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IN SERVICE

If I had wanted to make a ton of money is this life, I would have a different career than journalism.

But journalism was, to my mind, the best way to make change in the world and serve people. An informed public is who we’re supposed to trust to make decisions in a democracy – my goal was to do that in a fair way to enable the best outcome.

I write this because today seems like a banner day for the “greed is good” mantra that Michael Douglas’ character preached in “Wall Street.”

Because there are people who don’t do what they do strictly to enrich themselves. They do it to serve their community. To advance humanity. Out of love for their country.

I’m talking, in particular, who sign up to work for the federal government or who choose to join our armed forces.

Yes, these people are trying to make a living. But if they wanted wealth, they picked the wrong “Let’s Make a Deal” curtain. And, until 2025, they probably were OK with that.

So let’s start with the thousands of federal employees who knew they were spending their final day on the job Tuesday.

They voluntarily resigned or retired in order to salvage some compensation after the Elon Musk barbarians ransacked the government in the first weeks of Trump’s second term.

Government work always seems to be diminished by popular culture – and especially by politicians, mostly (but not always) on the right.

They’re pointy-headed bureaucrats. Pencil pushers. Bean counters. Meddling. Power mad. Self-important. Job seekers. The scariest words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

Did I miss anything?

In the face of that, in the face of hearing how the work is unnecessary and a nuisance to society, these people choose to do it anyway. Fine tune weather forecasts. Inspect alfalfa sprouts. Monitor car emissions. Negotiate aid for countries trying to develop an economy. Clean out the portapotties at Yellowstone.

Prosecute insurrectionists.

They do it because they love America, even if way too much of America doesn’t love them. They do it because the Constitution that they’ve sworn an oath to uphold is what actually makes America great – not high-powered weapons or inflated stock prices or some egomaniac with orange makeup.

The government’s carrot to getting the best workers possible, people who need to pass a test to get their job, was job security and structured pay tiers. None of this Six Sigma crap that requires layoffs every so often to cull perceived inadequacy, People did difficult work without commissars whipping them into some task.

With experience comes expertise. The kind of people who stay calm in a crisis. The kind of people who lead younger workers by example.

The cranks who want a government so small they can drown it in a bathtub have the money to pay for what they need, or lawyers who can get them what they need. Greed is good for them. The less government infringes on greed, the better.

They – and people they’ve misled through their control of exploitive media – are thrilled to see this exodus of competence. The more government doesn’t work, the more they can say government doesn’t work. It feeds itself. The greedy get more. The targets get hurt. The people they mislead get angrier.

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Then there are the people who still had a job until the stroke of midnight Tuesday (Reminder: Midnight is the last moment of the prior day. 12:00:01 is the next day).

That’s when the government shut down because the Republican president and Congress couldn’t pass a budget.

If you think the Democrats are shutting down the government, you’re an idiot. There’s a simple formula for this – let’s see if even MAGA types can figure it out.

The Republicans need Democratic votes to pass a budget because they don’t have enough votes in the Senate to do so. In a democracy, if you don’t have the votes, you negotiate. Republicans believe negotiating means you accede to our demands and then we demand more.

That might not work this time.

Whatever the situation, the people paying the price aren’t the independently wealthy members of Congress. No, no, no.

It’s the people still in the employ of the federal government. And they either get furloughed – sent home without pay – or have to work even though they don’t get paid, which last I looked is something akin to slavery.

Either way, people who want to help their fellow Americans are helpless in a Republican shutdown. The people who campaign complaining about government doesn’t want make sure they’re right.

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Finally, we have the spectacle of Tuesday’s gathering of generals and commanders in Virginia at the behest of Hegseth and Trump, two walking and talking arguments for birth control.

Hegseth, the noted ubriacone, talked about violating rules of engagement and creating a warrior class that looks like his manifestation of those little green soldiers in “Toy Story.” Trump basically told them that they’re going to be fighting a war in such battlegrounds as Times Square, the Loop, Fisherman’s Wharf and Beverly Hills – against people who might very well be their parents, their siblings, their best friends from high school.

Stereotypes depict military leaders as excited by the prospect of battle. The truth is much different.

Talk to your friends or acquaintances who have chosen to serve their country instead of scramble for a buck. Who have led men and women into battle and seen them die on a battlefield. Who have made hard decisions and pledged an oath to defend the Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic.

