Category Archives: Uncategorized

Uncategorized

HELLO, YOU MUST BE GOING

The United States is co-hosting the 2025 Men’s World Cup soccer championship,, beginning next month, along with Canada and Mexico.

I’m not a soccer fan. I don’t care what the world thinks and I don’t care how funny “Ted Lasso” is. It’s a boring sport. My father categorized a sport he didn’t like as an “eye test.” That works for me.

There was one thing I did like about the World Cup being in the United States —  was that a world of people with a low threshold of excitement were going to fly to New York, Los Angeles and Boston – among other places. They were going to spend money in our hotels, eat at our restaurants, buy tchotchkes from people on street corners, maybe go to the theater or see live music. 

It was going to be great getting easily entertained people to part with their euros, pesos, yen, won or whatever.

Not any more.

Americans somehow chose Donald Trump as president. The rest of the world didn’t. And as much as they enjoy seeing guys wearing their nations’ colors running around kicking a ball and occasionally putting it in a net, the people of the world aren’t looking for the hassle the Trump troupe seems hellbent on inflicting.

This was expressed most clearly last week by the dolt who is vice president, J.D. Vance. 

“Of course everyone is welcome to come and see this wonderful event,” Vance said. “We want them to come, we want them to celebrate, we want them to watch the games.”

There’s always a but with these people.

“But when the time is up we want them to go home,” he added, warning them not to overstay their visas.

Successful tourism makes you feel welcome. My family went to London last summer and I felt welcomed and appreciated by everyone I encountered. Their patience with a dense old American was exemplary.

Contrast that with what we’re telling people coming to this country in 2025. Sure you can show up for your sports event, but then get the hell out of here.

As if anything we’re doing is encouraging people to stay.

The fact is that the U.S. was poised to benefit from a strengthening world economy. New York City, perhaps the No. 1 destination for international tourists, was expecting a surge in visitors – an especially welcome development for a city whose theater industry generates significant revenue.

Now, forget it. The wacko rhetoric of Trump and his henchmen. The videos of people suspected – not convicted, mind you – of being in this country without documentation being ambushed by ICE and police collaborators. 

That’s not what people traveling want. They can watch the World Cup from a pub in their home country and not worry about abduction, harassment or just plain stupidity.

It’s a shame. We have a fantastic country that we should share with the world. We have spectacular national parks, theme parks that are the envy of all, magnificent art and architecture.

None of this is of value to Trump or the rest of the Republican idiots. They think what makes America great is a perverted value of strength.’

In the process, American tourism will lose billions of dollars from people who are too afraid or too angry to put up with the nonsense we’ve been dealing with since January 20.

Trump will revel in the World Cup when it begins on June 11. He’ll show up at some stadium, probably one in a place where he’s not wildly unpopular – Dallas or Miami. And he’ll sit in some luxury box and wave majestically before he leaves at the 45-minute intermission.

We’ll have to deal with this crap again in 2028, when the Olympics come to Los Angeles. Unless the situation in this country is so bad that it would be a colossal mistake to hold the games here.

For some reason, that doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

Standard
Uncategorized

UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU!

My biggest worry when I was 18 is no American’s biggest worry in 2025.

It was the draft. The Vietnam War was on – and I was one of my many peers who thought Vietnam was a stupid, evil idea.

And not just because being drafted to go to Vietnam would screw up my life plans. The idea of dying in a war about as far away from New York as possible, for no reason that I thought worthwhile, was about as pathetic a thing as I could imagine.

The draft was abolished just in time for me to miss it. I actually went through the lottery in 1973 and came up with 89 – out of 365. Those odds wouldn’t have been good. 

So I never served in the all-volunteer U.S. military.

Over the years, I’ve grown to respect and admire the men and women who serve because they believe it is what Americans are supposed to do. That was wrong in Vietnam and Iraq, as history has proven. But it reflects a love of country that seems honorable from here in 2025.

The idea of doing something for your country before you begin a lifelong career seems to be lost on most young Americans. It was tarnished by the Vietnam experience; many of the parents and grandparents of today’s teenagers are adamant that their kids not serve in the military, especially involuntarily.

But what if the draft wasn’t only for the military.

What if all Americans, by the time they turn 23, were required to perform some sort of national service. It could be in the military – there are millions of people who are inclined to serve that way.

But it could also be for purposes that don’t require guns. National service could be used as a conservation corps to maintain national parks. It could be used to help convert commercial buildings into affordable housing. It could be a way to teach underserved kids to read, to feed senior citizens and veterans.

It would be almost an extra education year that would come with some sort of renumeration. 

Why is this a good idea?

Three reasons.

First, it would put the energy and imagination of our nation’s young people toward solving problems that just never seem to go away.

Young adults would not do dangerous jobs. They would get some leeway in choosing the service they perform, much as those who sign up for the military now pick the branch of service they want.

In the process, they would challenge the way we do things and improve on them. They would be a force for the change they want to see in the world, taking responsibility for it in a way that getting a job out of school wouldn’t.

Secondly, it would give different things to different people.

For those coming from underprivileged backgrounds, a national service requirement would provide training and guidance that they’re not getting in school. It would give them an opportunity to find something on which to build a career.

