
North Shelby
Pelham Reporter
Westover
Thompson's Kevin Todd named Coach of the Year after championship season
Published 4:42 pm Wednesday, June 1, 2022
By Alec Etheredge
Thompson head coach Kevin Todd has been named this year's Coach of the Year in Shelby County after winning the team's third state championship in school history. (Reporter photo/Keith McCoy)
By ALEC ETHEREDGE | Managing Editor
As the final out was caught in center field to cap off Thompson's path to the Class 7A State Championship, head coach Kevin Todd was already in front of the fans giving emphatic fist pumps, before ultimately holding to No. 1 finders up in the air.
For the next several minutes, he couldn't help but continually throw up the No. 1 sign and do so emphatically toward his fans and players after he helped bring back the school's first state championship since back-to-back titles in 1998 and 1999.
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"Amazing, right? Amazing," he said. "I'm at a loss of words. God is good. We put all of our trust in him win or lose. These girls are fighters. They're amazing. I don't know if it's hit me yet, but wow, I'm speechless."
Now, after helping Thompson win its third state championship in school history, he has earned the right at Shelby County Softball Coach of the Year as well.
He helped the Warriors not only come back and win the title this year after last year's day-one exit from the state tournament, but they did so this season by going a perfect 4-0 and ending with back-to-back wins against two-time defending champion Hewitt-Trussville.
Thompson beat Hewitt in eight innings to cap off day one of the state tournament and advance in the winner's bracket to the championship before coming back a day later to win the title against the Huskies with a 2-0 shutout.
In the state tournament alone, the Warriors beat Spain Park 4-2 and Central-Phenix City 9-0 ahead of the two consecutive wins against the Huskies en route to the championship.
It was a path to the title that started a year ago when the Warriors saw what was possible with their entire team set to come back this season.
"Oh, that's all we talked about. Last year, I'll be honest with you, we were happy to get here," head coach Kevin Todd said. "As a coach, we thought Hewitt was the team to beat last year, and that turned out to be true. I didn't know if we could compete with them last year because we were young, but after we lost out, our next meeting we had, we set our goals."
This year, the message was completely different on the way to the state championship game on Thursday, May 19.
"When we met in the locker room before we got on the bus to come down here, it was a different story this year," Todd said. "It was, 'We're going to win it.'"
And that's exactly what the Warriors were able to do.
With pitchers Eleanor DeBlock and Chalea Clemmons boasting more than 250 combined strikeouts and records of 20-4 and 16-1, respectively, and four batters hitting .453 or better at the plate, the Warriors were the one of the most complete and balanced teams in the state.
But Todd's presence as the coach was key not only this year but in getting the team to believe this was a possibility the last several years.
It came in a season where Helena head coach Scott Lowery also led his team to becoming one of the final two teams in Class 6A, Spain Park head coach CJ Hawkins took her team back to the 7A state tournament and Calera head coach Robert Albritton helped his team go on a magical postseason ride to the final day of the 6A state tournament as one of the final four teams in the classification.
Todd's leadership, however, was an integral piece to the state championship, which was more than enough to earn him this year's honor as the top coach in Shelby County.
More Alabaster Reporter
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It has been several weeks since the high school baseball season gave way to the dog days of summer.
Yet even as the days grow longer, the echoes of this past season can still be heard like the crack of a bat in the crisp morning air of spring.
The seasoned veterans that dominated on the field are making their final preparations before joining their college teammates and taking the next step in their careers. While the younger players are already working on improving for the seasons to come.
This past year of high school baseball in Montgomery County was as memorable for the incredible team accomplishments as the individuals that separated themselves from their peers.
There were those that built upon their success of years past, and there were also breakout performances from unexpected places.
From up north at Willis to down south at Oak Ridge, and everywhere in between, Montgomery County was filled with a multitude of remarkable performances.
The Courier's Player of the Year from last season made a strong enough case to receive the award again by doing the same things he did so well a year ago: dominating on the mound and crushing baseballs with his bat.
