The GOPfather

 ("Mar-A-Lago Machine: Trump as a Modern Day Party Boss")

He is the GOPfather, the political Marlon Brando.

The heads of the houses (McConnell and McCarthy) not strong enough to take him on, those underlings who have attempted to depose him finding themselves in Republican Siberia.

And so he continues to dispense his blessings from his throne in exile, his coffer filled to overflowing by contributions from those most grateful to find themselves in the Don's good graces, even if his blessing may be ephemeral.

When, in recent American history, has defeat done so little to diminish political value? Nixon dusted himself off from his loss to Kennedy to capture the title, but that was eight years later, with certainly some difficult intervening times. The last one term Presidents, Ford, Carter and George H.W. Bush, clearly did not retain the clout of Mr. Trump once they left office.

Donald Trump in refusing to cede power has somehow turned political straw into gold.  A Svengali continuing to dominate a party that by all logic should have abandoned him last November 

Instead, they still line up to kiss his ring.

The Shot Felt Round the World

 ("Photographing Hell")

It is the picture taken as the bullet enters the head of its victim during a point blank execution on the streets of Saigon in 1968.

It is the 1972 image of Kim Phuc, the "napalm girl", 9 years old crying and running naked down the road.

It is in the mass grave sites, the workers loading body bags into the back of a truck, entire towns and cities now seeming but a pile of rubble in today's Ukraine. 

It is in these photos that war is distilled to its essence: horrifying and terrifying in its indiscriminate brutality and unthinkable atrocities.

Photos that capture far more than a moment in time.

Photos that scream at us not to turn away.

Photos that are our most powerful weapons, moving nations to tears. 

Photos that do not start wars but, in the pictures most remembered,  ask us to open our eyes and end them.

Wordle (Today It Is a Four Letter Word)

 I lost today. But my defeat is under protest..

On guess number 3, I got all the letters correct and in the right order, save for 1. How was I to know there were more than 4 five letter words in the language I have chosen to speak (a/k/a the only one I speak) with the same first, second, third and fifth letters? But the inventor of five letter words knew it.  

For more than a decade, when it has been far too early to call, my first thoughts have been directed towards entertaining others with my pearls of wisdom. Ok, maybe more bombarding than entertaining and possibly more scraps of nonsense than pearls of wisdom, but you get the idea. But no more.

Now I have been kidnapped by this seemingly simple game. I am not one of those "I use the same first word every day" people. I am far too complex an individual, with far too many 5 letter words at my disposal, to resort to that trick. After all, I graduated from a private high school (ok, maybe in the bottom half of my class). And no, I don't always pepper my first word with as many vowels as can fit in a phone booth. Although, possibly I should.

I am given a Pavlovian treat on those rare early mornings when I am able to uncover the secret of the universe in but two tries. "Great" or "impressive" or some other superlative my reward for my act of pure genius. 

But as I move down the food chain, with attempts 3, 4, 5 and, on occasion, the dreaded 6, my ego sags and I begin to question the value of my life. If the last effort should fail, it feels as if I should be reciting some dark Shakespearean sonnet.

Each day, upon completion of my task, whether ending in ignominious defeat or glorious victory, I announce the results to my children, my son in law and two friends whom I have chosen worthy of the honor of being advised as to the level of my brain power. I am quite sure they are thrilled to get this information as the first thing to greet them when they awaken.

I could never figure out a Rubik's cube. I am far too limited a person to succeed at crossword puzzles. I watch Jeopardy every night and the lack of information swirling around my head never ceases to astound me.

But I have a fighting chance at Wordle. It is like the perfect bed in Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Just right. Five letters reaching the absolute limit of the capacity of the cells in my cerebral cortex.

So when I lose in the manner as I did today, it stings. Badly. My running stats show my win streak is now broken (I still count as victories those two times earlier this week when I had to call on my wife to bail me out on guess #6, because I had obviously "teed it up" for her, and I was just a bit too weary to climb that last hill). I must begin again, from the bottom rung, next morn.

"Tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace." "Alas poor Yorick." "To be or not to be."

My son has just reported back that he succeeded in but 3 tries today. And my daughter is guilty of piling on as she now has advised she too required but 3 efforts to hit paydirt.

Like daggers to my heart.