As for the privileged, working a year in public service would show them how the things they do affect society on an interpersonal level. Doctors, lawyers, bankers, among others, often don’t understand how their decisions play with the people of a community. This would be a chance to see it at ground level.

When the draft existed, it was easy to duck if you had the resources. Example No. 1 is the current occupant of the Oval Office, who despite attending military school managed to get out of induction because of supposed bone spurs in his feet. (This is a man who his doctor currently describes as 6’4″ and 224 pounds, so his medical history might be questionable.)

This draft would not be duckable. If you have bone spurs, you can still work as a clerk in a food distribution warehouse. You can help sort stuff cleaned off a beach.

Finally, a national service requirement would provide something that’s been missing from the United States for a long time.

A sense of empathy for the other people in our country.

There’s this nonsense that stratifies the coasts from the interior, recent immigrants from people whose families came here generations ago, blue states from red states.

A national service requirement would force young people to interact with other young people from around the nation. New Yorkers have no concept what rural Wisconsin is like – Wisconsin farmers have all kinds of Fox News-induced ideas about the terrors of Manhattan.

In World War II, getting to know fellow Americans worked to create the most powerful fighting force in history – one that defeated fascism around the world. And that was with the kind of discriminatory laws that prevented everyone from taking part.

A national service requirement might help stop the nonsense that we’ve seen in this country this year. 

It’s probably never going to happen. But it’s an idea worth considering.

favorites://
Standard
Uncategorized

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE. JUST NOT TO THE FLAG.

The Republican who represents my Congressional district held a town hall meeting this week. 

Perhaps even more than other districts, this is a swing. Mike Lawler, with the help of more than a million dollars of Elon Musk’s money, held on to the seat he first won in the GOP sweep of 2022. 

So the nearly half of voters who didn’t vote for him – and even a percentage of those who did – were pretty damn pissed about what’s gone down since January 20.

How pissed?

Here’s the first few paragraphs of Nicholas Fandos’ account in The New York Times:

No one was expecting a love fest when Representative Mike Lawler, Republican of New York, faced constituents in his suburban swing district on Sunday night. Still, even he seemed surprised by the night’s first clash — over the Pledge of Allegiance.

“Please tell me you’re not objecting to the Pledge of Allegiance,” Mr. Lawler asked incredulously after some members of the audience inside a high school auditorium audibly groaned when he suggested reciting it.

They acquiesced, and several hundred attendees labored to their feet to say the pledge, but not without indicating why they believed its words had come to ring hollow.

I didn’t attend the meeting at one of the high schools in my school district. I expected my more boisterous neighbors to show up and say pretty much what I would have said about the disaster that is the 47th Presidency of the United States.

But I would not have “labored to my feet” for the Pledge of Allegiance. Because I think you can find the core of what’s wrong with the United States right now in it.

Most of the countries that have traditionally been our allies – Britain, Canada, France, Italy and so on – don’t have a pledge. Their kids don’t start their day trying to say a word similar to “indivisible;” whoever wrote the Pledge – and its authorship is disputed – was not thinking clearly about the hearing and enunciation of elementary school kids.

That wouldn’t be a problem. We’re not those countries – as Archie Bunker said, “We threw the British out of here.” – and so there’s no need to follow their example.

The problem with the Pledge of Allegiance is that it’s only secondary to “the republic.” Its primary focus – and this goes for the National Anthem, too – is the flag.

The first thing is the flag. “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.”

The flag. Not the Constitution. Not the laws of our land. Not to the now 340 million of us who actually make up this country, who get kissed off at the end with the words “with liberty and justice for all.”

No. A rectangular cloth of nylon, polyester or cotton – is the thing to which we pledge our allegiance. The material would have been used as a windbreaker or a tablecloth or the flag of Vanuatu. But because it has a pattern of stripes and stars that meet general approval, it deserves our allegiance?

That seems like a lot. And I think the problem is that too many Americans – particularly the ones who support the current president – confuse the flag with what it’s supposed to stand for.

They think its existence is the height of patriotism. They actually say that – every year, some group runs with a flag from West Point to somewhere else before Memorial Day. The promotion of it in our town calls it the most patriotic thing.

It’s the Shroud of Turin of the American experience.

And lost in all this is how we think about each other.

We are supposed to be a nation of laws. We have this great Constitution – if you’ve been reading this blog recently, you’ve joined me in a full reading. And it’s being trampled by Trump and his henchmen because they worship the flag, not the principles that are supposed to guide American democracy.

Hell, they used the flag as a weapon on January 6, 2021. Watch the videos of these MAGA maroons assaulting Capitol Police officers with sharpened flagpoles. They pledged allegiance to the flag – and then betrayed the country it represents.

And then there’s the variations designed to intimidate people they don’t like. The black stars and stripes with the blue stripe in the middle that says I support police, even when they’re beating up people for no reason. The “Blue Lives Matter” answer to “Black Lives Matter.”

It’s not just the pledge – our national anthem is the freaking “Star-Spangled Banner,” about a flag that’s still flying after the Battle of Fort McHenry in Baltimore. No one remembers much about the battle, like how many Americans were killed or how they managed to hold off the British who had just stomped through Washington.