As a junior, Oak Ridge pitcher Tyler Davis saw his role with the War Eagles grow as the year went on. With each passing game, his position as one of the team's leaders became more defined.
This year, that role was solidified as he was named a team captain ahead of his senior season. Oak Ridge coach Mike Pirtle says Davis benefited from knowing his place within the team heading into this year's campaign.
"In crucial situations, it didn't matter if it was batting or pitching, he came through," Pirtle said. "The competitiveness that he has when he got into the game is what really, really helped us out. He just matured some this year and knew his role, which was bigger than it was last year."
After his strong junior season, Davis wasn't slipping past anyone's radar. Teams were planning for him and trying to find ways to neutralize his effectiveness.
The true mark of Davis' season is that even with the extra attention, he made the right adjustments to put him-self and his teammates in position to win games.
With a target on his back, Davis' production in 2017 was as consistent as it was in 2016.
On the mound this season, Davis was 9-4 with a 1.29 ERA and 71 strikeouts with 20 walks over 81 1/3 innings. And at the plate, he hit .344 with a .427 on-base percentage, five doubles, one triple, seven home runs, 26 RBIs and 17 runs scored.
He was also named District 12-6A's Most Valuable Player.
"Baseball is a game of adjustments," Pirtle said. "We tried to make some with him, and he was very coachable and understood that this is what we needed to do. He was actually one of our best bunters. Whatever it takes to win, he'd go out, get it done, come back to the dugout and get a high five."
More so than his on-field accomplishments, Pirtle says it is Davis' "team-first attitude" that made him so valuable to Oak Ridge.
"Tyler was one of those kids that everyone kind of went around him because he was so well liked," Pirtle said. "He was never boastful about anything he did, [and] that in itself says a lot. I think he loved playing for the school and loved playing for his teammates. Sometimes, kids know they are a leader and kind of just go through the motions, but it wasn't like that at all with him. That is kind of what he is all about. Hopefully at the next level he'll love playing for Wichita State."
Davis signed with Wichita State back in the fall after committing to the Shockers earlier that summer.
With the same work ethic Davis brought each day to Oak Ridge, Pirtle anticipates great things from the 6-foot-3, 190-pound right-hander.
"I hope he gets to play both positions and is able to hit also," Pirtle said. "But whatever, pitching or hitting, he is going to get bigger and stronger, and I think he'll even get faster. The work is going to be there, and he is going to put it in. I don't think he is tapped out yet."
While there were plenty of talented hurlers in Montgomery County this season, one stood out above the rest: Magnolia junior ace and TCU commit Adam Kloffenstein. He is The Courier's Pitcher of the Year.
Kloffenstein was masterful on the mound, finishing the year with a 6-1 record and a minuscule 0.49 ERA. He collected 60 strikeouts against 24 walks in 56 2/3 innings and posted a .935 WHIP.
"He meant [going] to the playoffs, for one thing, because I don't think we could have been there without him," Magnolia coach Dale Westmoreland said. "He had a below-1 ERA, but he was a guy you could count on each and every time. You knew you were going to have a good outing every time. I think he's a guy that if he works hard, really dedicates himself ― which at TCU, if he goes there, they're going to make sure of that ― I think he has a lot of pro potential."
Kloffenstein did not surrender an earned run until his fifth appearance of the season in a District 20-5A battle against Magnolia West on March 24. That stretch to begin the year spanned 22 2/3 innings.
The only loss on his record came against district champion Brenham, a team that ultimately reached the regional finals. But even in that game, Kloffenstein allowed just two earned runs in six innings of work.
The Bulldogs' 6-foot-5, 220-pound right-hander was lights out in the postseason as well, guiding his team to an 11-1 victory in Game 1 of the bi-district playoffs against Cedar Park. He pitched six shutout innings, allowing just two hits and one walk with six strikeouts.
Magnolia ultimately lost the series, dropping Games 2 and 3 after Kloffenstein's gem.
