The Price Is Wrong.

The Price is wrong.

It is interesting what qualifies for eternal damnation in this administration. As the world seems but a tweet from immolation, as Noah's ark is being readied, as the beating heart of Obamacare is killing Republicans, as hatred and bigotry have come out from under a rock, as immigration has become a four letter word, as weapons are unholstered and the Constitution rests on wobbly legs, it is but failure to pay the equivalent of a parking ticket in the world inhabited by Mr. Price that has brought the power and fury down upon him. Rape and pillage but don't embarrass the King.

Mr. Price was a terrible affront to this nation and we wish him a bad riddance. In the game of musical chairs that is the centerpiece of the Trump debacle, no pledge of allegiance, no begging on bended knee, can save a doomed party from execution. While Rome burns, this Nero fiddles around.

From no drama Obama to this.  Mr. Price has learned the true cost of a free ride. 

"You're Fired." Old Habits Die Hard

("The Lecture That Donald Trump Needs")

Old habits die hard.

Donald Trump spent many years in front of this nation as his own ad campaign, ending each hour as ruler of his fiefdom with his most famous line "You're fired." For those whose actions did not meet the king's expectations, there was the guillotine. 

And this cruel bombast served Mr. Trump exceedingly well. It catapulted the show and it's star to prominence. It swelled an already enormous ego, elevated his brand and lined his pockets with gold. 

So when the man playing king became one, it was but natural extension for him to call for the expulsion of those who displeased him. The First Amendment, and those who exercise it, are but fodder to be discarded at the king's whim.

Should he say rise you dare not kneel.

And all the ensuing tumult does not necessarily distress the king. For in these moments, unsettled as they may be, all eyes and ears are focused on the orange faced wonder.

And what could be better for the ratings.

Oink

("A Trump Travel Ban We've Seen Before")

For all its window dressing, it's touch of Venezuela here or pinch of North Korea there, this is but another iteration of Mr. Trump's obsession with closing our doors and our hearts.

This will not make us safer. If anything, the enmity towards Muslims dripping from every syllable of this Presidential edict will serve only as further catalyst for those who would seek to do us ill.

Mr. Trump is best at destroying our good name and good sense with his wild, overstated accusations and actions, making us appear but the image of the ugly American.

While Mr. Trump may have skirted a Supreme Court lecture with his prestidigitation, he has not made a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

And putting lipstick on a pig doesn't mean it's still not a pig.

Oink.

Making America Great Again

("The Day the Real Patriots Took a Knee")

The "sons of bitches" took a knee. 

One thing for which Mr. Trump deserves credit: the rebirth of activism in this country. Long dormant, with hazy images of burning bras or massive anti-war protests, a generation that seemed far from ready, willing and able, has now risen up to give us a meaningful collective voice.

The death of Obamacare has surely been averted, at least this long, because of the the onslaught of opposition from the millions who refused to sit idly by and watch it's destruction. 

The immigration ban brought us out of our seats and into the streets. And while we have learned that there is a limit to what we can accomplish, as Mr. Trump's new edict takes effect, there is no limit to fervor and heart.

And on the football fields we did not take a knee in surrender, but we rose up, taller than ever. This was about much more than even the racial animus of a despicable despot. It was an awakening. 

We are indeed mad as hell and we are not going to take it anymore.

Thank you Mr. Trump for bringing out the better part of us. You really may make America great again.

Airball

("Trump Attacks Warrior's Curry. LeBron James's Retort:'U Bum'")

But a few days after baiting a leader who launches missiles at a seeming record clip, Mr. Trump now unleashes his fury on another well known for his long range weapon capabilities.

The "madman" Kim Jong-Un and the bad man Stephen Curry in the same sentence. What were the odds?

To say Mr. Trump's skin is thin is to insult skin. He sulks, he whines, he pouts. He complains, he berates, he bellows. He is the child we worried about, the one we feared would cause harm to himself or others if he didn't grow up. And look what has happened.

You, Mr. President, have spent these last years hurling insults at virtually everything that breathed from our former President to the leaders of your own party, from the parents of one whose son died in battle, to almost all those who ran against you for the position you now hold. You have denigrated Muslims, Mexicans. You have fired off tweets at former beauty queens, been dismissive of reporters, found fault with peaceful protesters. 

But understand this. Some things are sacrosanct. Even we have our limits on your petulant behavior. We love our sports and our sports heroes. Attack them and you attack us.

So chastise North Korea, Iran. Challenge NATO. Castigate Congress. But leave Mr. Curry alone. That is a bridge too far. 

Airball, Mr. President.