Instead, what they remember is some lyrics a lawyer wrote to a British drinking song about the flag still being there.

No other civilized nation I can think of is as hung up on the flag as the United States.

Various groups have established all these rules on how the flag should be presented. You can’t wear it. God forbid it falls into a puddle or, shudder, touches the ground. You have to burn a flag if it’s worn out, but if you burn it in protest, woe is you.

The things that are sacred to me about the United States of America are the things to which I’ll pledge allegiance.

The rule of law.

Civility. Conducting myself as a responsible citizen.

Kindness.

Appreciation of just how beautiful this land is. Shepherding the land so that fellow Americans appreciate the same things 1,000 years from now.

Honoring those who have served our nation. Not just the military, although it should be held in reverence, but those who have labored to make our states, our cities and our neighborhoods safer and stronger. That includes teachers, firefighters, sanitation workers, and so many others that their omission is going to piss off people. (Sorry!)

And celebration of the people who live in my country. No matter what they look like or who they love or where their families started their American journey.

When the flag is the point, people aren’t. And that leads to the kind of detachment so many Americans seem to have. We’re a nation of indignation because we’ve lost respect for our own people. America isn’t the flag – it’s the people and the laws that protect them.

That’s to whom we should pledge our allegiance.

We did, once.

In 1776, our representatives meeting in Philadelphia approved a document written by a Virginia farmer. It ends this way: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

We should be willing to pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor mutually – in support of one another – as Americans. Not a flag.

favorites://
Standard
Uncategorized

O SAY, CAN YOU SEE?

I’m not one for performative patriotism.

But recently, I’ve had a lot of thoughts about a performance of the National Anthem I saw.

It was before the start of a Mets game at Citi Field in New York. The day was chilly – the temperature never rose above 47 degrees. At least it was sunny – I sat close to the field and the  sun beating down helped keep things comfortable.

On an aesthetic level, I’ve never been a big fan of “The Star Spangled Banner.” My argument boils down to this – the nation that produced George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Carole King and Stevie Wonder should not be represented by a Maryland lawyer’s poem sung to the tune of a British drinking song.

The song is hard to sing. It’s a so-so message. And, in the dumb way the United States seems to think of patriotism, it’s about a flag.

(Getting hung up on the flag is also the problem with the Pledge Of Allegiance. That’s a topic for another time.)

Another issue is that the government of the United States has not inspired any fervent love since, oh, noon ET on January 20. The inanity of Trumpism clouds every decent day and exacerbates the lousy ones.

This was particularly true when this anthem was performed. It was five days after the Mets’ home opener against the Toronto Blue Jays, the only Major League Baseball team that makes its home outside this country.

Until 2025, no one gave much thought to the rendition of “O Canada” when a Canadian team showed up in a U.S. stadium. But then Trump, not content with taking a dump on the rest of the world, decided to pick on the best neighbor any country has ever had.

That led to the boos from about a tenth of the crowd. Forget that some young woman is performing before 40,000 people and hearing disdain from about 4,000 people. She’s doing her best, but, yeah, boo anyway. 

I wasn’t shocked by this. But I was not going to follow that wretched display by singing “The Star Spangled Banner” with these slugs. 

So I found what I thought was appropriate- bowing my head as if this were a moment of silence, in memory of what we as Americans have lost because of this stupidity. (It also made me respect, all the more, what Colin Kaepernick did by kneeling – had I stronger knees, I might have thought about it.)

Fast forward five days. It’s only going to be the U.S. anthem at the game on the cold day because the Mets were playing Miami. I get up, remove my hat and bow my head.

And then I hear the anthem.

It was performed by a chorus of students from the Celia Cruz Bronx High School of Music. It is one of the special high schools in the New York City public school system – you need to go through an audition process to get in.

And, for the few who don’t know, it’s named for one of the most influential Latin musicians in U.S.  history. She left Cuba shortly after the revolution and made great music with another renowned Hispanic artist, Tito Puente. Her influence was such that, if you look in your loose change, you might have the quarter with her image that came out last year.

The chorus performed a capella. You had to think about that, because the harmonies created were so lush that they seemed like an orchestra.

What was striking was that these students – from all over New York City and most, but not all of them, kids of color – were putting incredible passion into this rendition. Maybe it was because they wanted to impress thousands of people hearing them. 

But that kind of performance requires more than showing off your musical chops. It was as if they believed they were honoring their home with the magic of their combination. There was commitment to their vocalizing. 

When the National Anthem is performed at a baseball game, it’s pretty pro forma. As the singer finally gets to the last lines – “O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave…” – the crowd usually starts cheering, almost as if to rush things along and get the game started.

Not this time. The crowd didn’t want to miss the end. They didn’t start cheering until the chorus was finished. And it erupted. It was as if we heard this song that we’d heard more times than we can count for the first time ever.

I wasn’t expecting to be stirred by a song I don’t like. But I was – and I’ll tell you why.

Those kids aren’t what Trump and the livestock that support him have in mind about making America great again. And I’m sure the worst of them – Trump included – would never appreciate the care and devotion the Celia Cruz chorus put into the song. They would prefer you stand there listening to some band go through the motions. 

But the students are what truly makes America great. Their backgrounds are varied and fascinating. When they came together that chilly afternoon, they made a sound that haunted and inspired.