"He's got a good fastball, and he's got a nice breaking ball," Westmoreland said. "He throws hard, but he's going to develop into a guy that throws extremely hard. … I thought he kept his poise when things weren't going so well. That's how you get out of jams ― you bow your neck and say, 'I'm going to get out of this.' He was mentally tough."
When it comes to the mythical batting title in Montgomery County, the race was simply not close this season. Magnolia junior shortstop Jordan Groshans took that designation, and because of his outstanding production at the plate, he is The Courier's Offensive MVP.
Groshans, a University of Kansas commit, finished the season with a .442 batting average, nine doubles, four triples, five home runs, 28 RBIs and 29 runs scored in 29 games played. He had an on-base percentage of .545 and a slugging percentage of .814, giving him an eye-popping OPS of 1.359.
"When he gets in a good position, his hands get through awfully quick," Westmoreland said. "That allows you to see pitches longer when you can snap a bat through quickly. So I think that's what he has going for him, and the more he matures as a hitter, the better he's going to get. I think he has great things in store for him."
Groshans finished the year with 10 multi-hit games and recorded at least one hit in all but four contests. Perhaps his best game of the season came in the opening playoff win against Cedar Park when he went 3-for-4 with a double, a home run, four RBIs and three runs scored.
Groshans was also a valuable player on defense with a .937 fielding percentage and had a 3-1 record as a pitcher with a 2.80 ERA in 35 innings on the mound.
"We really depended on him a whole lot," Westmoreland said. "We would have struggled if he hadn't gone to the mound, and at shortstop, we had a good infield with him and (second baseman) Logan (Allen). He's quite a player, no doubt about it."
For the past two seasons, The Woodlands coach Ron Eastman has known that any ball hit in the air to center field had a good chance of ending up in the glove of Vince Secrest. If there was a play to be made, he would make it.
In his senior season, Secrest committed just one error in the outfield while posting a .983 fielding percentage on 58 total chances, earning him a first-team All-District 12-6A selection and The Courier's Defensive MVP honors.
"We felt that anything that was hit out there, he was going to make the play," Eastman said. "He is a headstrong guy and had the mentality that nothing was going to fall. He has a good, strong arm, and he was able to keep runners off second and third, and he threw out a couple at the bases. He was an outstanding defensive force for us, and he is going to be a hard guy to replace."
Eastman says part of Secrest's talent as an outfielder can be traced to his history in other sports.
"He was a defensive back before he injured his shoulder, so he can definitely move and has tremendous instincts," Eastman said. "His lateral movement and his tracking ability is outstanding. His ability to go get the baseball is second to none. He was injured his sophomore year, and he probably would have been out there for us as a sophomore. But we've had him out there the last two years, and he has been as good a center fielder as we've played against or seen during that time."
Secrest will continue his career at Lamar University next season where Eastman anticipates he will flourish under new Cardinals head coach Will Davis.
"Lamar is an up-and-coming program with a new coach that I think has an opportunity to make a mark," Eastman said. "Secrest has tremendous potential. He has a strong baseball IQ and is an outstanding athlete. He is also a good hitter and has good instincts on the bases. He is a guy that can probably play any of the three outfield positions in college and be an offensive force as well. Some of the bigger schools may be regretting not going after him."
Few players came up as big in crucial situations this season as The Woodlands freshman Drew Romo, The Courier's Newcomer of the Year.
What's more, Romo led the 12-6A champion Highlanders with a .405 batting average and 22 RBIs. He was also among the team leaders with a .500 on-base percentage, seven doubles, two triples and 19 runs scored.
"We saw early in the fall during offseason that he had the physical ability to compete at the varsity level this year," Eastman said. "More importantly, he had the mental makeup, the maturity, to handle the rigors of high school baseball."
Romo came to The Woodlands as already one of the state's top catchers in his class, but found himself playing shortstop for the Highlanders as a regular starter once district play rolled around.
