Tag Archives: Donald Trump

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FITNESS FOR REAL

If Trumpers weren’t so homophobic. they would adopt Peter Allen’s “Everything Old Is New Again” as their theme song.

Because it seems their goal is to bring back a lot of crap from the past, under the pretense of making America great “again.”

There are some pretty serious bad things Trump’s trying to make a comeback. Criminalizing abortion. Wiping out Black representation. Tariffing the hell out of everything. Good old insider trading. 

What might not seem as egregious, but which caught my attention this week, is the decision to reinstitute the Presidential Fitness Test.

Few things rake the muck in my soul as much as “physical fitness.” That’s because I suffered lacked it as a child – I was a really big kid who was taller and heavier than everyone else. By a lot.

There were things I just couldn’t do. Because of that, the class I dreaded more than any other – even more than science – was phys ed, aka gym.

It was in gym that I couldn’t tumble. I couldn’t climb the ropes. I couldn’t lift myself on the parallel bars. I couldn’t outrun the kid in my class who was on the track team.

When we did the wrestling unit, they couldn’t match me with anyone else because I was so much bigger. So they matched me with a state champion who weighed more than 100 pounds less. He flipped me over because he was a goddamn wrestler and I had no interest.

The most dreaded part of gym was, you guessed it, the Presidential Fitness Test. When I was taking it, it consisted of four parts – running a mile, straddling lines to demonstrate agility, pushups and sit-ups.

I was moderately capable at sit-ups. And because I didn’t want to be the class loser who got a zero on the Presidential Fitness Test because I couldn’t do any of the other parts, I went all-in on the sit-ups.

So much so that 24 hours afterward, my father took me to the hospital emergency room because I was in such pain from overexerting myself on sit-ups. I still only got 4 out of the 10 possible points.

The Presidential Fitness Test and mandatory gym classes are why we fail kids when it comes to their physical well-being. They’re afterthoughts and meant to pat the heads of kids who can do well in them.

But children who need help with improving their health and fitness are reduced to humiliation and failure. They’re bullied into accepting that there’s a pecking order in the gym and your actual fitness is not something you should be helped with – it’s something you either have or you don’t.

That’s why the test was abandoned by experts who look at countries that don’t have such tests and wonder why their people are healthier. It could be that they discourage athletic competition until children grow into their bodies and have a chance to find the best way they can attain fitness.

It wasn’t until I was an adult that I got the urge to be more physically active. I wasn’t ordered to or told to. I wasn’t compared to other men my age.

I just thought it might be fun to run a little. And then I did it almost everyday for years. I ran – OK, that’s being charitable, but I sure as hell finished two New York City Marathons and dozens of races from 3 miles to half-marathons.

Not through some badgering by a teacher who couldn’t wait to coach his football players. But because I loved it. I felt better and experienced the joy of sweating for fun.

I’m 72 now. I don’t run regularly any more because of arthritis in my knees, but I did try to jog a mile or so when my wife and I visited Kauai in March. I do, however, ride a stationary bike every single day – 481 days in a row, to be exact – and it has revived my feeling of wellbeing.

When I did it yesterday, the instructor on the class video that’s part of the bike experience said something that resonated with me.

Exercise isn’t punishment. Exercise isn’t something you do because you’ve failed at something. 

It’s something you do because you want to.

That’s why reviving the Presidential Fitness Test is yet another stupid Trump idea. If you do well on it, you’re supposed to. If you don’t, you’re officially unfit – and left to wallow in that unfitness, because no gym teacher is going to help you figure out how to do what’s best for you.

It’s about winners and losers. And this is one of those things for which there should be no losers. Not if the goal is a happy, healthy country – which, come to think of it, is something that is anathema to the Donald J. Trump administration..

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REICHSTAG FIRES

Attempts to murder the President of the United States date back to 1835, when an unemployed painter named Richard Lawrence tried to kill Andrew Jackson outside the Capitol. 