Those generals didn’t tough it out in a military career to satisfy their urge to yell, or to wear uncomfortable outfits weighed down with medals and ribbons – what they call “fruit salad.”

The only light of that farce in Virginia was in the silence. The complete non-response of the military leaders to what Hegseth and Trump thought was going to be their red meat. The pained and angered expressions of people who take their oath seriously and understand that American people are never our enemies.

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Because they, like the government workers, pledged themselves to serve and protect us. There’s something incredibly noble about people who believe in this country’s governmental institutions and traditions, and who think that making them work is their duty.

People like Trump and Hegseth don’t get that. People who believe this country’s CEOs and financiers are the real heroes of society don’t get that. They think greed drives this country.

There are times when it has. This may be one of them. But that is not the hallmark of a great nation. It’s the hallmark of tinpot dictators and weak cowards.

Thank goodness for those generals. Thank goodness for the people who work in what some people deride as the bureaucracy. Thank goodness for the diplomats and inspectors and park rangers and, in a personal tribute, the lawyers who forsook riches because they have scruples.

We need to make this country safe for real patriots again. Until then, best wishes – and stay strong.

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TRUE ORANGE AND BLUE

I’ll post my usual assemblage of thoughts about the state of the world on Thursday.

But as a devoted fan of the New York Mets, I feel compelled to write a few words about being a devoted fan of the New York Mets.

I haven’t always been a devoted fan of the New York Mets (OK, I’ll stop with the ‘devoted’ stuff). My parents bonded over their love of the other team in town, the one with all the prominent Italian-Americans such as Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra and Phil Rizzuto. 

So I had that team’s swag when I was 7, long before anyone knew about team swag.

My mother’s father was a fan of the other New York team. But he and, because I admired my grandfather so much, I dumped them in late 1964 when they fired Berra as manager after losing the World Series in seven games.

The Mets built their new home, Shea Stadium, less than two miles from my childhood home. They weren’t an easy team to adopt, since they were bad. Notoriously, comically bad.

But Grandpa and I stuck with the Mets. We were rewarded five years later when they shocked the world and went from godawful to World Series champions. 

I stuck with them until 1977, when they unceremoniously dumped their greatest-ever player, Tom Seaver. Back to Brand X I went, watching them win two Series.

Then, in 1985, Berra – in his second time around as their manager – got fired again by the team’s impetuous, boorish owner. 

It was back to the Mets again. And because I feared that I showed signs of being one of the things I hate most – a front-runner – I vowed to stay true to the Orange and Blue.

That has not been the easiest thing to do.

After proving me right in 1986 with their second Series win, they have failed to achieve another one.

They had great chances several times, including a World Series against that other team in 2000. The closest they’ve come is avoiding a sweep, twice.

In the process of staying true to the Mets and cheering them all the damn time, I did a godawful, terrible thing:

I helped turn my kids into Mets fans, too.

For the more than 30 years of both their lives, they have never had the opportunity to see the Mets be the last team standing. To see them ride through New York’s Canyon of Heroes with the city’s denizens hurling garbage at them, because there’s no such thing as ticker tape in the 21st century.

My son actually works for them. He spent about 55 of his days or nights this season helping a pretty full Citi Field cheer for players who carry their hopes of glory for the franchise.

That faith was not rewarded yesterday. After compiling the best record in baseball through early June and holding a playoff spot until the 160th game of the 162-game season, the Mets ended 2025 failing to make the postseason.

It’s not the first time they faltered on the last day of the regular season. It’s not even the second. Three times this century, they’ve been on the outside of glory after failing miserably in the final game. This despite having a payroll something around $340 million, including more than $50 million for outfielder Juan Soto in the first of a 15-year contract.

It might be all right if I suffered these defeats by myself.

But I don’t.

When they were in elementary school, they heard the taunts of the other team’s fans. When the Mets lost the World Series to the other team, the school held a parade to celebrate. I was incensed – but somehow not surprised – that the principal could be that insensitive.

But like me, they’ve stuck with the Mets. We go to games together, drag their Mom to the ballpark on occasion, have converted my daughter’s wife and are working on my son’s girlfriend.

I want so very badly for the Mets to win a World Series before I pass from this life, so I can celebrate with my family and revel in the reflected glory. I would even just like not to have to listen to fans of other teams – and THAT other team – make snide remarks about they’re cheering for active teams in October and we’re not.

