February 23, 2022

I am not afraid to admit that I am a puzzle nerd. I have been doing the New York Times crossword puzzle for longer than I can remember. It used to be my silent pleasure as I commuted home every night from New York City. I do the Spelling Bee every morning, which sometimes stretches what one would consider useful vocabulary. Now, there is Wordle, which is the new sensation. You get six chances to guess a five letter word with no hints. Here is a Wordle…with hints.

1. Who thinks Putin is savvy and brilliant?

2. Who provided comfort to Putin at Helsinki?

3. Who was impeached for extorting the Ukrainians?

4. Who thinks sending “peacekeeping” troops to the Southern border is a good idea?

5. Who fomented an insurrection at the nation’s Capital.

6. Who continues to promote the Big Lie?

7. Who took classified documents from the Oval Office?

8. Who is being sued by the state of Georgia, and the southern district of New York?

9. Who is being investigated by the January 6th Commission and the Justice Department?

10. Who tried to undermine NATO?

11. Who lied about having business interests in Russia?

12. Who’s political campaign had hundreds of contacts with the Russians?

13. Who’s son sought dirt on Hillary Clinton from Russian operatives?

14. Who asked Russia to produce Clinton’s e- mails?

15. Who said when asked if Putin was a killer, “We are killers too.?”

16. Who will be found guilty of laundering Russian money?

This Wordle is pretty easy. The answer is…

T-R-U-M-P

Good luck in solving future puzzles.

February 19, 2022

“How big is your truck. Big enough.” That’s the mantra of truck owners. Apparently, the trucks on the other side of the border were big enough to block interstate commerce, and cause Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to declare a national emergency. In a very un-Canadian like demonstration, truck owners used their vehicles to protest vaccine mandates. I guess they feel it is okay to be the Paul Bunyan’s of COVID as they spread their deadly seeds all over Canada. O Canada!

My quarrel, however, is not with Canadian anti-vaxxers. It’s with truck owners. It’s no wonder why the rest of the world looks down on us as we drive around in trucks that are too big for many people to handle. They suck up gas, and take up space. Getting out of a parking space when you have Ford-150’s on both sides is dangerous. You can’t see what is coming. When you are driving down the highway, getting stuck behind a truck is like living through a solar eclipse. And why is it truck owners feel as if they are entitled to back into a parking space while the rest of us have to wait for their third attempt to get it right.

As if trucks aren’t long enough, most of them have trailer hitches that you can’t see at night, making them hazards. There should be a law that says truck owners need to haul something, anything at least once per year to maintain their right as a truck owner. They should have to cut up a cord of wood, stack it in the flatbed, and move it somewhere. Too many trucks are too clean and have no scratches. That’s not a truck. It’s a living room on wheels. Real workers need trucks. Everyone else needs a car.

February 18, 2022

Now that the Super Bowl has come and gone and the Winter Olympics are wrapping up, Brian Flores’ lawsuit against the NFL and its owners for racially discriminatory hiring practices will get a lot more attention unless Phil Mickelson’s coddling up to the Saudis gets in the way. Flores, a former New England Patriot assistant coach, is claiming that the NFL is systemically-biased against coaches of color, and is also guilty of individual acts of racism. This is in a league where the players are 70% black, and there is no shortage of talent.

When I was in the working world and had the ability to hire, I wish I had had the opportunities that the NFL owners have to hire people of color. Despite our best efforts at the local and corporate level, it was difficult to source minority candidates, qualified or not. I rarely had the chance to interview black candidates. They either didn’t exist, didn’t know about our job openings and training programs, or were not interested. We probably didn’t have the networks that extended to the people we wanted to reach. Regardless, minority applicants rarely, if ever, walked through the door, and it was frustrating.

I see the same thing as a member of a private club. Having served on the board for several years, I know that we never discriminated against any applicant. We just didn’t have the applicant flow. We do have people of color as members, which is terrific, but it is a struggle to make it a significant, representative number. We need to do a better job, but there are extenuating circumstances when you are dealing with a limited population base.

The NFL owners have no excuses. The have a pool of qualified candidates ready to interview. The have a rule, the Rooney Rule, which requires them to interview. It couldn’t be any easier. I wish I had had their problems.

February 15, 2022

In his book “Fight,” researcher and pollster John Della Volpe shares his observations about Gen Z from polling data that he has gleaned from his position at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics. He talks about how Gen Z is channeling its fear and passion to save America. The bottom line is that Zoomers and Millenials are politically engaged, and political parties ignore them at their own peril.

The issues that motivate Gen Z are pretty clear. Climate change and the world they will inherit are politically motivating. Gun violence, school shootings, and gun safety are critical issues. Income inequality is a major concern. They are very concerned with the unchecked rise in hate speech, hate groups, and racism. And, the potential of crippling debt in the pursuit of higher education weighs heavily on them. Gen Z votes predominantly Democratic, but Democrats cannot take this support for granted.

