January 19, 2022

It seems like only yesterday when we were storming the Capitol. Ah…memories. The last year has been unlike any other so it is probably a good time to sit back and reminisce on how President Biden has done in the face of a “Let’s Go, Brandon” attitude from the folks on the right.

The administration determined wrongly that the best way to fight COVID and its variants was to rely on the good sense of the American people, who would choose vaccinations over shutdowns and death. Pretty funny. Obviously, they hadn’t met 30-40% of the population. The carrot didn’t work so they went to the stick with vaccine mandates. Obviously, they hadn’t met the Supreme Court, which was led by Justice Neil “I refuse to wear a mask” Gorsuch. As a last straw, they decided to leave it up to the states. Obviously, they hadn’t met Governor Ron DiSantis, who wants to jail anyone getting a vaccination.

The Biden administration has appointed a record number of Federal judges, all of whom have not be recommended by the Feralist Society. Issues like increasing the size of the court and term limits are bottled up in committee due mostly to the potential of a filibuster. Interestingly, Merriam-Webster defines filibuster as “an American engaged in fomenting insurrections…” As in, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are filibusters.

President Biden has correctly identified Republican attempts to limit voter participation, to control who counts the votes, and to decide who gerrymanders Congressional districts as Public Enemy #1. One might say these are the real “enemies of the people.” Two bills before Congress are languishing. One cannot accuse the Republican Party of being the do-nothing party. Personally, I liked them better when they were doing nothing.

President Biden has reversed many of Trump’s executive orders on the environment by executive order. However, the Republicans refuse to provide any support for the environmental provisions included in Build Back Better. Some $500B in funds are earmarked for environmental initiatives. Only when fires, hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, locusts, and pestilence of a Biblical nature hit every red state will we have a national consensus. They won’t believe scientists, but they might believe Jim and Tammy Faye.

The economy is growing, unemployment is way down, and Wall St. appears happy. Inflation is relatively high, but what did you expect coming out of a massive, pandemic-induced recession? Some grocery shelves are empty, and there continues to be supply chain issues despite the fact that The Grinch never stole Christmas.

Christmas was like Y2K. Both were over-hyped, and ended with a whimper. The reality is no one ever got hit by a bus they saw coming. Yet, people are dissatisfied. Give me a break. Where are the gas lines, double digit interest rates, body bags by the thousands coming home, buildings collapsing, assassinations, and Great Recessions? Can we please add a dose of perspective to what we are going through today? We will get through it. There is light at the end of the tunnel, and it is not UV.

President Biden has restored dignity to the office. Enough said.

Sabrineh Ardalan of the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic praises Biden for jettisoning some Trump-era policies, but says he has “doubled-down” on the former administration’s draconian policies such as forcing asylum seekers to stay in Mexico, excessive use of border patrol agents, and detention of asylum seekers. This doesn’t sound like someone who is running an open door policy to me as those on the right would have you believe.

Obviously there were some failures. There was the ugly withdrawal from Afghanistan, a situation created by his predecessors and underestimated by his advisors. We insulted France. Nothing has been done to further the cause of gun safety. Women are on the verge of losing their right to an abortion. Russia may invade the Ukraine, but at least Trump is not there to invite them in.

All in all, I would say it was a successful year despite all of the attempts by Republicans to drag their knuckles. Recently, it was reported that Governor Sununu of New Hampshire refused to run for the Senate because he was told that the Republican strategy for regaining power was to do nothing. I would say they are executing their strategy flawlessly.

January 17, 2022

This was originally blogged on May 1, 2021, May Day, which comes from the French m’aidez, which means “help me.” Our democracy needs help on this MLK Day.

Republican legislatures all over the country are going out of their way to solve voting problems that don’t exist. They say that they need to restore integrity and faith in our electoral process. They are promulgating the big lie by passing laws designed to make it more difficult to vote for everyone with specific targeting of communities of color that voted Democratic. Florida was only the most recent state to follow Georgia’s example. We can all look forward to political goons looking over our shoulders as we vote.

Sadly, the United States is already close to the bottom when it comes to voter participation. According to Pew Research, only 55.72% of our voting age population actually votes. This puts us slightly ahead of Slovenia and Latvia. Of the countries tracked, we rank 32nd, which is a little better than our healthcare system which ranks last among 11 major industrialized countries. It’s a travesty that when we should be doing everything in our power to get more people to vote, we are doing the exact opposite. Republicans should be ashamed, but they have been proven to be shameless. They are clearly afraid of voting rates and voting rights.

January 14, 2022

I was recently on my monthly Zoom call with a bunch of guys from college. The topic of our discussions is “Aging Athletes,” and we read books about the issues we all face as we deal with crumbling infrastructures. Amongst the participants, we have two Olympic rowers, a college wrestler, two college runners, a cyclist, a football player, and a golfer. We discuss everything from sleep disorders, training regimens, atrial fibrillation, knee replacements, polio, torn rotator cuffs, mental health and more. One of the participants just took his annual New Year’s plunge into the Connecticut River. Three of the participants volunteer as high school coaches.