C.T.E. - Chicken (or) The Egg

("Is C.T.E. a Defense for Murder?")

Chicken (or) The Egg. CTE.

Was Aaron Hernandez an anger and hate filled young man whose wrongheaded propensities may have been exacerbated by years of football filled blows to the head? 

Or was his body merely an unwitting and uncontrollable vessel for a disease that created a volcanic personality disorder?

Can we excuse Money Mayweather? 

Do we forgive Ray Rice? 

What about Jovan Belcher?

Is it a bridge too far to excuse assault and murder? 

Do we believe, or at least does it create a reasonable doubt, that the fault lies not in these stars but in our sports?

Is our ultimate verdict not guilty by reason of the insanity of their chosen employment?

In the Dying Light

As we baby boomers collect our social security checks and contemplate retirement, we have become a generation of orphans. Our parents are gone, or soon will be.

My sister and I spent an excruciating decade watching our mother become ever and ever a smaller semblance of a being. Her dementia engulfed her mental and then her physical state while we were but helpless witness.

But the one most amazing benefit of this experience was the opportunity to see the relentless nature of my sister's devotion to our mom. One could only imagine that the mental fatigue, the exhaustion of the intimate examination of a life wasting away, would eventually lead to cracks and fissures. The visits would diminish. The favorite foods would be forgotten. The attention to detail would fade. The devotion would wane.

But until my mom's dying breath, that never was the case with my sister. The same sweet treats appeared even when it became virtually impossible for my mom to eat. The calls to the caretakers were as steady on the last day of their duties as the first. The  coloring of my mom's hair years after she went blind and was not even aware of who and where she was, was unquestionable.

There was an uncompromising, unbending, unyielding attachment of child to parent, and time and pain were no match for an indomitable will.

Dedicating hours upon days upon months upon years, repaying a parent's love. Contemplating nothing quite so much as never having done enough.

Our children have witnessed the worst of our generation. The idealism of the 60's turning to the excesses of Wall Street. The belief that we were going to be different, going to make a difference becoming a question of whatever happened. The promise of tomorrow becoming the often sad reality of today. But, in my sister's unwavering commitment, and even in me as I was pulled along in her wake, they have seen something far better.

If you were to ask my son or daughter, or my nephew and niece, about the best part of the children of Dorothy Nussbaum, it would not be in what we have accomplished in our work, in the toys we may have accumulated or even in the love we have shown towards them. It would be in how we have treated our mom in the dying light.

A Bull(y) in a China Shop

("Warmongers and Peacemakers at the U.N.")

Well, that went swimmingly.

Did we expect anything less from Mr.Trump who never met a hyperbolic insult he could resist?

Each word that emanates from his lips causes us to hold our breath. He is a one man nuclear disaster and if you push his button, or even if you don't, he is likely to explode.

Iran, bad. North Korea, bad with an exclamation point. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Game over. You lose.

It is a complex world seen through the eyes of a simpleton. A place where patience and nuance are expletives and diplomacy is for weaklings.

He is a bull(y) in a china shop, only this shop holds not just China but 193 member States. He is as out of place in this assemblage of world leaders as a tailor in a nudist colony.

Mr. Trump is a joke, only this is deadly serious. And threatening to totally destroy a nation is about as deadly as it gets.

So, let's get our President out of New York City as soon as humanly possible. The traffic tie up is killing us. And that qualifies as the best part of his visit.

Pencil Without a Point

"Your recent writing has been insipid."

My friend didn't use that exact word, because no one actually speaks that way, but his descriptor was clear in its intention.

I have long believed that tooearlytocall.com is the perfect name for my blog, as its multiple layers of meaning touched upon the various themes central to my late, late night meanderings.

But there has, for some time, lurked in the shadows a backup, ready to emerge when called upon. 

Several years ago I was on a golf course and was looking to write down my score on the card that lay before me. My search proved futile and I announced to my fellow cart member that all I found was a "pencil without a point."

Forget what was happening with my game. I had just stumbled upon a phrase that encapsulated a writer's worst fears. 

As the words of my friend now damaged my ears and ego, that alternative title, long contemplated, emerged front and center in the part of my cranium in charge of this undertaking.

Nothing for me will ever supercede tooearlytocall. This combination of words was the brain child of my son. His genius attached to my pedestrian ruminations.

But the title of my blog does fail to capture the gnawing fear that on far too many occasions my writing is uninspired or much worse. 

Maybe I should use an asterisk, an "also known as", or some other method to announce the layer of paranoia which is as central to this endeavor as my insomnia, my obsession with politics or baseball.