Lawrence didn’t kill Jackson – his gun misfired and he was wrestled to the ground.

Most presidential assassination attempts aren’t well-plotted efforts to effect regime change. The only really conspiratorial one was the slaying of Abraham Lincoln in 1865 – John Wilkes Booth and his gang sought to undo the South’s surrender in the Civil War by killing the president and other key members of his administration.

There are those who believe the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 was part of a grand plot to alter the American government. But no one has ever proven anything other than that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

Most attempts are made by troubled people. Some with frustrated visions of grandeur. Some down on their luck. Some thinking they’re on a mission from a divine force.

Which brings us to last Saturday night.

According to police, a California man walked into the Washington Hilton, where Donald Trump and much of the rest of his administration attended the White House Correspondents Association’s annual dinner. He allegedly fired shots – not directly at Trump, because he was not that close to him. 

The man – whose motive appears to be that he didn’t like Trump – was taken into custody and charged with attempting to assassinate the president. A Secret Service agent was shot in his bulletproof vest, but there were no other injuries reported.

Attempts on a president’s life are usually a unifying force in American politics. Just about all of the country wishes or prays for a speedy recovery if he’s shot. or expresses gratitude if he’s not.

That’s not exactly what’s happening this time.

There is a large segment of the population that believes the attempt was staged. That Trump and his minions needed a distraction from the other distractions – Iran, Venezuela, tariffs – from the still unreleased Epstein files.

Trump and his administration’s reaction to the incident didn’t help quell that sentiment. It staged a full-blown press briefing – Trump still in his tux – that ended up being a pitch for his $400 million ballroom where the East Wing of the White House used to be.

Earlier this week, Melania Trump came out of her cave to denounce talk show host Jimmy Kimmel for a joke he made two nights before the dinner. He was doing a mock roast of the kind that the correspondents’ dinner features when presidents weren’t as thin-skinned as Trump. The joke pointed out that Melania Trump had “the glow of an expectant widow.”

This was deemed “violent rhetoric” by the administration – the kind that encourages people to do what happened at the Hilton. The Trumps – husband and wife – both called for Kimmel’s firing, and then he sicced his tame FCC commissioner to review the licenses of ABC-owned TV stations that air the late-night show.

Also in the line of fire, so to speak, was former FBI director James Comey. He posted a picture last year of someone spelling out “86 47” in seashells on a beach. Anybody else would slough it off – most of us who hate Trump have said more incendiary things than that. 

But Trump has it so in for Comey for not doing his bidding that he got his acting attorney general – the original one, Pam Bondi, got 86’d – to trump up felony charges for an alleged threat against the president.

This is on the heels of the 2024 assassination attempt at a Butler, Pennsylvania, campaign rally. A Trump backer was killed and there was blood at the top of Trump’s right ear. But somehow – while the rest of us scar when we scrape our knee – there’s nothing on that ear that shows the damage a grazed bullet would do.

Trump is so enamored with the picture of him with a raised fist being carried off by Secret Service agents in Butler that it hangs in the White House. Not far from a picture of him with Vladimir Putin.

I don’t know if I believe that Trump and/or his people staged these incidents in an effort to generate support and sympathy. But, given Trump’s actions after the events, I do understand why there are people who do.

In 1933, fire burned the building that housed Germany’s parliament, the Reichstag. A Dutch Communist was charged with setting the fire, later confessing to the crime and saying he acted alone in an effort to draw attention to the evils of the Nazi party.

The Nazis used the arson as a pretense for demolishing civil liberties in Germany, arresting scores of Communists and other opponents. It was such a convenient vehicle for their totalitarian plans that, for decades, people have believed that the Nazis actually were the ones who set the fire.

Experts who’ve studied this now say – mostly – that the Dutch guy acted alone. But that hasn’t ended the idea that would-be dictators will do anything, even kill some of their own supporters, to advance their agenda.