I will still bow my head for “The Star Spangled Banner” in sadness until this idiocy ends or it destroys me, whichever comes first. But as long as I can, I will fight for a country that includes and celebrates diversity, equity and inclusion – and understands that a mosaic is a far more interesting and wondrous work of art than a whitewash.

And, if Taylor Swift or Beyoncé can write a better anthem, please go at it.

Standard
Uncategorized

CUE EDWARD GIBBON

The United States of America is the latest in world history’s chain of empires.

Since the end of World War II, the only challenge to America’s position as the world’s most powerful nation came from the Soviet Union during the Cold War. And because the U.S.S.R. was basically the Russians domineering a lot of neighboring nations that really didn’t like them very much, and we basically held our ground, the threat didn’t last.

Imperialism is a tough job. What you want is a world that’s generally at peace. With stable, sustained economic growth.

That was what the Romans meant by their Pax Romana, a nearly 200-year period when their control was mostly unchallenged. It wasn’t really that – it was during that time that a cult formed a Jewish carpenter would upend the whole thing.

But you and I have – probably without thinking much about it – lived through Pax Americana. The world has revolved around us. American music, American film and television, American technology, American food and American ideals can be found just about everywhere.

And, of course, America’s economy is the world’s benchmark. The dollar is practically a universal currency, with the majority of transactions being conducted through it.

In part, the world has been stabilized by American force. We invented the atomic bomb – we actually used it. And we have more than a few of them, all of them way more powerful than the weapons that wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

This may sound bad – and there are lots of people in other countries who don’t particularly like us. 

But empire has its privileges. Even for those of us on the Bernie Sanders-AOC side of the political spectrum. Having the world run by the dollar makes our goods cheaper, and easier to buy and sell. It gives consumers the confidence to shop for stuff. 

So you have to wonder why Trump and his economic wizards thought it was such a good idea to throw that all away.

Not just because he decided to launch a trade war against almost every being on the planet, from the more than a billion people of China to the penguins on Heard and McDonald Islands in the South Pacific.

It was also the stupid bluster. Threatening Canada and Denmark, worry-free allies that didn’t do a blessed thing to deserve that. Talking tough to Europe and cozying to Russia, the world’s outcast nation for good reason.

And it’s the way he’s gone after people not born white and in a red state. Tourism is sharply lower because who the hell wants to come to a place where they hold or cart off people the administration doesn’t like. When you act like Russia and North Korea, you don’t get respect. You get contempt.

Trump has forced the world to reexamine the order that gave the United States so much control over things. 

In a research report this month, Goldman Sachs – not exactly the wobbly left – warns of the world decreasing its reliance on us. Consumers throughout the world are making the decision to not buy things tied to us. Governments are looking into ways to negotiate high finance without the steadiest currency the world has ever known.

That could lead to a decrease in our standard of living. Inflation, unemployment, isolation.

We’ve walked the world as Americans, loud and proud. Trump is in the process of reducing us to what conservatives in the 1970s feared – a pitiful, helpless giant.

In the late 1700s, more than 1300 years after the fall of Rome, British historian Edward Gibbon wrote his masterwork, “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” While believing Rome’s embrace of Christianity contributed to its fall, he thought it came about more through decadence – Rome got too rich and complacent.

Someday, if the human race makes it to the 3300s, somebody will look back at what the Americans did to quash their command of the planet. The answer wlll be that Americans got too filled with self-interest and self-pity to care what anyone thought. They thought they go it alone in a world that thrives only when it’s cooperative.

The American Empire didn’t shoot itself in the foot. It gave the gun to a huckster, and he shot the foot.

Standard
Uncategorized

THAT’S THE NEWS

I lucked into a daughter whose love of theater surpasses my own.

In fact, she’s written plays that were staged or read, and – BRAG ALERT – they’re really good.

What my daughter doesn’t write is news copy. That’s what I used to do – for much of a 40-year career.

I’m glad she loves writing. I’m also glad she’s not in the profession that helped pay for the education that led her to writing plays and TV scripts.

The reason this thought  came up this week is that my daughter took me to see the Broadway production of “Good Night, and Good Luck.” It stars George Clooney, who directed the film from which the play is derived. In the play, he portrays broadcast journalism legend Edward R. Murrow after playing Murrow’s producer, Fred Friendly, in the film.

In case you haven’t seen it, or forgot, “Good Night, and Good Luck.” highlights Murrow’s CBS broadcasts on Sen. Joseph McCarthy, whose crusade against people he perceived as Communists led to an atmosphere of fear in the 1950s. It captured – and was focused – on the fear of the era, educating another generation about a dark period in American history.

The movie is excellent and I recommend it if you can find it on a streaming service or old DVD. 

But I thought the play underscored a great point in a way the movie didn’t.

The play, much more that the film, takes place in the CBS “See It Now” newsroom. It depicts what’s great about journalism – the collaboration among colleagues, the rush of tracking down a hot story, the matching of wits with really smart people.

Murrow and his crew were disgusted by McCarthy’s intimidating and smearing. The parallels to 2025 America are obvious to anyone who checked their news alerts at the theater before turning off their phones.