And, as I conclude, I worry whether this piece on a pencil without a point is nothing more than a demonstration of itself.

No Laughing Matter

("Is Nothing Funny, Mr. President?")

"It is time to put an easy laugh back on top of the (Democratic) ticket." 

Did someone say Al Franken?

In his new book, Franken describes the difficulty of trying not to be funny as a politician, so a former comedian can be considered first a worthy candidate and now a meaningful Senator. But his journey as a member of Congress is speckled with tales of gently poking fun at the enemy. It is in those moments that alliances are formed and barriers dissolve.

Mr. Trump, on the other hand, builds not bonds but walls and resides in a dark humorless universe where one only laughs at, not with, others. His is a world of punching down, of mocking, of finding  the weakness and exploiting it. He does not deem his hair a comedy gold mine, but your ugly face, disability or menstrual cycle  is perfect fodder for his anger filled jibes. Even Hillary's bathroom needs was found somehow disqualifying.

And the principal catalyst for his presidential run was said to be his dyspeptic response to being the butt of the joke. He appeared as uncomfortable as a man sitting on a bed of nails as President Obama took him apart at that infamous Correspondents' dinner.

One of the shortcomings of Ms. Clinton was her inability to be the antidote to the dour Mr. Trump. Her smile seemed frozen in place and her laugh was drowned out in the cacophony of the campaign.

Al Franken is a serious man with serious goals for this country. But having the capacity to chuckle at his own inadequacies and help others find the humor in the midst of all the craziness might be his most valuable asset. 

And Mr. Trump is certainly no laughing matter.

The Big BANG Theory or Good Will Hunting

AN EDITED VERSION OF THIS POST IS SCHEDULED TO APPEAR IN THE RECORD, A BERGEN COUNTY NEWSPAPER

("Congress Goes for Its Guns")

Single payer health care? A non-starter. Environmental regulations with a thought of saving the planet from imploding? Forget about it.  Financial reforms to protect our economy from another meltdown? Who are you kidding. Taking away any vestige of control from gun control? Now you're talking!!

If it is a slow day in Congress, there is always another way to kill time by making killing easier and more fun. 

Tax protection for the middle class? Too taxing. Addressing the rights of voters to actually vote? Not really. Taking Mr. Trump's finger off the nuclear button? Stopping the decimation of Roe v Wade? Undoing the Citizen's United debacle? Showing compassion for the oppressed and beleaguered? Stop bothering me!!!

But please be sure to tell all those from Columbine to Sandy Hook, from Gabby Giffords to tomorrow's Gabby Giffords that our legislators are busy saving the hearing of those with a weapon of permanent destruction in their hand, that there is nothing so important as being a nation that carries an unholstered big stick, that extending the unintended consequences of the Second Amendment seems our infinite national obsession.

They should entitle this bill "The Big BANG Theory"or alternatively, "Good Will Hunting."

And, as to that portion of the legislation directed at permitting the importing of 41 dead polar bears (for intended display), it must be said that this is a gross extension of that which was penned by our forefathers, who wrote only of our right to bear arms.

When discussing this most critical work of Congress, I implore you to speak softly so you don't do any damage to the sensitive eardrums of our most beloved hunters. 

Thanks for understanding.

("Why Did Trump Work Again With Democrats? "He Likes Us" Schumer Says")

Chuck, he doesn't like you. Mr. Trump likes only himself first, last and in between. Not country, not party, not policy or person but merely self. Everything else is but mirage.

This is not a Humphrey Bogart "beginning of a beautiful friendship" moment. It is not an Arlen Spector-like cuddling up with the Dems. It is a "what's in it for me" blip on the radar screen. Mr. Trump's exact words.

Favor is illusion here, a shake of a hand followed by a stab in the back.

From a man who has no moral or political underpinning do not expect stability or consistency. 

There are no friends in this universe. Steve Bannon, gone. Reince Priebus, kaput. Michael Flynn, oy.

And so the Donald, Chuck and Nancy show may be playing on our screens for now. But Mr. Trump can change channels with one click. Or, more accurately, a tweet. 

Be warned.

Don Quixote, Sisyphus, Canada and Medicare

("Bernie Sanders: Why We Need Medicare for All")

A simple solution to a complex problem? Mr. Sanders' relentless drumbeat for sanity and reason has as much chance of now succeeding as did Sisyphus. 

It is not merely that a Republican Congress, Republican President and enormous forces of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries align against him. It is that we are living in a moment where fact, if not universally disregarded, is ultimately discarded. We are as a nation, but witness to environmental disasters and mass shootings, refusing to connect the dots, seemingly willfully oblivious to the damage we do to ourselves. Scott Pruitt's invocation was but our preposterous, pathetic blinders-on response to uncomfortable truths.