If you’re offended by the idea that people think you plotted your own failed assassination attempt, you might try not cashing in on it. Especially in the first few minutes after it happens.

Appearances matter to the Trump White House. But they’re warped. They believe the MAGA faithful want to see strength from Trump – and they’ll overlook $4+-a-gallon gas, astronomical meat prices and unaffordable health care for the “fight, fight, fight” mentality of a nearly 80-year-old man.

They’re looking at the low approval ratings in the polls and realize time is passing quickly – not quickly enough for the rest of us. They have more damage to do to American democracy and our reputation around the world.

Did they stage the attempt at the correspondents’ dinner? I don’t think so. But it sure is convenient.

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HOUSE OF UNREPRESENTATIVE

Virginians did what they needed to do Tuesday. 

The idea of redistricting a state in the middle of a 10-year Census period is odious. Naturally, it originated with Donald Trump. 

He demanded Texas find more Republican seats in the House, and yapping Republicans said “Yes, master!” The legislature voted to alter the district boundaries in a way that supposedly would put five seats held by Democrats in the Republican camp.

What Trump and the lapdogs thought was that Democrats, being normally high-minded and spouting stuff about fairness, wouldn’t dare do something similar.

But they did. 

In fact, in California and now in Virginia, they gave it a loincloth of legitimacy by having voters approve. It was close in Virginia, a state so split that it had a Republican governor –  in his final days – when this year started. But at least the people of the commonwealth had a chance to say “yes” or “no” – more than Texans, Missourians and North Carolinians did.

For all the bellyaching by Trump and Republicans after the Virginia vote, the gerrymandering mishegas isn’t even the most unfair thing about the House of Representatives.

It’s this: just as in the U.S. Senate, Wyoming is over-represented in the House and California is under-represented.

That’s not supposed to happen. The Senate was designed to be the states’ “protection.” Wyoming, with 590,000 people, has two senators. So does California, population 39.5 million.

But in the House, which was meant to be representative of the American people as a whole, Wyoming has one representative for all 590,000 people. California has one for every 760,000. That’s about 28% less representation for Californians, a gap about the size of Escondido.

It’s actually worse for Texas – a red state, by the way. The nation’s second largest state has one representative for every 830,000 people, an underrepresentation of more than 40%.

The reason this is the case is a law passed during the Hoover administration – when I imagine Trump and his sycophants thought America was great. The Reapportionment Act of 1929 set a permanent limit to House seats at 435.

Republicans controlled everything that year, and this was thought to be a way for middle America to counterbalance the shift to a more urban, more immigrant population. 

Same crap, different day.

I played with the math a little – only partly because I love any excuse to play with the math. If we allowed a base of 1 seat for the least populated state – in this case, Wyoming, at 590,000 people – there would be 577 seats in the House of Representatives, 142 more than the current number.

California, now with 52 seats, would have 67. Texas would actually add more, up 16 to 54. Even small states like Delaware and Idaho are unfairly penalized in the current system; both would add a representative to become more representative.

The only states that wouldn’t add at least one seat are Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont and, of course, Wyoming.

I don’t know if you noticed, but the states I’ve mentioned so far that seem to be underrepresented are both Republican-dominated and Democratic-dominated. Not to mention Florida and New York. Alabama and Minnesota. Oklahoma and Massachusetts. 

So if everybody isn’t getting a fair say in the House, it should be a relatively simple matter to change this. How could politicians resist the idea of a nearly one-third increase in employment that fair apportionment would provide?

Here’s how:

Yes, red states and blue states would be equally affected by this. But remember why this stupid Reapportionment Act was approved in the first place. It’s not so much red vs. blue as it is rural vs. urban and immigrant vs. been here a while.

If Texas got 16 more seats, it would be harder for Greg Abbott and his unmerry band to redistrict the state so that more Republicans get seats. Smaller districts would temper a lot of the gerrymandering, since you couldn’t as readily mitigate the impact of city voters by including a lot of country folk and suburbanites.