But I’m not as despondent as I thought I’d be when this collapse appeared imminent. I got to see 25 Mets games in 2025 and created memories with the people I love. We got to cheer and enjoy some special moments. 

It’s nice to win – and it hurts a lot to lose. But baseball has meant joy, excitement and – most importantly – family for 71 years.

I’ll be back. We’ll get ‘em next year. 

And if your team is in the postseason, congratulations. Enjoy this moment.

Even if you root for that other team.

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THE BEAUTIFUL

This is a quick rumination after spending a day at one of this nation’s greatest attributes – its national parks.

In 1872, President Ulysses Grant established the world’s first national park – Yellowstone, mostly in Wyoming, but with small portions in Montana and Idaho. It was designed to preserve some of the beauty of this nation while there was still the chance – stopping overwrought from tapping these lands purely for profit.

I haven’t been to a lot of U.S. national parks. But I have been to Yellowstone and Grand Teton in Wyoming, Petrified Forest and Grand Canyon in Arizona, Joshua Tree in California, Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, Shenandoah in Virginia and Haleakala in Hawaii.

There are all treasures. They are also an example of the wonders creative thinking can perform when it comes to making a better place to live.

The proponents of Yellowstone feared that the area of the Rockies would suffer the fate of Niagara Falls, which had already become a seedy tourist trap obscuring the magnificence of the waterfalls. Designating Yellowstone a national park not only protected Old Faithful and the grizzly bears from unscrupulous profit-seekers, but it gave a boost to tourism as an American industry.

The park I went to today was clean and beautiful. It left me – a city boy – in awe of what natutre can create. And it made me grateful that someone in the 1870s thought enough to preserve our natural heritage so that Americans they’d never meet would marvel at these wonders.

Would that we approached all our problems in the same way – getting ahead of them and protecting them from the unscrupulous and exploitive.

I’ll write more about this in the future. But for now, consider packing your loved one(s) into the car and exploring the most beautiful array of parks in the world.

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¿DÓNDE ESTÁ MI HERMANO?

When I was in the fourth grade, our teacher tried to teach us Spanish.

It was unusual then to teach elementary school students a foreign language. But that might be the best time to do it.

That’s because I still remember the sentence atop this piece, more than 60 years later. And I cannot tell you what Italian word I supposedly learned this morning on Duolingo.

Hispanic language, culture and overall presence weren’t quite as noticeable in my world in 1963 as they are today. I don’t remember tacos, much less taco trucks. Bad Bunny would have been some malevolent cartoon character, not a singer. Signs weren’t in two languages, just English.

Not that there wasn’t any Hispanic influence. “West Side Story” – the musical and the movie – remained fresh on people’s minds, in part because of the incredible music and storytelling.

But when my class got its Spanish lessons, I thought the only place it might come in handy was if I went to Spain one day.

I bring this up because we have entered Hispanic Heritage Month. It seems strange to start a month-long celebration in the middle of September, but that’s because it’s timed to commence with Mexico’s independence celebrations and include those of other countries in our hemisphere.

This must be – at best – a bittersweet celebration. Thousands of Hispanics have been swept off the streets of our country by the new Gestapo, the agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They’ve been sicced on people based pretty much on the fact that they kinda look Hispanic – it seems that whether these folks have documentation or not is inconsequential. 

These agents have been empowered by a miserable president trying to distract the nation from his multiple failings as a leader and human being. And they’ve been given license by a Supreme Court that puts privilege over justice and expedience over process – the Constitution they’re sworn to interpret fairly reduced to an annoying memo.

In the “again” part of MAGA, a lot of the inference you can draw is that America was a better country when your supermarket cashier didn’t have a Spanish accent, when congas weren’t the drums of street musicians, when the guy who cut your grass was sunburned red instead of brown.

But that’s not how America works. Period. Pizza and hot dogs came from adapting to immigrants from Europe. Jazz came from working in the rhythms of Africa. Our military and public service heroes trace their  origins to every corner of the globe.

I have no Hispanic blood or members of my extended family. It doesn’t matter. These are my people – just as everyone on Team America who abides by the principles of our freedom are my people.

They work in our communities. Their kids go to our schools. They pay their taxes – which is a damn sight more than what too many of these so-called patriots empowering the Republican Party do.