So, Mr. Sanders can set forth the statistics, remind us that we can see Canada from here, tell us that tomorrow can be better than today, but his proposal to save lives will die a quick death.

Our morality is on life support as crisis and calamity, economic and emotional devastation have proven inadequate weapons to rouse us from our stupor.

Mr. Quixote, you deserve more than this from us. But, at least for today, you dream the impossible dream.

Death on the Hudson - An Obituary

An old woman died today of a broken heart. Her passing will be mourned by millions.

She was an immigrant to our shores. Born over 130 years ago, she was considered a magnificent gift not only to our nation but to the world.

She stood proud and resolute until her final moments, a beacon for all  those who made the often arduous journey here. She gave strength to all who gazed upon her, her eternal beauty and dignity informing all with whom she interacted that there was worth in every life, hope in every breath, purpose in every good act or deed.

She worked every day of her existence, never tiring, always seeking to give charity to those in need.  She was resolute and unbending in her mission to convince our nation we were blessed with a bounty and goodness and imbue us with a spirit of eternal gratitude for having the capacity to provide shelter to those who came with outstretched arms.

It is said that she touched more lives than any person, man or woman, on this planet. Much has been written of her greatness, but she had not an ounce of ego, never one thought of self, merely concerned with relieving the plight of others.

Recently she had suffered greatly as everything she so deeply cherished fell into question. As she surveyed the landscape, she witnessed a cruelty that made her weep. In her final moments, surrounded by the many she most adored, the tired and poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, she offered her sincerest apology for having failed them.

As she died, the book she was clutching in one hand, fell to the ground. The universe seemed to shudder as she collapsed, her heart, her whole being broken and shattered into a million pieces. The world suddenly a darker and more foreboding place.
 

When the President learned of her passing he offered this lamentation. "I am sorry to learn of her death. We never met but I am sure she would have loved me. All women love me."

She died, as she lived, without a name.

Funeral services will be held around the world tomorrow. Donations will be gratefully accepted to the cause she adored,  the Charity of the Good Heart.

The Measure of an Immigrant

("Immigrants Shouldn't Have to Be 'Talented' to Be Welcome")

Immigration is not a measure of what those coming to us are made of but what we are.

What would Emma Lazarus pen now about the state of our nation?

"Here at our forbidding gates she stands
A sorry land in pain, whose light
Has been extinguished and whose hand
Closes in fists of rage, her only command
To turn day to darkest night
"Keep your distance, you wretched many" cries she
With cruel regard. "Give me not your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"
They need not remain upon our shore.
No home for the weary or the troubled this be
I close my eyes and shut my door"

The Ivanka Myth

("The Ivanka Trump Guarantee")

That was the sound of the myth of Ivanka Trump just exploding. Ms. West makes a passionate, well articulated argument for ending the last vestige of noise about what a compelling force for good Ms. Trump is, how she will constrain the worst tendencies of her father, how she is the antidote to his poison.

Ivanka Trump is but window dressing, providing the semblance of cover as the President goes off on yet one more ill conceived and ill intended tangent. But in the now nearly nine months of incubation in the White House, Ms. Trump has given birth to nothing but empty rhetoric and meaningless sound bites.

Ivanka Trump is her father's daughter.

Indescribable

I am running out of ways to describe the actions of Mr. Trump. As he contemplates sending the Dreamers packing as if they were being banished from summer camp, the magnitude of our error in elevating a less than fully formed human to the post of King for not a day but 1461, is impossible to set forth with the fullness mandated.

 

If holding this office is a chess match requiring the skills of Bobby Fischer, we are saddled with a first round loser of a kindergarten checkers tournament. If the temperament of Gandhi is demanded, we are daily witness to the temper tantrums of a spoiled infant. If the compassion of Mother Teresa is what is called for, we have instead chosen the local bully who revels in kicking sand in the face of the 98 pound weakling.

 

He is a disaster on perpetual call, a horror movie on endless loop, an omnipresent error of omission and commission.

 

There should be but a fill in the blank response to each head shaking, stomach churning, primal screaming mistake emanating from the lips or the fingers of someone for whom the term leader is as ill fitting as a slipper meant for Cinderella being worn by a 71 year old narcissistic orange faced troll.

 

It is as if our language did not contemplate this situation, that god in forming the world fatigued before fully completing the task of creating words. 

 

Mr. Trump is truly indescribable. And I think that says it all.