But the play also highlighted the nature of the business known as broadcast journalism.

TV stations and networks have big newsrooms. They produce some incredible work – few newspaper pieces can match the power of a well-produced piece on a “See It Now” or its offspring, “60 Minutes,” not to mention some of the great PBS documentary series such as “Frontline.”

But big newsrooms are expensive. And, as many of the scenes in the play highlight, they don’t exactly bring in big numbers – news only gets ratings when it’s catastrophic, like the September 11 attacks. People even turn off Election Night coverage to watch old movies

There are scenes throughout the play when CBS’ chairman, William Paley, reminds Murrow that it’s the sponsors who pay his and his co-workers’ salaries. Murrow and Friendly even have to pay the costs of their McCarthy broadcasts because sponsors won’t.

I’ve seen the respect for broadcast journalism go from awe to awful. When I was young, there were icons on the air – Walter Cronkite, John Chancellor, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, Mike Wallace, Daniel Schorr, Judy Woodruff. Barbara Walters was an outstanding interviewer, pressing for a point when a politician kept trying to dodge it. 

People trusted and admired these men and women. They accepted that what they reported was as factual as it could possibly be.

Time, unfortunately has eroded that trust in two ways.

One is the quality of what we call news. Too much of what passes for news in the 21st century would have been scoffed at when I was young. Somebody setting a record on “Jeopardy!” A male celebrity’s stupid remark. A female celebrity’s apparel choice.

On TV, local newscasts forsake important issues in their community if they have video of somebody being rescued from a river in Thailand. The only stories that seem to take place in their market are easily filmable crime scenes and suspects, often the exceptions to the statistics that show crime decreasing in a city.

Celebrity and sensational stuff have been increasingly infringing on news. Even Murrow, the patron saint of broadcast journalism, did interviews with people like Liberace and Zsa Zsa Gabor to satisfy CBS’ ratings cravings. 

The other problem has come up a lot more in the past 30 years, since the creation of Fox News by Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch: Calling propaganda “news” and blaring it 24 hours a day.

It plays on people’s fears and addiction to personalities. And it makes crises out of nothing – think famously of Barack Obama wearing a tan suit or Joe Biden eating an ice cream cone. It trumpets clowns like Donald Trump – unless he accidentally does something that hurts Fox’s bottom line – and promotes morally bankrupt ineptitudes like Jesse Watters and Sean Hannity as “newsmen.”

In the play’s final monologue, Murrow – speaking to some unnamed awards dinner – muses that television should inform as much as it should entertain. That primetime should be used not just to show westerns and comedies, but also discussions of domestic problems and foreign policy.

The problem is that it’s unlikely you’d get even 1% of the audience for “Tracker” or “Chicago Fire” for those kinds of discussions. The most popular news show, “60 Minutes,” is a notable and laudable exception, but it is more about hot-button issues than in-depth discussion of matters that matter.

As a result, we’re not as smart as we should be. We’re susceptible to demagogues and liars.

I went into journalism as my way of informing a world I wanted to improve. I thought the truth, whether it fit with what I believed or not, was the most important thing – that’s what I told the Northwestern professor who interviewed me in 1971. He warned me that, while my thinking was admirable, the truth was not as rock solid as I thought.

As “Good Night, and Good Luck.” reminded me, I love journalism. I love what it accomplishes when it’s good. There are still colleagues of mine doing incredible work – and I’m so proud I know them.

But I’m happy my daughter is a playwright and screen writer. Because I think that, in 2025, she’ll help people find the truth about the world a lot more efficiently than if she worked in a newsroom. 

This isn’t Edward R. Murrow’s America any more. We’re all the worst for that – and the path back from that is hard to see.

Standard
Uncategorized

ENTITLEMENT 

As of the moment this gets posted, I am 71 years old.

I can’t comprehend being 71. I remember being 17. It doesn’t seem that long ago.

Being 71 is something I never imagined. When I was pining for some young woman, when I got bored in a Sociology class, when I played second base in my town’s youth baseball league, I couldn’t foresee the world where I am now looking back on all those things and more.

There are lots of things not good about being 71. I go back to knee rehab Monday. My diabetes prevents me from scarfing a genuine toasted sesame bagel with a schmear of olive pimento cream cheese. I’ve seen Trump get elected president – not once, but twice, once after he tried to stage a coup after he lost,

But there are pluses. There are descriptions I can apply to myself that I would have had a difficult time justifying in my youth. I call them entitlements because I feel as though I’Ve earned them.

CURMUDGEON 

I’ve aspired to curmudgeondom ever since I started working as a wire service writer.

One of my mentors was Charles J. Morey. He was a phenomenal broadcast sports writer for the Associated Press. He was nearing retirement age when I was hired in 1977. 

His talent – writing simple, clear, declarative sentences that someone could read on the radio with ease. That he was able to string them together with wit and charm made him great.

But Charlie seems very forbidding when I met him at age 22. I’d get to work at 4 and he would sitting at his desk, arms crossed, waiting for his replacement. He was perpetually cranky and full of invective, particularly about the management of the organization. 

He was never, ever afraid to express his views out loud. 

My managers told me that I should try to be as good as writer as he was. But they also said you don’t want to share his personality. 