One of the coaches coaches cross country and track for a high school in New Jersey. The coach had a very successful college career at Harvard in cross country and track. Both his boy’s and girl’s cross country teams just won their respective state sectional championships. While stating that he was not representing the school, he e-mailed the members of the boy’s team, suggesting that they should consider getting vaccinated. That is when the proverbial feces hit the fan. The very next day, he found himself in the Superintendent’s office being confronted by the Superintendent and an attorney. They were not too happy with his e-mail. He tried to explain to them his life experience as someone who had dealt with polio at a young age, and as someone who had a brother seriously impacted by polio. In those days, as he explained, no one questioned the polio vaccine. Coincidentally, one other member of the book group also had polio as a child.

While still continuing to coach cross country, the school made it clear that he was to have no contact with any of the boys in Spring track. The boys were being coached by the head football coach and two of his assistants, who have no experience coaching track. My friend suspects that they are laying the groundwork to ease him out of coaching duties altogether. It is a sad state of affairs when school administrators are more concerned with kowtowing to anti-vax parents than protecting the health of the students in their charge.

January 11, 2022

People are angry and fearful about something. They were angry enough to attack the nation’s Capital. Opportunistic and amoral politicians are more than happy to stoke this fear and anger to further their own political ends in their quest for power and money. Politicians like Trump create enemies for their base to attack. They attack immigrants, people of color, the liberal elite, foreign countries, rigged elections, the media, and more. They seek to divide us rather than unite us. They prefer to lie to us rather than enlighten us. However, I believe that what people are really afraid of is losing their jobs, if they haven’t already, and are afraid of falling further behind financially.

The reality is that technology has done more damage to the well-being of more Americans than any other of these other boogey men. We have lost some jobs to globalization and unionization, but the vast majority of the jobs that we have lost have been due to automation. Economists say that half of the increasing wage gap has come as a result of automation. Robots and office software have done a lot of damage. Some of our biggest employers today like Meta, Google, Apple, and Amazon create a lot more wealth with far fewer people than the General Motors of the world. It takes a lot more, well paid workers to make a car than a new app. Artificial intelligence is designed to replace people, not enhance them.

Political leaders need to focus on the real issues angering Americans, and find real solutions. Ginning up anger and discontent, and trying to find scapegoats is not a viable, long-term strategy.

January 7, 2022

On January 17, 1961, outgoing President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the following warning in his farewell address: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

Today, more than sixty years later, we are encountering something even more pernicious. It is not the military-industrial complex we need to be concerned about. It’s the militia-industrial complex. We need to be on guard against the toy soldiers parading around as the saviors of democracy. In their quest for a not more perfect union but a more pure union, they are abetted by right wing industrialists like Rupert Murdoch, the Koch brothers and more who know no shame. These grifters on the right are willing to sell democracy down the Potomac River for a buck. Watch my network, subscribe to my Podcast, buy my paraphernalia, buy my products, send me money. The gun manufacturers are more than willing to look the other way as parts of white America engage in an arms race. We may need the military to save us from the militias. What would Ike think?

January 6, 2022

The horrific traffic jam on I-95 in Virginia was an allegory for our times. The line of stalled traffic extended forty miles. Thousands of travelers were inconvenienced, but fortunately no one was seriously hurt. It could have been a lot worse. You can’t blame a freak storm like that on climate change, but it makes you wonder. Lines are the story of the times we live in. While some Americans were stranded in snow bound cars, other Americans were sitting in long lines waiting to get tested for COVID. In many parts of the country, patients are waiting in line to get admitted to hospitals for elective procedures because hospitals are overcrowded with the unvaccinated. Over the holidays, we saw thousands of travelers waiting in lines to get rebooked because flights were canceled. The deliveries of many goods from overseas have been delayed as container ships sit in long lines off shore waiting to unload. Supply shortages have created their own long lines. If you need anything with a microchip, get in line. If you need a new car, get in line. Students wait in line outside of schools because they need to be tested before they can be admitted. This would be a lot more fun if it was a game show hosted by John Charles Daly, and we were watching Arlene Francis, Bennet Cerf, and Dorothy Kilgallen asking, “What’s My Line?”