What do Republicans offer Gen Z? The Republican Party offers Gen Z lip service at best to the problems of climate change, and climate denialism at worst. It is clearly the fossil fuel party. The Republican Party offers “thoughts and prayers” every time there is a school shooting, and actively thwarts concrete proposals for mitigating the bloodbaths. The Republican Party at the highest levels gives comfort to white supremacists, hate groups and politicians, who support them. The Republican Party has no agenda addressing the cost of college tuition. It literally has no agenda.

The Republican Party is more concerned with cultural wedge issues like Critical Race Theory, abortion, Stop the Steal, and anti-vaxxing. You couldn’t come up with a better plan for losing the future and future voters if you tried.

February 13, 2022

I have been stuck at home recovering from COVID. Fortunately, there has been virtually 24 hour coverage of the Winter Olympics on television. I only care about most of the events once every four years, and now they have my full attention. Here is what I have learned.

In order to promote responsible gun ownership and safety, all gun owners should be required to either run or ski 10 kilometers, and then hit ten targets with a rifle from two different positions similar to the biathlon. The biathlon includes hunting and skiing, and has been used as a military exercise. This would certainly reduce the number of gun owners and guns in circulation. Weekend warriors would find that they have weak ends.

You can create some pretty good drinking games around how many times broadcasters will harp on a specific story. I have been drunk for days because of the number of times I have heard that Lindsey Jacobellis fell in 2006. They say she erased 2006 with her two gold medals. I will drink to that.

The Russians are cheaters. They are already banned as a country, competing as the Russian Olympic Committee. They have maybe the greatest female skating prodigy of all time, but they couldn’t let it be. They had to juice the fifteen year old up with a heart drug to give her more stamina a la Sharapova. I don’t blame her. I blame Putin. Putin is a cheater, and you can’t believe anything he says. Good luck, Ukraine.

Some of our most outstanding colleges clearly discriminate against non-Asian, non-Olympic gold medal winners in their admissions policies. Eileen Gu is going to Stanford, Nathan Chen goes to Yale, and Chloe Kim goes to Princeton. It sounds like a Supreme Court case to me.

If you want a good meal, schedule the next Olympics for Italy. Olympic athletes have been complaining about a lack of fruits, vegetables, and anything else worth eating. You can’t even get good Chinese takeout. As if the IOC had predicted the complaints, it scheduled the 2026 Winter Olympics for Milano and Cortina d’Ampezzo. The games may not run on time, but no one will care. Buon appetito.

Olympic hockey is great unless you miss a bunch of goons beating up on each other. It’s amazing what a great game hockey can be when you focus on skating, stick handling, passing, and shooting.

The Olympics needs crowds. I feel bad (not really) about Chinese athletes, who have no one there to cheer them on. At the Waste Management Phoenix Open, Sam Ryder made a hole-in-one on the 16th hole. Play had to be stopped because of the craziness. The Super Bowl is today. I don’t care who wins, but, between the crowd and the half time show, it should be nuts. That’s fun.

February 9, 2022

One of the most dramatic things that anyone has seen in sports happened over the weekend at the AT&T Pro-Am golf tournament at Pebble Beach. Jordan Spieth hit his drive on the eighth hole through the fairway and into the penalty area marked by a red line. The only thing was the line was about two feet from a 65 foot sheer drop to the beach below. The Pacific is one of the largest water hazards in the world. Rather than taking relief for one penalty stroke, he decided to play the ball as it lied. With the hand of God looking over him and with god-given hands, coordination, and balance, he hit his ball close to the green, and then proceeded to get up and down for par. He said clearly for all to hear, “That was the scariest shot I ever hit.”

It was reported that his mother was okay with the shot, but dad was apoplectic. I could hear him saying, “Wait until I get you home, young man.” There was no immediate comment from Spieth’s wife, who was sitting at home with a new born son. That conversation could not have gone well. In the future, the PGA needs to create No Play Zones by the cliffs. Amongst other things, no play zones protect players from danger.

Which brings me to another situation played in the sand, the Saudi-backed Super Golf League. They have been offering large amounts of blood money to PGA stars to jump from the PGA Tour. I guess these guys have never heard of the Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, who got carved up by the Saudis in the same way that professional golfers carve up golf courses. The PGA Tour should declare Saudi Arabia a No Play Zone.

February 6, 2022

I get a little concerned when anyone compares the former President with the likes of Hitler, Stalin, or Mussolini. Maybe it is hyperbole for effect. Many of us took offense when Trump said there were good people on both sides when one of the sides was displaying the swastika, but that doesn’t make him a mass murderer or card-carrying Fascist.