They got it wrong.

I loved the idea of being this inscrutable old man who passes down proclamations as if residing on Mount Olympus. And I loved the idea of making people think twice before bringing up a stupid idea.

I’d like to think that, with the passing of time, I’ve ascended to Mount Curmudgeon. And once my time among the mortals is past, Charlie is waiting for me with an Irish whiskey, arms crossed in the corner of a room, with my empty chair next to him.

CUT-RATE

A year before I turned 65, I went into New York to have a drink with a former colleague. On the way down, I stopped at the New-York (the hyphen isn’t a typo) Historical Society. If I waited a year, it would have cost me $10 less.

I revel in senior discounts. I pay half-price for the subway and commuter rail. I pay lower prices to get into museums. I bought a Senior Pass for National Parks just before Trump screwed them up and didn’t pay to visit Joshua Tree, Haleakala and Sagamore Hill. I get 10% off every time I go to the local supermarket. 

It might seem silly to those of you paying the full price for everything. But it’s a small pleasure that makes me thing I’ve got something that those of you who aren’t 65 or 71 don’t. 

Of course, there is one drawback: I don’t ever get questioned about whether I’m entitled to a senior discount. 

I’m reminded of the time my 72-year-old grandmother visited my parents, taking a bus from Queens to the North Shore of Long Island. She was indignant. She hadn’t said anything, but the driver charged her the senior fare.

“How did he know I qualified for it?,” she scowled, believing that it was hard to look at her and know she was 72.

I don’t get carded, either. That must mean I look every bit of my 71 years. 

Great. 

CONSEQUENCE

When I was young, I wanted to be famous. I originally sought a career as a TV reporter, thinking the fame I’d attain would garner respect I didn’t get a lot of as a heavy kid in the suburbs. 

That didn’t happen. 

Would it have been cool to be a household name? I’m not sure. I have friends and family who have attained measurable success – I can find them on Wikipedia – and they seem happy and grounded. Some sought the limelight, some didn’t. 

But sometimes I wonder if fame is an opiate. People can’t handle the pressure or the adoration. They turn to ways to numb the feeling – alcohol, drugs, abusive behavior, infidelity, violence.

So I haven’t attained celebrity. And I don’t feel as though as I’m missing anything. 

Because I believe I’ve attained consequence instead.

Consequence is contributing to your world. It’s having people seek your advice and respect your opinion. It’s gaining from the experience and wisdom of others. It’s sharing a honest laugh with a few good friends and your family. 

It’s helping to bring two great kids – the most fun people I know – into the world and sharing their triumphs and occasional setbacks. It’s spending my days with someone I love who seeks my counsel as she wrestles with her own efforts at making a mark.

I couldn’t imagine consequence when I ambled home from high school or drove from my summer job at a tire store. But I also couldn’t imagine cellphones, streaming TV and air fryers, either. 

I’ll take it. And, betraying my curmudgeon aspirations, gladly. 

Standard
Uncategorized

IMPROV 101

My son took an improvisational comedy class this winter – and his class show was last Sunday.

It was a good hour of solid laughter as he and his fellow quick-thinkers responded to the moment with some hilarious ideas.

As his class instructor said at the conclusion, that was the only time that show will ever be seen quite that way. The next time, it will be somewhat different, funnier or maybe not.

Improvisation is a great form of comedy.

It’s a lousy strategy for fighting would-be dictators.

Right now, Democrats are wisely capitalizing on the nonchalance of Trump’s national security team, which accidentally gave a journalist access to deliberations on this month’s strike against Houthi rebels in Yemen.

No one claims to know how Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was included in what should have been a top-secret chat on the messaging service Signal.

In the process, Trump and his Trumpettes have blamed Goldberg, called it an accident, told two versions of what they knew about the situation, blamed AOC, asked if it might have been a nefarious plot by Signal workers, said the dog did it, blamed Joe Biden and anything else you can think of. Not all of that is real, but given how these people are, you might be tempted to think it’s possible they used all those alibis.

Here’s the thing: I would be surprised if anyone loses their job because of this. Even Party Pete Hegseth, the Defense Secretary and White Lotus wannabe.

Accidentally broadcasting American military operations and putting the lives of brave men and women at risk is only a mild stretch from sexual predation, persecution, family destruction, illegal deportation, violations of free speech and 34 felony counts of fraud.

And if, by some stroke of unusual competence in Team Trump, somebody does get canned, what does that mean for the quality and integrity of the U.S. executive branch?

Bupkis.

It doesn’t matter if Pete Hegseth or Peat Moss holds the title of Defense Secretary, even if they have the same level of intelligence.

See, the thing is, Trump and the Republicans aren’t improvising. They’re working from a script. And they will stick to the script no matter who the actors are.

Their script is to weaken and decimate the federal government. And nothing – not even a scandal involving the basic idea that YOU DON’T TELL EVERYONE YOUR SECRET MILITARY PLANS – will cause them to ad lib.

They told you what they were going to do when they put out their Project 2025 playbook. And even when Trump went around denying he knew anything about a plan he almost certainly approved, did you ever believe the Republicans wouldn’t abide by it?

And that brings me to the Democrats.