January 4, 2021

In 2008, we experienced an epic financial meltdown that threatened to change life as we knew it. It was called the Great Recession. For many people, it did change their lives irrevocably. Millions of people lost their homes, millions of people saw their savings vanish, and millions of people lost their jobs. However, after all of the destruction done to corporate and personal balance sheets, not one person went to jail. Okay, maybe one lower level person did, but that was the exception. None of the investment bankers who developed highly toxic investment products did time. None of the institutional salesmen who sold those products went to jail. None of the corporate executives overseeing those people were inconvenienced. None of the lawmakers who failed to understand or regulate these products were held responsible. Mortgage company executives who underwrote risky mortgages were held faultless. Ratings agency employees slipped through the cracks. Auditors were absolved of any wrong doing. All of these individuals may have been guilty of benign neglect or willful ignorance, or claimed plausible deniability, but no one was charged with a crime. As it turned out, incompetence was not a crime. Everyone’s defense was essentially “Who knew?”

In a similar vein, I suspect that no one of importance being investigated by the January 6th commission will do any time. Even though many individuals are guilty of lying about a stolen election, pressuring election officials to fabricate vote counts, and fomenting a rebellion designed to halt the peaceful transfer of power, we will discover that attempting to destroy democracy is not a crime. A few misguided and ignorant followers will suffer, but they are small potatoes. The perpetrators of the Big Lie and the Stop the Steal campaigns that led to January 6th will claim that incompetence is not a crime, and “Who knew?” Donald Trump knew.

December 31, 2021

Now is the time when many of us go through the tortuous and often repetitive process of making resolutions for the new year. Health club memberships swell, and health club activity increases…for a month at least. This is the year we are going to lose that pesky ten pounds, learn a new language, take that trip you have been putting off, or write the next great novel. The following is an excerpt from a piece a friend of mine sent me. It may help you think about your New Year’s resolutions, and put them in perspective.

Ancient Hindu teaches us about the stages of life, or ashramas. The first is Brahmacharya, the period of youth and young adulthood dedicated to learning. The second is Grihastha, when a person builds a career, accumulates wealth, and creates a family. In this second stage, philosophers find one of life’s most common traps. People become attached to earthly rewards—money, power, sex, prestige—and thus try to make this stage last a lifetime.

The antidote to these worldly temptations is Vanaprastha, the third ashrama, whose name comes from two Sanskrit words meaning “retiring” and “into the forest.” This is the stage, usually starting around age 50, in which we purposefully focus less on professional ambition, and become more and more devoted to spirituality, service, and wisdom. This doesn’t mean that you need to stop working when you turn 50. It’s only that your life goals should adjust.

Vanaprastha is a time for study and training for the last stage of life, Sannyasa, which should be totally dedicated to the fruits of enlightenment. As we age, we should resist the conventional lures of success in order to concentrate on more transcendentally important things.

December 29, 2021

NASA recently launched the James Webb Space Telescope, a truly monumental scientific achievement. It’s objective will not be to provide support for the Space Force. Rather, with its powerful lens, it’s focus will be to look back in time to possibly the origins of the universe. The universe is 13.8 billion years old (sorry Marco Rubio), and theoretically started with the Big Bang. The telescope will come closer than we have ever before to witnessing the creation.

Who knows what we will see as we look deeper into history? Maybe we will see a time when voting rights were protected by the President, Congress, and the Supreme Court? That was a long time ago. Maybe we will see a time when climate change and the degradation of the environment were accepted facts, and they were addressed by the Environmental Protection Act. There was a time when a women’s reproductive rights were protected by the Supreme Court. The telescope may witness the creation of Roe vs. Wade. Maybe the telescope can see back to a time when the Second Amendment literally referred to a musket-wielding militia.

Maybe if we can look back far enough, we can make America great again.

December 28, 2021

Porretta Terme, in central Italy, is passionate about basketball, and is pressing the Vatican to officially recognize its local saint as Italy’s patron of the sport. On a table in a small chapel in this small town, a notebook contains pages of devotionals, including gratitude for a healed meniscus and prayers to “win the championship in the next few years.” The back wall bears a bas-relief of a dying basketball player, palming a ball in his left hand as the Virgin Mary watches his earthly clock run down. The residents and local officials want to make the Madonna of the Bridge the patron saint of basketball.

If basketball can have a patron saint, why not golf? Who would qualify as a legitimate maker of miracles on the golf course? We all bring up the names of spiritual figures while playing, especially after poor shots, but who has actually performed a miracle. We know miracles exist. We have all experienced the miracle of the found ball, which we thought was lost in the depths of hell. What about the miracle of the golf ball that walks on water as it makes its way safely to the other side? I have personally seen the turning of a great shot into whine as my golf ball plunges into a watery grave. Being five down with five to go, I have seen golfers rise from the dead like Lazarus to win in a playoff. I know golfers who have fed thousands with their vanity handicaps. I have had partners play like someone with paralysis only to find a cure on the 18th hole. One has to be a believer of miracles after watching a fellow player pray to God that incoming storm clouds don’t interrupt his round, only to watch the clouds dissipate.

Many golfers consider the golf course a holy place, all 18 of them. It is the church of perpetual frustration. Golfers often pray to a higher authority, and will take that name in vain. For now, the patron saint of golf shall remain nameless. I am open to suggestions.