Their culture makes ours more radiant. Their food makes ours taste better. Their bravery and dedication keep us safe. Their happiness reflects well on us.

And that includes those who have come from Central America fleeing authoritarian regimes, gang warfare and crushing poverty – those who couldn’t wait for a documentation system that’s broken and corrupt, geared to let in white South Africans and nobody else.

We should not let spoiled brats like Trump, Homan, Noem and Miller dictate how these people are treated. They have no clue.

I didn’t learn much Spanish. Other than that one sentence in fourth grade, and the Spanish version of the warning on subway cars about not going on the tracks.

But.

¿Dondê esta mi hermano?

Mi hermano estâ aquî. Gracias a dios..

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SETTLERS

Perhaps it’s our nature to believe that, as Pangloss says in “Candide,” “all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.”

Especially for Americans. We’ve been the world’s most prosperous country for a century or so. So we have a standard of living that is pretty high – and certainly much better than those struggling in poor or war-ravaged countries.

So complacency is a default mode. 

The problem with complacency is that it runs into another aspect of nature – aspiration. We want to be better. We want to be the best.

Sometimes that’s not so good. This must be the greediest period I’ve known in my 71 years. Those who have a lot want a whole lot more. A Republican Congress passes a tax bill that disproportionately favors the wealthy. Tesla tries to make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire. A CEO grabs a tennis player’s autographed hat from the kid he gave it to.

But more often than not, aspiration is a positive. Staying the same is almost impossible, because time affects everything. But trying to get better, to do better – that is how we make progress and advance society.

Most of the people who have come into this country without documentation didn’t do so to take away American jobs or flout American laws. They did so because of an aspiration to live a better life than one of fear or deprivation in their native country. That aspiration was so strong that they didn’t let the inability of this country to figure out how to let them in legally stop them.

The people of the United States could have responded in kind – double entendre intended. They could have realized that while this country has led the way in exploration and innovation, nothing stays the same. You have to keep growing to stay a leader. 

And the key ingredient to American growth has been taking new ideas from people of different backgrounds and synthesizing them into progress.

So welcoming immigrants has always been in our best interest. 

Unfortunately, that is not the path the plurality of voters chose last November.

And forget complacency. That would be a positive compared to what they voted for.

Regression.

It’s in the phrase. “Make America Great Again.” Implying that America isn’t great now. That the path of inclusion is not the way to a better future. That the restrictions and limitations of the past were a far better way than adapting to changing times.

So you have three paths for what might no longer be the world’s oldest democracy.

— Moving forward. Taking the gift of fresh blood and ideas, and then parlaying them into a stronger, safer, more equitable society.

— Moving backward. Thinking things were better without regard to people who are different from the majority of the country. That the old ways of doing things, that the old rules and laws, that the old ideas about society and science are the path to happiness.

— Complacency. Believing you can fight off change or the reversion to the old norms. Saying things are OK as they are and attempting to weather the storm that’s brewing around us.

There’s a part of me that thinks the plurality of Americans is in the third group.

If we stay quiet, if we don’t encourage but don’t discourage the reactionaries in our midst, they’ll burn themselves out or just get tired. Let’s hang on to what we’ve got.

As if that is what will allow us to keep it.

We’ve become settlers – and not in the pioneer sort of way. We’re ready to settle for what we believe is peace. 

But that’s not how it works.

We shouldn’t want to preserve democracy. We should want to improve it. Abolish the Electoral College. Make it easier to vote. Limit the spending and campaigning so that we’re not so overwhelmed by political ads and social media posts.

We should want to maintain our standard of living. We should want it to grow. We should do what we can to eliminate poverty, hunger and homelessness. We should aspire to new technologies – not just in developing iPhone 17s, but in transportation and medicine. We should make sure our children, elderly and disabled are cared for without straining a family. We should ensure that every one of us is entitled to love who we choose to love and be loved by who chooses to love us.

We should not settle for what we have. We should want more – and we should want it enough so that everybody who wants more gets a fair shot at getting it.

That’s obviously not happening now. Now is the autumn of our discontent.

But before we can fight to end MAGAism and Trumpism, we must know what we want. And what we should want is not for things to stay the same, because they can’t.