That’s why it’s a reform we need partnered with federal rules about drawing district lines. Anti-gerrymandering legislation.

If districts are fairly drawn and representative of the population, you might not end the bitter partisan divide we have in this country. But at least people will feel more like they have some say in the matter.

Take a look at some of the bizarre lines that have been drawn in places like Texas and Ohio to protect Republican incumbents, You couldn’t draw Jim Jordan’s district in Ohio as ridiculously if you were blindfolded.

Here’s the good part: A reform of Congressional apportionment that includes fairer representation and anti-gerrymandering protection wouldn’t require a Constitutional amendment.

The Constitution doesn’t specify how many members the House has. All it says is that every state has one district. And we’re more than taking care of that.

The big money would hate this. More lobbying expenses. It would fight it.

But it’s something a Democratic Congress should consider – if we get one later this year. And if Republicans weren’t such damn hypocrites, whining about the Virginia vote after what Texas did, they’d be on board as well.

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WISH LIST

Currently representing New York’s 17th Congressional District, where I live, is Republican Smarmy Mike Lawler.

If you’ve spent any time on social media in this first third of 2026, you might be familiar with Smarmy Mike. His town hall meetings feature him lecturing constituents angry about the Iran war and the tariffs. He usually has somebody who really irks him thrown out – a veteran or an elderly woman. 

Smarmy Mike bemoaned the lack of bipartisanship in Congress but failed to acknowledge his previous full-throated support for the tariffs he was trying to amend. He’s cheerled Trump’s nonsense war and posted an obvious AI picture that claimed to be a rescued American airman – a picture only he and Greg Abbott fell for.

So yeah, I want him the hell out.

But Democrats, like the five vying to be the nominee against Smarmy Mike in November, cannot just be not Republicans. It’s not enough that you’re against him and the other members of the Trump’s Ass Kissing Society.

You gotta be for something. You need ideas. You need plans.

I will be watching one of the debates involving the five candidates soon. And I have six things I want them to address. Whoever matches my standing on all six issues gets my vote.

The hell with perceived electability. That crap has a dubious track record. I’m going to vote for whoever is the nominee, but I want someone who stands for what I stand for.

Here’s what I want:

1. ENERGY REFORM: The Iran war is about oil. Every conflict in that region of the world is about oil. Even conflicts involving Israel, which doesn’t have oil, end up being about oil.

We are held hostage by petroleum. Thirteen and a-half years ago, when Superstorm Sandy left my home without power for eight days, I bemoaned the gas lines and the price surges and the chaos created.

Presidents Obama and Biden understood the problem. They wanted to pivot American foreign policy toward the Pacific, to China, Japan, South Korea and others. China sees a way to dominance through solar power and electric vehicles, in the process looking visionary for beating back climate change.

When Trump came back, the idea of incentivizing renewable energy was cast as woke. Instead, it’s drill, baby, drill. Trump digs coal. And Smarmy Mike, who represented oil companies before running for office, laps that crap up.

So I want my new representative to fully embrace an energy revolution. None of this “all of the above” crap. We need to wean ourselves off fossil fuels and join the 21st century push to cleaner, more efficient methods of power.

Outlaw new gas-powered vehicles by 2032? Yup. Place solar panels on all new homes by 2035? That’s an idea. Research forms of energy that might only exist in the imagination of some chemist or physicist. Absolutely.

Anything less is not enough.

2. SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE: Obamacare was meant as a first step. It did an excellent job of getting healthcare for a lot of people. Unfairly unpopular when it began, it is now beloved and vital to middle and low-income Americans.

It’s time to expand them. And I say shoot for the moon – a single-payer system. 

It would, yes, increase your taxes. But also, yes, it would cost you less.

That’s because when you think about what you pay now for deductibles, co-pays, uncovered expenses, medicines and a whole litany of stuff, would you rather pay once and never have to think about whether or not you’re covered or pay the ridiculous premiums we pay now and not get what you need.