What Elephant?

 ("The Unbelievable Stupidity of Ending Global Covid Aid")

We're done with this pandemic." Unfortunately, the pandemic disagrees.

You see the pandemic can't be reasoned with, can't be bribed, can't be advised to respect borders. It refuses to be intimidated or interrogated. There is no way to merely request it to retreat, no method of demanding it just magically disappear (as one person suggested it would).   

The pandemic charts its own course, makes its own decisions unless we compel it to do otherwise. It has spent two years teaching us lessons of battle that we ignore at our continued peril.

Denial of the elephant in the room is simply not a defense. It just means there is a $15 billion dollar mess in the middle of the House floor that needs to be cleaned up.

My Job Application to the New York Times

Frank Rich. Bob Herbert. Frank Bruni. Nicholas Kristof. Now Jennifer Finney Boylan. 

What is going on at the New York Times? Why are the opinion writers (f/k/a Op Ed writers) jumping ship with such metronomic regularity?

I am sure it is mere natural attrition but then again....

All I know is that I have been writing to the Times (if not for the Times) for nearly a decade and a half. They certainly have adequate sample of my work to determine if I am now worthy to fill this latest void.

You have found reason to publish my thoughts political and personal, on the state of our nation and the state of my Yankees, on matters of great weight and some as light as air. I am a man for all seasons, except maybe mud season for which I have little regard.

While my words don't hold a candle to the likes of those "recently departed", I trust there may be a flicker or two of light emanating from my thoughts. 

As with all the others who have left the fold, I will sorely miss the perspective on the world given by Ms. Finney Boylan. And I wish her the best of luck wherever her journey next leads.

But as they say, when one door closes ....

Please consider this my formal application. I await your reply.

Humbly,

Opening Day

 ("Baseball Is Dying. The Government Should Take It Over")

Shame on you. So baseball is a 19th century sport dressed up in 21st century garb. So it does not run on a clock. In fact since Rickey Henderson it does not run much at all. So it has overshifted, pitch counted and relieved itself (that doesn't sound right) into a game where straddling the Mendoza line has become almost acceptable, where K has become the most important letter of the alphabet, where manufacturing a run has seemingly gone the way of the Edsel. So what.

Don't tell me it is dying, not on the very day it is being born again. Don't tell me what it is not. I already know that. I will tell you what it is. Baseball is in my blood and has been since I first smelled the leather of the mitt in the mid 1950's. It is in my belly since Mickey Mantle smiled that Oklahoma smile and hit a ball farther than it was ever intended to travel. It is in my ears since I imagined what Red Barber was broadcasting on the radio. It is in my feet as I legged out a double in my first Little League game. It is in my father's eyes as we sat together in the Stadium. It is in my soul and will remain there until I am no more.

So do not report to me that baseball is but the walking dead. Not now, not when the first pitch is so near. It won't kill you to let my dream survive. Even if baseball is not America's game anymore, it is still mine.

Coach N

 I have this far more than annoying little habit of inserting myself uninvited into other people's business as they attempt to master the intricacies and nuances of some sport at which I pretend to be proficient.

For decades I lectured my wife on how she could improve her skiing, despite my awareness that my incessant pearls of wisdom must have been to her ears as fingers scratching across a chalkboard. On the hill, on the chairlift, even as she wandered into sleep at night, there was no place for my wife to hide. Her thanks but no thanks drowned out by the jarring sound of my constant instructions.

My children's friends, my own friends, even strangers possible subjects of my objectionable behavior. I have through the years found no barriers or limitations to my commitment to my unassigned task. Not only in skiing, but virtually any endeavor that I have stumbled upon in the process of living.

Last weekend, I appeared at my son-in-law's birthday bowling party. I watched the assembled struggle in their attempts to make a ball with three holes respond to their commands, the pins seeming at times to mock their efforts.

I selected one of the guests as my target du jour. "You are throwing around your body. Your release point should be out front." No matter that I hadn't picked up a bowling ball in years and that my glory days as a mediocre participant in a league were nearly six decades in the rear view mirror. Or that I had only the faintest notion of what I was saying. Or that no one had sought my attention or requested my directions, least of all the person on the receiving end of this lecture. 