It’s September 11, the 24th anniversary of the worst attack on the American homeland that we can remember. Let’s resolve not to be afraid – as we’ve been too often since that sunny day in Manhattan and Virginia –  of adversaries foreign and domestic, the bin Ladens and the Trumps. 

Let’s not settle. Let’s strive to be better.

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DE MORTUIS NIL NISI BONUM. EXCEPT…

James Dobson died last week – and if you didn’t hear the news about that, it might be because the cheering drowned it out.

Not a lot of people in my circle of acquaintances know anything about Dobson, which is something worth discussing in itself.  If you didn’t, Dobson was an evangelical author and the founder of such fundamentalist organizations as the Family Research Council and the radio program “Focus on the Family.”

The short way of describing Dobson is that everything you loathe about Christian fundamentalism in contained in the works and words of Dobson:

The school children murdered at Sandy Hook were God’s retribution for homosexuality.

Women in a marriage consent to sexual activity in exchange for the protection provided by a man. 

Girls speak twice as many words a day as boys.

And the only way to get a child to behave the way you want is through painful punishment.

Dobson spread this stuff, Family Research Council claims, to 200 million people around the world. It was his way of combatting what he perceived to be the permissiveness that was swept into society beginning in the 1960s.

He was MAGA brainwashing before Trump’s ascent. He was the anti-Dr. Spock.

A persistent theme in the social media posts about Dobson’s death is the idea that his philosophies and teachings are the reasons adult kids have nothing to do with their parents.

Among the more common phrases on the Bluesky site: “rot in hell,” “rest in piss,” “good riddance.”

I found out about Dobson during the early days of the Internet when I tried to start a parenting news website called Raisin. I kept seeing press releases from Family Research Council and its mouthpiecs. Gary Bauer, a former Reagan administration official who tried to run for president in 2000 and got less than 1% of the vote in the New Hampshire Republican primary.

So that’s how I became acquainted with their extreme ideology.

As I said, most of the people I know have any idea about any of this. They’re not evangelicals and they certainly would be more apt to follow trained child psychologists’ advice about how to raise their kids. 

My friends and acquaintances would be horrified by the thought that their children might be afraid of them. Their operating theory is that a child is conceived in love – and that’s the guiding principle in their upbringing.

So think about it. There’s an America where Mr. Rogers, Elmo and Arthur are the heroes. There’s another where a wooden implement is the dominant force.

It might explain what’s at the root of our super divided society. The old ways of doing things vs. the thought out way of doing things. If you can see a “Make America Great Again” philosophy in this retro view, it’s understandable.

To the point that there was actual glee in Dobson’s death at age 89.

The Romans believed that of the dead, you should speak nothing but good. To which actress Bette Davis, when hearing about the death of rival Joan Crawford, supposedly said “You should never say bad things about the dead, only good. Joan Crawford is dead. Good.”

It seems cruel to pick on dead people. I get it.

But there’s a reason the Munchkins sing “Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead” when Dorothy plops the farmhouse on the Wicked Witch of the East. Some bad stuff was going down in Oz, and until her demise, the Munchkins were suffering.

It’s a little more serious here. Thousands of adults who are troubled or estranged from their parents are wishing that some god really did strike people down with lightning. it was just too late when it came to Dobson.

The lessons I take away are twofold.

One, I think I’m OK, but I really hope I have lived my life in a way that my passing is not reason for anyone to celebrate.

Two, I can think of at least one person who’s a constant presence in our lives these days whose death might be celebrated more than Dobson’s. I, for one, have Champagne on ice for that one.

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MIXED UP

Anyone who thinks winning the lottery is the ultimate success isn’t married to someone they love.

Somehow, I think the odds are longer. There are more than 8 billion people on this planet. Out of them, I found the one. 

There are two reasons I bring this up. 

One is that last week was the 40th anniversary of our engagement. I’d like to say that I did something wonderful for the occasion. But, honestly, I’d forgotten the occasion when I exchanged an unused Met game ticket for the contest that night. So much for being sentimental (for those irate about this, rest assured the Mets lost.)

The other reason is the resurfacing of comments by Indiana Gov. Mike Braun. Three years ago, when he was a senator, he told inquiring reporters that the Supreme Court should leave the matter of interracial marriage to the states. It was taken – I wonder why – as an indication he’s not crazy about the idea. Soon after, he backtracked and said he didn’t understand the question and opposes all forms of racism.