We can do this. Let the Heritage Foundation and all these right-wing morons rail about socialized medicine. I’m paying for bombing Tehran, Jeff Bezos’ tax cut and that stupid ballroom, not to mention the weekend trips to Mar-A-Lago. I’d rather pay for some kid’s well visit.

Every developed nation – and even some non-developed ones – has some form of single payer healthcare. There’s nothing uniquely American about getting sick, but there does seem to be something Barnumian about a sucker being born every minute.

3. THE MY BODY IS MINE AMENDMENT: Remember how Trump’s Supreme Court nominees hemmed and hawed about striking down Roe v. Wade. It was established law, they said. It had already been adjudicated, they said. 

Then they struck it down.

And if you really want to think about it, it’s not just about whether a woman should be forced to carry an unwanted, forced or dangerous pregnancy to term. 

If I’m terminally ill and in a lot of pain, I should have a right to end my life. 

A broad right-to-my-own body constitutional amendment would simply state that no one has the right to dictate how you deal with your health as long as it doesn’t imperil the health of others. Your decisions on your body should be made by you, consulting whatever family, religious, moral or other guides in your life.

I know what you’re saying. Would we be condoning the anti-vaccine nonsense we’ve seen the past 20 years.

The answer is no. An amendment would allow schools, churches, private businesses and any other communal entity to bar people perceived as health risks. You can stop your kids from getting measles shots, but you can’t expose them to me, my kids and anyone else who’s vulnerable.

It needs a little work. Maybe Oklahoma won’t ratify it. But position it correctly, and it’ll be an important addition to our civilized society.

4. GUARANTEED MINIMUM INCOME: We’re on the brink of a recession thanks to Trump’s idiotic economic policies. And that’s going to hit the lowest-income families extremely hard.

Here’s hoping that a new Congress can quickly act on providing aid to the neediest families. 

But for the future, let’s soften the blow of economic instability and the impact of technology erasing jobs with a guaranteed minimum income.

It’s an idea whose time has come. And it’s not a way to reward slackers – it’s a way to give everyone a floor on which to build a career or support a family. Conservatives wonder why birth rates are so low? Maybe it’s because having children is prohibitively expensive.

Give people a base income, and maybe we’ll see more kids.

5. TWO-STATE SOLUTION: Here’s what Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas have in common: they’re both mass murderers, and they both oppose the idea of independent Israeli and Palestinian states.

In fact, if you told me that Netanyahu and Hamas colluded to create the crisis that exists in Gaza, I’d be horrified – but not completely shocked.

And, of course, because Trump thinks he’s this great real estate mensch, the Holy Land is, to him, a place to put up more failing casinos and tacky hotels.

For the rest of us, the security and safety of the Israeli and Palestinian people is long overdue. And that should be the official, carved-in-stone policy of the United States. As it was for both Bushes, for Clinton, Obama and Biden.

Now we’ve got vested-interest ignorants negotiating war and peace, life and death in the world’s most volatile region. The parties that love that instability, that want all or nothing, love the status quo. 

If the United States throws its full weight behind the two-state solution, ignoring Netanyahu and the radicals in the Knesset, the world will be a lot safer.

6. IMPEACHMENT: You’re going to hear some lame Democrats say they should focus on letting the past go and working across the aisle for solutions to help the American people.

One of the best ways to help the American people is to impeach Donald Trump. Multiple times until the Senate gets it right, convicts him, and sends him off to face charges of criminal activity.

The sooner we eliminate Trump from the American body politic, the sooner will begin to regain the world’s trust and our own self-respect. 

There’s nothing serious or ideological or redeeming about this man. He hates this country and its people in a way that’s hard to fathom.

It’s time to hate him back. Bigly. If you want to represent me in Congress, you want to throw this bastard out of the White House on his ample ass.