"It was a surprise to a bunch of people when we put him at shortstop, but that was a position we needed to solidify going into district," Eastman said. "Romo is a difference maker behind the plate, but [this season] Zach La Canfora was a force for us back there, and we felt both guys needed to be in the lineup.
"We also moved him around to a couple different positions and realized he could play multiple positions. Once we got into the regular season, he just kept getting better - more comfortable swinging the bat, and he played solid defense for us. We couldn't have asked for a better year from a ninth grader to go out and compete at that level for us. I think you're going to see him behind the plate a lot the next three years."
Eastman said the biggest thing Romo had going for him this season was his baseball IQ. Regardless of the situation, Romo seemed to know what the right play was.
"That was the big thing for him," Eastman said. "He was just trying to find ways to help the team win. His baseball IQ is extremely high. He knows the game very well. He continued to get more comfortable the more reps he got out there. Once we decided to make the move, he caught on very quick. Being a catcher, he sees the game in front of him, and he was able to adjust well. All we asked of him was to make the routine plays, and he started to make great plays as the season went along. By the time we got to the end of district and into the playoffs, he was playing at a pretty high level for a ninth grader."
Earlier this summer, Romo, who was also named the 12-6A Newcomer of the Year, announced his verbal commitment to LSU.
"He has some definite goals here at The Woodlands and beyond," Eastman said. "So hopefully [committing to LSU] takes some pressure off of him to try and earn a scholarship, and he'll be able to work on getting stronger, faster, developing his baseball skills, and hopefully helping us win a couple championships over the next couple of years."
In his second season as the Warriors coach, Emrick Jagneaux led The Woodlands Christian Academy to the TAPPS Division III state championship game.
The veteran coach has transformed the Warriors into title contenders in just a short amount of time, which is why he is The Courier's Coach of the Year.
"It's an honor, especially with all the coaches we have in this county - there are some tremendous coaches here," Jagneaux said. "It was a great season, a great run for our kids. They worked really hard. The administration and parents were behind us 100 percent. Unfortunately, we came up short, but the future is bright."
Although the Warriors were unable to defeat Lubbock Christian in the title game, finishing as state runner-up is a vast improvement from where the team was three years ago.
"We exceeded all expectations," Jagneaux said. "Our kids really worked hard, and it was a season that I know they will remember for a long time. Our ultimate goal was to win a state championship. We got there; we just didn't finish our business. It was a good run for us, it was just unfortunate that we didn't get to finish the deal. But we set the foundation for next year."
When Jagneaux took over the program in 2016, the Warriors were coming off back-to-back losing seasons. In his first year, he turned them into a playoff team. In his second, the team finished with a 26-6 record as a state finalist.
"We came in here, and the kids started to believe that they could win, and we started to accomplish the things that we wanted to do," Jagneaux said. "We set goals and achieved most of them. But the one we really wanted, we couldn't get. We just have to keep working. The program is on the upswing, and we just have to keep going in that direction."
Jagneaux came to The Woodlands Christian Academy with more than 40 years of coaching experience. He has also won championships in the University Interscholastic League (UIL) and Southwest Preparatory Conference (SPC) - one of few coaches in Texas high school baseball history to do so.
His first assistant, Mike McGilvray, also has a championship resume, having led The Woodlands to the 5A state championship in 2000. The duo set out to change the culture at The Woodlands Christian Academy. And after two seasons, it seems they are well on their way.
"That was one of the biggest things - we had to change the culture here," Jagneaux said. "You have to expect to win those close games. You've got to learn how to win them and change your mindset. The kids have bought in. It has been a lot of fun, and it has been exciting."
Jagneaux says he has 10 players returning next season and at least six that will be heading into their third year with him.
"They know we came up short," Jagneaux said. "They've been through the whole gambit. They were here the first year where we tried to change it a little bit, then this year where we had a lot of success. They've been on both ends of it, and they know what it takes to get there. I'm excited about being here."