That’s nice.

I suspect this remark resurfaced in light of a lot of Trump-inspired opprobrium about people who aren’t white. WItness the occupation of Washington, D.C., by red-state national guardsmen, the effort to gerrymander non-white representatives out of office and even Trump’s attempt to tell us that slavery got a bad rap that caused that no-big-deal Civil War.

My relationship – hey, my marriage – is interracial. Being different races isn’t the reason we’re married, just as being different races wasn’t a reason not to marry. It’s just that the one in 8 billion people I fell in love with happened to be from the other side of the world.

The side benefits of interracial marriage are amazing. I’ve been exposed to cultural experiences I never would have seen. My kids – who, like every offspring of interracial parents I’ve seen, are gorgeous – can tell the difference between good-and-bad dan tats and cannoli.

If there’s a minus, it’s that other people sometimes seem bothered by it. 

We’ve gotten fisheyes from department store clerks in Florida, cab drivers in Hong Kong, waiters in a Brooklyn restaurant. My kids didn’t tell me until they were grown up how much antipathy they faced in our mostly white suburb. 

On the other hand, we’ve been blessed with total support and pride from both our extended families. 

Obviously, that isn’t always the case.

Interracial marriage wasn’t completely legal in this country until 1967, when the Supreme Court ended so-called “miscegenation” laws via the case of the Lovings of Virginia – a Black woman and white man who married. That ruling voided those laws everywhere, although it took until 2000 – 14 years into our marriage – for the last state to do so.

Most laws against interracial marriage focused on Black and white couples. Especially Black man-white woman couples that caused nightmares for those who combined racism and sexism. But there was also hostility toward all other kinds of combinations – any mix of white, Black, Latino, Asian and Indigenous people (and, of course, any mix of sexual orientation involved, but that’s a topic for another time).

When I was born, less than 5% of Americans supported interracial marriage. Even when the Loving decision came, a majority opposed the idea. Shortly after we married, it turned – more Americans supported interracial marriage than opposed it. ( I don’t think we had anything to do with it, but who knows?)

In the last Gallup survey taken four years ago, 94% of Americans approved an interracial marriage – just about a complete reversal of the percentages from the 1950s. About 1 in 5 American marriages are multiracial.

It’s a wonderful thing to see.

All kinds of combinations sitting in the stands at Citi Field, walking with their families at Disney World, attending a Beyonce concert in Los Angeles, running to a gate at O’Hare.

It also seems to drive some people crazy.

Part of what we’re seeing from Trump and the MAGA creeps is an attempt to reestablish “racial purity.” Whites with whites. Other races with their own, in a diminished stature.

It seems to make them nuts – not that they need much to achieve that – to see multiracial kids and not know whether to treat them as white or whatever other race they are. How can you profile people if they’re not exactly the ones you want to profile?

The fact is interracial marriage is contributing to what makes America truly great – the idea that we are committed to the important principles of love and inclusion. Interracial marriage has given us Barack Obama, Derek Jeter, Alicia Keys and The Rock.

It doesn’t matter if you’re the same race. It doesn’t matter if you’re a mix of two or more races. 

It matters what you bring to the American table, what you contribute to make this a better country, and whether or not the person you love is that one in 8 billion you dream of finding.

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GRAB ‘IM BY THE PUSSFACE

When Vladimir Putin sets his blood-stained werewolf claws on U.S. soil Friday, a massive contingent of the world’s peacekeepers should grab him and his henchmen.

After putting Putin and the lot in handcuffs, they should board a nonstop flight to The Hague. That’s where he could stand trial at the International Court of Justice – credibly accused of crimes against humanity in his country, Ukraine and throughout Europe.

I’m sorry. That was just my imagination, running away with me.

Alas, what’s going to happen is that Putin will be greeted by perhaps his most ardent admirer, Donald John Trump. Who, unfortunately, holds the title of President of the United States.

Trump believes he can help facilitate a peace agreement after three and a-half years of Russian aggression against Ukraine. He’s doing this without any legitimate representative of Ukraine any closer than the nearest McDonald’s.

So, basically, this is the excuse Trump needs to get face time with his dream boy, Vladdy P. 

Some people think he’s also looking for a diversion from the flap over the Jeffrey Epstein files. But if you’ve fallen for the idea that there’s something about the Epstein files that’s going to undo the Trump presidency, the Brooklyn Bridge is available for a small fee. 