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LOST VALOR

Yes, we’re just a few days past the 2025 Academy Awards, but let’s reveal the plot for the Best Picture winner of 2036.

The title could be something like “Lost Valor” or “Following Orders.” It takes place in the dark times of the mid to late 2020s and is about a sergeant first class in the U.S. Army. We’ll call him Chad.

After graduating from high school in Missouri, Chad enlists to get the kind of technical training the military provides. His parents also believe it might shape him up after he occasionally got into trouble hanging out with the guys and gals.

Chad likes the Army and his fellow soldiers. He figures maybe two two-year tours and he’ll be in position to get a better paying job in or near his hometown.

But then, Donald Trump decides to war on Iran.

Chad is a good soldier. He carries out orders from superiors to perfection and receives commendations throughout his tour. And when he gets the word to carry out an attack on an Iranian position, he doesn’t question the order, he does what he’s told.

So when it’s discovered that one of the attacks he launched ended up killing 125 Iranian civilians, including children, Chad initially shrugs it off as an accident of war. Some of his fellow soldiers are a little more troubled by what happens – they’re out-and-out angry, and there starts to be discord in the unit.

Months later, Chad is on leave. When he gets to St. Louis in his uniform, he’s notices 175,000 people in the streets protesting the very war he’s been risking his life fighting. He’s disgusted – until he notices a girl he dated briefly in high school. He thinks they parted on good terms, but when he goes up to say hello, she looks at his uniform and snarls.

He responds angrily and is soon met with contempt by other protesters. They call him a baby killer. A St. Louis police officer needs to get him away to avoid a physical altercation.

Chad goes back to his hometown and is shocked to see that the people there are nearly as angry. Gasoline is $6 a gallon, local farmers can’t sell their corn in foreign markets and several local businesses are boarded up. 

He remembers seeing people paying for soldiers’ meals at the local lunch spot. He remembers old guys buying a round for hometown military personnel. 

None of that happens. Even his parents look at him warily. Instead of being a local hero, Chad is a pariah.

He’s heard something about this. During and after the Vietnam War, veterans were treated with contempt for “losing” to the Communists. They couldn’t find jobs or even a sympathetic ear – they were considered deranged or warped. That’s how Rambo got to be Rambo.

Chad is relieved to return to the Middle East, to his barracks. But his compatriots got the same treatment in towns from Augusta, Maine to Pismo Beach, California, from Fort Pierce, Florida to Lihue, Hawaii.

“We just did what we were told to do,” the men tell each other. They’re shaken and disgusted. The MAGA types among them say the news media is to blame, reporting only when bad things happen. 

But Chad isn’t so sure. The girl in St. Louis, the guys at Susan’s Restaurant, his own mother – all of them can’t be brainwashed propaganda victims of whatever is left of liberal news media.

The movie ends with a ceremony at the base. Pete Hegseth is there to give out special medals with the image of Trump flanked by eagles with spears in their talons. The official medal of Operation Epic Fury – the idiotic name for this mess.

When it’s time for Chad to get his medal, he walks up to Hegseth, lets him pin the tacky looking medal on his chest – and spits in Hegseth’s face.

— 

All that is a long way of saying this: There is no honor in this war for American soldiers who choose to participate. 

It’s worse than Vietnam. In Vietnam, veterans were badly treated because it was considered the first U.S. loss. But the American people changed their mind about Vietnam as the war progressed – they realized they had been deceived by America’s leaders. Most prominently, Lyndon Johnson. So it was unfair to blame the soldiers when the attitude shifted.

The Iraq War was another stupid mistake. But except when soldiers committed atrocities, such as at Abu Ghraib, veterans returning from that war and from Afghanistan were not faced with recriminations.

That’s going to change here.

The American people have never supported this war. And soldiers were warned – Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, who served with far more honor than anyone in this clown show of an administration, reminded soldiers before this and the Venezuela adventure that they are not obliged to carry out illegal or immoral orders.