But listen she did. And that night the fates treated me kindly. For, after one less than satisfactory throw, the second brought a hint of success. In short order, both my pupil and her husband offered me hearty congratulations. As if I had discovered the cure for cancer. And they further reminded me how, years earlier, I had improved this same young woman's ability to navigate on the slopes. OMG this poor person had been my victim twice!

While I left the party shortly thereafter, the victory was not yet complete. For my daughter sent images of the scores and I noted with swelling pride that my student's score had risen past 100 in the second game. And then the birthday boy messaged me a note of congratulations on a job well done.

A word of warning to anyone reading this. Any positive feedback on my efforts only increases the likelihood that you may be next in line for dissection. If I were you, I would just grin and bear it. Because neither rain, sleet, polite request to stop, nor restraining order will keep me from my self appointed rounds. 

By the way, I think you are swaying a bit in your backswing. 

Self Checkout

 My task is a simple one. Pick up a dozen eggs at the grocery store. Bring them home.

I am given explicit directions as to the aisle in which the one item can be found, even though I have shopped with my family here a hundred times.

I am more than a little anxious and  perplexed as I stand looking at all the choices. I have to be price conscious, so I reject the $6.49 option. But the $3.99 alternative must have some defect of which I am wholly unaware. Finally, $4.49, organic. I hope I can't be faulted for this selection.

Now comes the hard part. It is Saturday morning and there is only one cashier. There are three people on line, two with full carts. The self checkout line is empty. There is only one problem.

I can only imagine what the others must be thinking. Why is this idiot standing here?

I have 19 years of schooling. I have spent nearly 70 years wandering around this planet. How challenging could it be to walk ten feet to my right and do what millions without my sterling pedigree have done? Yet I stood immobile, frozen by my astounding incompetency.

I witness without seeing is the best way I can explain it. I have often been at this very self checkout spot while my wife or son performed their duet with the machine. But I might as well have been staring into a hole in the ground for the amount of information that entered my cerebral cortex.

Five minutes pass and I have moved up one position. Suddenly, it is announced that another cashier is opening up. I rush over, only to be too slow to capture the lead. The man behind me says "why don't you use self checkout?" 

Without thinking I blurt out "I have never done it before."

"Someone is there to help you" he advises.

And so I find myself in foreign territory, explaining my uniqueness to the nice lady. "You just do this and then that, put this here, take this from there and you're done." She might as well have been speaking Japanese.

When I walked in the door my son said he was proud of me. I had make a good selection and, wow, I had even used self checkout.

He should only know. But I am quite certain he already does.

Company!

My computer rests quietly in the other bedroom. Normally I would now be in that room, printing a copy of the New York Times crossword puzzle for the person resting next to me. But not today. Not this morning. For in that room is something to be prized and protected, coddled and cherished. Today we have company.

Finally I can be a little annoyed that I have to be quiet and speak in a whisper at 6:45 AM (the middle of my day). Finally I can be slightly bothered that I had to remain awake until almost 11 PM (the middle of my night) to keep our guests entertained. Finally, I can be concerned about planning my day around the pleasures of someone else and leaving my own desires to the side. 

So what if I have to wait my turn for the bathroom. So what if I will not be in control of the remote this weekend. So what if I am starving right now but can't eat breakfast because I have to wait for the three Rip Van Winkle's who will remain asleep for God knows how long this morning.

It is now 7:21 and still no noise. Who sleeps this late? How long do they intend to remain in their state of unbeing? I don't think I can take this much longer.

Life is beautiful this morning.

For we have company. 

Oink (a/k/a The Art of the Steal)

 ("She took the White House Photos. Trump Moved to Take the Profit")

Picture this. Donald Trump with his hand in someone else's piggy bank. Oink.

This is a man who robbed with impunity (Trump University, paying back $25 million to duped students), who left creditors in his wake (a half dozen corporate bankruptcies), who used his foundation to play personal shell games (paying $2 million to 8 charities to settle claims against him), who licensed his name on steak, wine, vodka and countless other products.

A man without a moral compass  except to be forever pointed in the direction of unquenchable greed. Someone who has spent a lifetime taking financial advantage of others.

This latest effort, monetizing the work of his White House photographer is just one more example of Donald being Donald.

But certainly not the last.

The art of the steal.

Oink.