We all know that Trump joined the debauchery of Epstein Island – we know because the girls, now young women, told us. It still hasn’t caused the MAGA pickup truck jockeys and frat boys to back away from the gold-plated demon.

As for Putin, it’s a chance to travel to another country and actually get welcomed.

This meeting is taking place at Elmendorf Air Force Base near Anchorage, in part because Alaska doesn’t have a town named Munich. It’s also on the base, someplace you can’t imagine the leader of a world power going, because there’s no safe place in America for Putin other than where he can be protected by the U.S. military.

There are more than a million Americans of Ukrainian ancestry. And there’s more than a few, I imagine, who fantasize about doing something to Putin that would only partially make up for the horror he’s inflicted on extended family and friends.

Putin signed off on bombing hospitals. Housing projects. Water supplies. Electrical power grids.

He’s on board with kidnapping children. With torturing prisoners.

But despite overwhelming numbers and seemingly unlimited munitions, Putin hasn’t been able to take Ukraine – something he thought he’d do in three days. The Ukrainians lucked into one of the greatest leaders of my lifetime in Voldodymyr Zelenskyy and he has perservered.

So far.

Joe Biden recognized how important it was to support Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians. He did all he could, especially given the fact that the moronic Republicans controlled the House after the 2022 midterms.

Trump, on the other hand, clings to a bunch of fantasies.

One is that he is the equal to Putin. Another is that, if Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter could be Nobel laureates, so could he.

He’s bought into the smoke being blown up his massive ass from Benjamin Netanyahu and that Cambodian leader that he’s some sort of man of peace. As opposed to a demented tyrant who’s perfectly fine with kidnapping people off U.S. streets and hustling them to jungle jails outside the country or concentration camps inside.

(Note to those who cry foul when we call the places ICE takes its victims “concentration camps”: If you complain now, you’ll be considered complicit when history books call them concentration camps 50 years from now.)

And Trump’s idea of peace is that you have to let Russia have the land they’ve stolen from Ukraine in order for the fighting to stop. In other words, he’s the Neville Chamberlain of the 21st century.

That’s why Zelenskyy is warning Europe that Putin is pushing to take as much land as possible ahead of the Alaska meeting. “Wait, Donny, don’t forget this town we took last night in your ‘peace’ offer,” or the Russian version of that.

Whatever happens Friday, it will be another pathetic day in American history perpetrated by Donald Trump. January 6, 2021 tops the list obviously, but the Helsinki meeting with Putin will have a new challenger for second place in total humiliation.

That is, unless Trump is smarter than we all think and has the zipties and orange jumpsuits ready for Putin and his gang.

Fat chance.

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HOW MANY SIT-UPS CAN YOU DO IN TWO MINUTES?

The people with whom I went to high school would be floored to learn that, in my 71 years, I’ve run two New York City Marathons and more 10K and 5K races than I can remember.

They would be floored because I was not – shall we say – physically fit when I was a teenager. 

I was heavy. That’s the kind word. There are lots of reasons why. But as much as my heart saw myself as athletic, my body never cooperated.

When I went off to college and then after I graduated, I saw the advantages of working out. One day, on a beach vacation to Rhode Island, I started running. I did that on and off into my late 60s. When I tore my meniscus hiking and developed arthritis, I switched to a stationary bike – although I am thinking about making my first run as a 70-year-old in the next few weeks.

The reason I mention all this is that there is nothing about what one of the women instructors on my Peleton calls my “fitness journey” that has anything to do with having taken physical education classes in school.

And so when Trump, in one of his efforts to bring back the tried-and-truly-useless of the past, declared last week that he wants the Presidential Fitness Test returned to the nation’s schools, it sounds about right.

He hasn’t the slightest clue what it would take to help our nation’s kids live healthier lives.

The Presidential Fitness Test, for those who forgot, was this four-part event that your whole gym class did. It consisted of sit-ups, squat thrusts, straddling some lines and running a lap around the school track.

The point supposedly was to show how fit you were compared not only to your classmates, but to other kids around the country.

The test was one of the stupid things about physical education in elementary and secondary schools.

Gym classes are mandatory because, supposedly, they instill the notion that kids should be fit.

But what they do is completely ridiculous.