And that’s what Iran is.

So when the kid from “Hamnet” wins Best Actor by perfecting his Missouri accent, as British actors are wont to do, he’ll be recreating a scene that’s bound to happen a lot from now until this nightmare ends.

It’s a terrible thing Trump, Hegseth and the rest of these yutzes have done to dishonor young people who believe in serving their country. People with honorable intentions shouldn’t be forced to weigh the morality of their service.

They’re clearly not the biggest victims of this mess. But their struggle will be Oscar bait.

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GOUGING THE SCAB

In 1978, my father and I engaged in an animated debate on a car ride home. Amazingly, it was about Iran.

What was amazing was who was on what side.

At the time, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was Shah of Iran. He had been a strong ally of the United States for more than 25 years – ever since the U.S. and Britain engineered the coup that toppled an elected prime minister in 1953.

But there was growing opposition to Pahlavi from various groups within Iran. Some sought democratic reforms. Others sought to turn Iran into a religious state – a la Saudi Arabia except for Shi’ite Muslims instead of Sunnis.

Pahlavi’s ruthlessness worsened as he struggled against opponents. And his use of imprisonment, torture and murder became the subject of a “60 Minutes” piece – a reminder in this sad age of how powerful good journalism can be.

Dad – who would be best described today as a moderate – was mortified by what he saw. And when something bothered him that much, he was almost evangelical on the subject.

So why were we debating?

I – supposedly the wide-eyed liberal idealist – said that while I agreed that the Shah was a horrible human being, what would we be getting if he just left? Would there be a nascent democracy? Or would the religious fantastics – led by the exiled cleric Ayatollah Khomeini – turn Iran into an even worse place?

Dad thought it didn’t matter. Torture is evil. Anyone who tortures the people he supposedly leads doesn’t deserve to lead.

He was adamant. And it turned out Jimmy Carter, a strong advocate for human rights, kind of agreed with him. The United States withdrew its support of Pahlavi, who fled the country. 

But it was Khomeini and the fanatics who took control. And it has been a mess ever since.

A mess that has entangled the United States more than once since 1979. Of course, most famously, soon after Khomeini took power, with what we call the Hostage Crisis. American diplomats held by Iran for more than a year after Pahlavi was allowed to be treated for cancer in New York.

The closest we’ve come to reconciliation was late in Barack Obama’s presidency. His team – with the help of Europe, China and Russia – got Iran to agree to repurpose its nuclear development away from weapons in return for the release of assets frozen during the Hostage Crisis.

—

The name “Iran” is supposedly derived from the Persian word for “Land of the Aryans.”

Unfortunately, the definition of the word “Iran” in the United States and much of the West is “oil.”

There are lots of places in the world with which this country has had fraught relationships. We seem to be able to leave Vietnam alone after fighting against its interests for about 20 years. 

But the problem with Iran is all that oil. It’s one of the biggest pools of black gook in the world. 

And they don’t want us to have it.

It has a lot to do with the fact that we’ve thwarted their efforts at controlling their destiny in the past, and they don’t trust us not to do it again.

Like Trump did last weekend.

There’s some fantasy that Iranian protests against Ayatollah Khamenei, the brutal leader taken out in the initial attack, meant that the Iranian people might see us as liberators.

Mazharf. That’s the Persian word for baloney.

The Iranians have no reason to trust us. They don’t want us in their lives. And this war we’ve started – whether it’s already ended or drags for months – won’t change any of that. We’re not getting their sweet, sweet oil – which we really wouldn’t need if we committed ourselves to a clean energy future, but that’s another issue.

They, like my Dad did, have long memories. Torture leaves a scab and the U.S. has been picking at it for all of my nearly 72 years and more. 

This time, in fact, we didn’t just pick at it. We amputated it.

It’s not unfathomable that we will end up devastated by this. The Iranians are perfectly capable of inflicting pain on us – now or years in the future.