We are good at getting mad. Reacting in the moment to some injustice or wrongdoing. Our lawmakers ask the piercing questions at committee hearings. We create clever memes and social media posts.

What Democrats don’t do is plan.

It’s almost as if they expect would-be voters to trust that they’ll find some way to attain the ideals they proclaim. But they don’t have a blueprint to get to that point.

And people like blueprints. They like specifics. They like benchmarks to gauge progress and ideas.

Democrats are afraid of ideas. They’re afraid people will shoot them down.

Try them. Instead of saying we think education needs to be reformed, ask people what they want for their kids and then work with them to attain those goals. Instead of saying we need to take care of our elderly, ask seniors and their caregivers what’s needed and figure out how we get to that point. 

If people are angry about their healthcare options, see what’s troubling your constituents and then work toward it. 

Trying to fight the drive toward Project 2025 won’t come ad hoc. It is, to be sure, extremely unpopular – it polled so badly that Trump and the others denied it existed even though it was in print and online for all to see. Once they won, they just went back to the plan as if it was a mandate.

The advantage Democrats will have if they develop an action agenda in consultation with the people showing up at town halls is that people will support it. Make it a genuine grassroots idea, and they’ll back you to the hilt.

It’s well and good to improvise a reaction to a security scandal or whatever Trump’s next A.S.S. (Act of Shame and Stupidity) is. But you can’t wing your way to win the hearts of your fellow Americans.

It takes a script. Write one.

Standard
Uncategorized

ARTICLE II

Here’s what I imagine happened:

One night, in his first presidency, Trump was in the White House room where he does the most thinking, the bathroom.

Normally, that’s where the most feculent thing he does is send out messages on social media on whatever flitters through his mind. But this particular night, he must have left his BlackBerry somewhere.

Instead, he grabbed whatever was lying around. It just so happened to be a copy of the Constitution.

He certainly could care less about the Preamble, with that “We the People,” “domestic Tranquility” and “Blessings of Liberty” stuff. And Article I was about the Congress, the bane of his existence. It mentioned what Congress’ powers are, but why should any of that matter?

But then he came to Article II.

Here’s how it starts: The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.

He really didn’t bother to read after that, certainly not after that long part about the election of the president, most of which was changed by the 12th Amendment.

This was a sentence Trump thought he understood. Because, after all, wasn’t he an executive? In his mind, a great executive – somehow forgetting those multiple bankruptcies.

From that reading, Trump and his enablers have understood Article II to allow him to do whatever he wants. 

If Article II, Section 1, paragraph 1 was all there was to the Constitution, Trump might be right.

The problem is that, as I’ve tried to illustrate over the past few weeks, if you actually read the whole thing – the Preamble, the seven Articles and the 28 (again, I’m with Biden that the ERA is part of the Constitution) Amendments, Trump’s reading of our founding document is woefully incomplete. 

But Trump, Musk and the demon devils in their sway are citing Article II as the reason they have the right to terminate federal employees at will. As they see it, Trump’s the executive – a variation on the word execute. 

And that’s what he intends to be, the man who executes democracy for the benefit of himself and those who support him. 

If he and his supporters actually did READ THE CONSTITUTION – as they say their opponents haven’t – they wouldn’t have to go far into Article II to see this little gem from Section 3: 

he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed

That would include the right of due process spelled out in the Bill of Rights, even for people in this country undocumented. That would include the judicial authority spelled out in Article III to rule on whether the action of any individual in this country, including the president, is legal – a power that does not fall on the executive branch. That would include provisions against Emoluments – getting gifts or payments that exceed his constitutional limitation. 

That would include abiding by laws duly passed by Congress affecting such things as civil service and civil rights – and by constitutional amendments ratified by the states that grant citizenship to anyone born in this country and limit a president of the United States to two terms in office.

Perhaps the way to combat Trump’s invocation of Article II is to take legal action finding him in violation of Article II. I wonder what that would take.

I don’t know how we’re going to stop what’s happening to our country. I’ve read every word of this Constitution over the past two months, and there’s nothing in here about how you act against an executive intent on running roughshod over it, especially when a small majority in Congress is complicit in it.

Our Founding Fathers didn’t imagine anyone as craven as Trump. I can’t blame them, because we didn’t see this either. We thought Richard Nixon would be the worst president we ever saw. 

But we’ve got to figure out something. And by “we’ve,” I mean political leaders, civic leaders, corporations, educators, artists and anyone else you can think of. What Chuck Schumer did last week in capitulating to Trump and the Republicans was extraordinarily unhelpful.

And we just can’t allow Trump to use our Constitution – Article II included – to wipe himself when he’s done. 

Standard
Uncategorized

THE BILL

The people who didn’t believe this country should be one big unit insisted that the Constitution, ratified in 1789, have an attachment that specified the rights of American citizens.

It’s what we now call The Bill of Rights. It took more than two years to adopt the ten amendments that comprise the bill, meaning that even though there was eventual agreement on the idea, it was like pulling teeth for James Madison and the other anti-federalists.

As part of my mission to heed the overwrought MAGA T-shirt wearers demanding we all read the Constitution, that’s what I’ve been doing the past few weeks.

I have some thoughts.

— Here’s the text of the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This amendment, like some of the ones that came later, carries quite a load.