For kids who are would-be athletes, wanting to compete in interscholastic sports, they’re 45-50 minutes of beating their chest and showing how strong, fast or whatever they are.

But for kids who need help in getting healthy, they’re a waste of time at best and, often, a chance to be humiliated or bullied.

There is no effort – none – to help kids in need find a program that will help them improve their physical well-being. 

The test that Trump wants to reinstitute is about competition and superiority. He panders to bullies because he is one – and this gives them another chance to show off.

Most kids don’t need any more of that. They need to be encouraged to do healthy things. They need someone to ask them what kinds of things they’re comfortable with doing. They need to start slowly and build a love of physical activity as a way to get in touch with themselves and the world around them.

I’ve run races in my home of New York, in Florida and California and even London. Not once did I think about something that happened in a gym class that was about conforming to the rules and competing against the school jocks.

Not once was I made to feel useless, even though I came nowhere close to winning a race. As opposed to when I couldn’t do a forward roll, swing off the rings or wrestle a state champion almost 100 pounds lighter than me,

And yet, I’m willing to wager that I’m in a better place physically than 90% of the people in my gym class because I enjoy exercising.

President Barack Obama got rid of the Presidential Fitness Test because it was a complete waste of time and unhelpful. 

Just like Trump.

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A NOT-SO-SECRET WEAPON

In the middle of a hot New York summer day, a guy from Las Vegas walked into a Park Avenue office building, murdered a security guard, two other people working there and an NYPD officer, and then turned the gun on himself.

The New York Times just reported that the man bought the gun – an assault weapon – from his boss for $1,400. He then drove to New York with the intent of inflicting some sort of pain on executives of the National Football League.

We can wonder about why he did it. We can ask if he was mentally ill. We can dismiss him as a troubled soul.

What we can’t dismiss is the goddamn assault weapon.

For 10 years, from 1995 to 2005, there was a ban in this country on some semi-automatic firearms as well as on large capacity ammunition magazines. President Bill Clinton signed it into law, with the support of former Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. President George W. Bush let the law expire.

Because the law wasn’t in effect long enough, critics say there’s no statistical proof that it cut down on murders.

But it sure seems as though there would have been anecdotal proof on Monday in New York.

And yet, you know and I know and everybody in Congress and everyone in the gun-fetish lobby that’s the National Rifle Association that the end result of this horrible murder will be the status quo. 

No laws will be passed. No regulations enforced. In fact, the bangbangers will argue that New York’s stricter laws on assault weapons are useless, that the only way to prevent this sort of mayhem is to arm everybody to the teeth.

Here’s the thing:

One of those murdered Monday was Officer Didarul Islam of the New York City Police Department. He was working a second job as a security officer at the office building when the gunman sauntered in with his assault rifle.

Islam got world-class training to shoot the handgun he carried. It was no match when someone carrying a war weapon initiated an attack that no one could have possibly expected.

So why don’t police unions and police organizations organize and march and sell bumper stickers demanding that this country regulate the sale of weapons that overpower the men and women trying to protect us?

It always seems as though the people who fight the hardest for sensible gun control are students and parents. Because the most horrific of mass shootings – and they’re all pretty goddamn awful – are those in which children are massacred in their classrooms. Sandy Hook and Uvalde evoke painful memories and terror.

And yet, politicians bought and paid for by the NRA manage to ignore these protests. 

There’s nothing they can do. It’s the Second Amendment. The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Thoughts and prayers.

If police advocates went as all out to stop assault weapons as they do to whine about lack of respect, maybe that respect would come more easily.

But I don’t think it’s going to happen. And here’s why:

You get the sense that police officers don’t want bad people to have guns. But they seem to think that everybody they know – kids, parents, siblings, extended family, neighbors – should.

So regulating that would put their faves at odds with the law. And given the choice of possibly getting killed in a shootout with someone having imaginary CTE or arming them and theirs, they’ll take the latter.

Police officers have seen what happens when a gunman takes an AR-15 to elementary school children, And they still can’t manage to stand strong with kids and parents against those weapons.

So forget the BS about how New York is a cesspool of evil, or how it’s our socialist tendencies or lax morals or anything else these yokels from the Republican Party spit out.

Strong gun laws would go a long way toward stopping the madness that took place in New York this week. And police groups can go a long way toward getting those gun laws.

But it ain’t gonna happen.

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