However, I do think it is fair game to compare Trump to another controversial and disgraced leader, Silvio Berlusconi, of Italy. Berlusconi was a media tycoon and politician. He was a master salesman, who made his initial fortune in real estate. He came to national prominence via television. He became Prime Minister of Italy with no prior governmental experience. While in power, he surrounded himself with friends and loyalists. He demonized the media, and used his media empire to restrict freedom of information. He owned a football team. His net worth was estimated to be $8B. He represented a center-right coalition called Forza Italiana. He was accused by his political enemies of being an authoritarian. He had a charismatic personality, and sought to exploit divisions amongst the Italian people. His public policies focused on tax deductions, which plunged the Italian economy further into debt. He had numerous conflicts of interest as he abused his position to further his private investments. He was infamous for private indiscretions, the most famous of which was the “Bunga Bunga” scandal. He was the subject of blackmail attempts by spurned women. He was known for using lawsuits as a political weapon.

Berlusconi was convicted of tax fraud, and spent time under arrest. One can only hope. Forza Stati Uniti d’America!

February 4, 2022

Legitimate discourse is dead. It met its untimely death today at the hands of the Republican Party. Admittedly, it was on life support like an unvaccinated patient on a ventilator, but it was the “right to life” party that killed it while it was struggling to survive. Dr. Kevorkian is now the Surgeon General of the GOP. The Republican Party called the January 6th insurrection legitimate political discourse. If that is legitimate political discourse, then what have the rest of us been engaged in? I suppose it is not surprising given that the Insurrectionist-in-Chief decided to offer pardons to the great patriots engaged in political discourse. I guess “Hang Mike Pence” qualifies as discourse.

Legitimate political discourse used to be debates in the well of the Senate. It used to be bull sessions late at night in your dorm room. It was reporters having it out on national television. It was David Brooks debating Mark Shields in the Springfield Public Forum. It was Lincoln vs. Douglas (Stephen, not Frederick.) It was Kennedy-Nixon; it was Bush v. Gore. That was political discourse, warts and all.

The only thing I can say in response to the Republican Party’s reprehensible position on legitimacy is “Illegitimi non carborundum.” February 4th can now join January 6th, September 11th, November 22nd, and December 7th in the annals of American history because that is the day American political discourse died.

February 2, 2022

I am getting a little sensitive about ageism in my golden years. I know that I have lost more than a step going to first and that I can hear my drives land, which is fortunate because I certainly can’t see them, but I am just as good as I never was as long as I can take a nap. I am not as old as Joe Biden (or Donald Trump or Mitch McConnell), but I do know that nothing gets easier. However, characterizing President Biden as feeble and cognitively-impaired is pernicious. I hear this argument from some of the most disingenuous people on television, who wish they could use cognitive impairment to excuse their own ignorance. Biden accorded himself well, if not perfectly, in a two hour press conference recently, even handling some questions from “dumb son-of-a-bitches.”

Let’s put his age in historical perspective. In 1945, the alliance against Germany was led by Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin. Their ages were 63, 71 and 70 respectively. We have to throw out FDR because he died that year after a life long struggle with polio. The average life expectancy (ALE) for a man in 1945 was 63.6 years. In other words, Churchill was 7 years beyond the ALE when he was leading Great Britain in WW II over Germany and a much younger Hitler (56). Stalin was 6 years beyond the ALE as he led Russia. Today, the ALE for a man is 76.1, which puts Biden (79) only 3 years beyond.

You don’t have agree with Biden’s policies or even like him as a person, but using age as an attack line is lazy. As Ronald Reagan, 73, famously said to Walter Mondale in a presidential debate, “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” Similarly, I am not going to exploit the malicious ignorance of Biden’s detractors.

January 30, 2022

According to a recent letter writer, the January 6th Commission is a kangaroo court. According to Merriam-Webster, a kangaroo court is “a court characterized by irresponsible, unauthorized, or irregular status or procedures.” Nothing about the commission is irresponsible or irregular, but let’s not let the facts get in the way of a good narrative. The only thing that was unauthorized was the attack on the Capitol.

In June 2016, USA Today published an analysis of litigation involving Donald Trump, which found that over the previous three decades Trump and his businesses had been involved in 3,500 legal cases in U.S. federal and state courts, an unprecedented number for a U.S. presidential candidate. That’s a lot of kangaroos. You would think we lived in Australia.

Kangaroos have been sighted everywhere. There are kangaroos in the DA’s office in lower Manhattan looking for tax cheats. There are kangaroos in Fulton County, Georgia where local officials take offense at being strong-armed for fake votes. There has been a plague of kangaroos tormenting fake electors in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Wisconsin, New Mexico and Arizona. We have the kangaroo courts that impeached Trump twice, the second time for withholding funds from Ukraine. We have the kangaroo court that sent Michael Cohen to jail for funneling funds to Trump’s porn stars.

The one thing that all of these kangaroos have in common is Donald Trump. Trump should have his own reality TV show like Crocodile Dundee where he hunts down kangaroos in the Australian Outback. Unfortunately, as are most things Trump does, that would be illegal.