First, the next time these people talk about God is integral to American life, tell them to READ THE CONSTITUTION. Not only can Congress not make a law requiring some specific religious practice – be it an official faith or sect, or forcing kids to recite a prayer in a classroom. 

It also doesn’t restrict your right to pray. As has been said many times, notably by Ronald Reagan, “As long as there are final exams, there will always be prayer in schools.”

You just can’t force anyone else to do it.

The second part deals with the idea of free speech.

We heard a lot about when pre-Musk Twitter and pre-obedient-Zuckerberg Facebook banned Trump following the 2021 insurrection. The usual Trump flag waving homes and businesses had signs saying “Protect Free Speech!”

So let’s be clear. Facebook has the right to stop you from saying whatever you want. So does your local shopping mall. So does CNN and The New York Times; as does Fox News and The New York Post.

Because the amendment says Congress shall make no law abridging free speech. And the people who own Facebook, the mall and those media outlets have the right to stop you from spouting your beliefs – in part based on this amendment.

The next time you see or hear some MAGA putz cry about free speech, ask them when would be a good time for the transgender rights or anti-automatic weapon protest at their house. And watch their response.

The proof that the free speech “absolutists” – at least as far as letting Trump spew what he wants – are full of crap is what’s happening right now to Mahmoud Kahlil.

He’s the Palestinian-born U.S. resident who advocated for Hamas in protests at Columbia University. And he was pretty much abducted by ICE goons from his dorm and taken to Louisiana, where Herr Trump’s minions are working to deport him.

I unequivically do not support Hamas. They’re goons who kidnapped Israeli children and elderly people, killing a lot of them. 

But I also unequivically do not support extralegal justice in what proclaims itself to be the world’s freest country. If you think there’s a legitimate reason to send Kahlil back to Middle East, take it up with a judge. But to seize and hold him before evidence of an actual crime committed is presented to a grand jury is Dictatorship 101.

Letting this happen is one step from just grabbing anyone – citizen or not – and expelling them from this country.

— Here’s the text of the Second Amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

There was a United States of America before most of its major city police departments were created. New York’s – with 50,000 officers and other personnel – came into existence in 1845, 56 years after the Constitution was ratified.

Why do I bring that up?

In 1791, when this amendment came to be, the most common way to arrest someone who broke the law was for a sheriff to round up a posse – think of old Westerns – and bring the lawbreaker to justice.

With the creation of police departments, the need for deputies ended. There were cops. 

The first four words of the Second Amendment always seem to be skipped over. The idea of the amendment was to allow those sheriffs and, later, those cops to get the weaponry to enforce the law.

They were not – as evidenced by the words “A WELL REGULATED MILITIA” – meant to allow some crackpot to collect AR-15s. Madison and his peers probably thought semi-automatic weapons were an impossible fantasy. They also don’t say anything about having the guns to shoot up a bunch of deer, unless you somehow believe deer compromise the “security of a free state.”

As much as I loathe guns, I don’t support repealing the Second Amendment. I just wish 21st century Americans would actually read it – and then, in its adherence, eliminate the right to hold weapons that sick people use to shoot up schools, shopping malls and churches.

— Here’s the text of the Third Amendment: No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Among jurists, there are people known as originalists, people who believe the wording of the Constitution should be applied as if it were the 18th century.

This gives the men who wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights not only legal weight, but also prognostication expertise. 

Despite their large egos, I personally don’t think they wanted it. Madison didn’t foresee computers. Hamilton didn’t foresee big Broadway musicals.

And Washington, the presiding officer of the Constitutional Convention, had no idea that there would be huge military bases in Texas, California and Germany – as well as having no idea that any of those three places existed.

The point is that there’s no reason whatsoever that someone’s Third Amendment rights should ever need to be invoked. The Third Amendment is a relic of a fledgling nation that didn’t have a large standing military.

What does that say about the other parts of the Constitution? Interpreting this document as if it’s 1791 is silly. 

And yet, we had Antonin Scalia, rest in peace, interpreting things that way. And we have Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas doing that now. 

— Here’s the text of the Fifth Amendment: No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

When somebody takes the Fifth Amendment in a criminal or civil case, do you assume guilt?

If you don’t, congratulations. You have followed the intentions of the framers of the Constitution. Again, they had no foresight of threats from mobsters or social media or any of the modern reasons for invoking the Fifth Amendment.

But Trump has not been a big fan of this fundamental U.S. right. This is what he said when some of Hillary Clinton’s staff invoked it during the infamous e-mail server crisis of 2016:

“When you have your staff taking the Fifth Amendment, taking the Fifth, so they’re not prosecuted, when you have the man that set up the illegal server taking the Fifth, I think it’s disgraceful.”

Six years later, during the case of The People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump over whether he falsified business records to pay hush money to a woman he slept with, Trump didn’t find invoking the Fifth Amendment so disgraceful.

He did it 400 times.

It didn’t stop the state from proving its case before a jury of Trump’s peers, not once but 34 times. But it was his right.

Now that Trump, and this still blows my mind, has regained the presidency, we’re going to see if MAGA is going to Make Taking the Fifth Disgraceful Again. 

What are the odds?

Standard