Ultimately, my father was on the right side of history. Even if the ayatollahs were vicious, hateful men, they were Iranians. It was up to Iranians to decide how to handle this. 

And now, who knows?

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TIME IS UP FOR “TIME TO TIME”

Did you watch this week’s State of the Union address? 

I sure as hell didn’t. I phoned a friend, played a computer baseball game (OOTP – I highly recommend it!) and cleaned some of the mess on my desk.

Three years ago, we were in Palm Springs when President Biden delivered the speech. His detractors – and even some supporters – wondered if he’d become too addled to stay focused. Biden proved to be pretty sharp and the speech bolstered his standing in the polls.

And that’s the problem.

Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution contains this line about the role of the president: “He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”

There are three things that are archaic about that sentence. The first was noticed immediately by any woman who reads this blog. The second was the unnecessary Capitalization of select Nouns.

The third is the whole damn speech.

Tuesday night was a spectacle. Trump spent a record one hour and 47 minutes telling us how great he is, how lousy Democrats are and tarnishing any glow the U.S. men’s hockey team earned by winning the gold medal in Milan.

But let’s be fair. It’s not just Trump who has made the State of the Union anything but what the founders intended. The speech has been a political event more than an actual government function for a long time. 

Republicans heckle Democratic presidents. Democrats heckle Republican presidents. The presidents get their speechwriters to deliver gotcha lines to garner headlines – back in the day of newspapers and broadcast news – and memes, for social media today.

But does any president actually give Congress information about what’s going on in or concerning the United States of America?

You and Congress already know. It’s on TV or online. It’s in the e-mails and texts you get from friends, family and organizations you support. 

All the president does is either repeat the facts or, too often in Trump’s case, tell you not to believe your eyes and ears.

That wasn’t the case when Alexander Hamilton was singing about taking his shot while helping to craft the Constitution in 1787 (OK, he probably wasn’t singing, but I’m having a fond flashback about seeing “Hamilton” with my daughter.)

Up until the early 20th century, the president probably did reveal things in the State of the Union about what was happening in this country. Of course, up until the 20th century, the president also didn’t generally deliver a State of the Union speech – it was Woodrow Wilson, in the first year of his presidency, who began a tradition of an in-person address to Congress.

Until that time, the president sent a letter to Congress meeting the requirements of Article II, Section III. 

But Wilson’s appearance came at the dawn of the broadcast age. It was on radio and it was a way to emphasize the second part of Article II, Section 3 – “and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”

Over the past 113 years, that’s what it has become. A free political ad for a president’s agenda. A chance to get his message to the American people without the filter of analysis or context that journalists provide.

What a waste of time and energy! Nothing was accomplished by Trump’s speech except that his supporters heard what they wanted to hear and we detractors found another reason – as if we needed it – to get ticked off that this buffoon holds the nation’s highest office.

Wouldn’t you rather have seen a new episode of “High Potential” on ABC or the season premiere of “NCIS” on CBS? Or a good college basketball game? Or the replay of a spring training game?

Because you were more likely to learn something about the state of the union from any of those broadcasts than from hearing Trump spew.

If there’s going to be an effort to amend the U.S. Constitution after the Trump debacle – and I’m beginning to think there really needs to be, since in many ways this document is failing a stress test – it might be that time to time has run out for the State of the Union.

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YEAR OF THE HORSE’S ASS

Gung Hai Fat Choy!

The lunar new year began Tuesday. It’s the Year of the Horse in the Chinese zodiac, which means that for people born in 1954 – including me – and every 12 years after, it’s our year.

Unfortunately for us, and fortuitously for the People’s Republic of China, it’s also another year of Donald Trump.

Trump was actually born in the Year of the Dog, 1946. But like everything else, he interjects himself into everyone’s life with the finesse of a steamroller. So even though people like me should be celebrating, Trump is trying his damnedest to make sure he’s in as many conversations as any single human can.

Why is this fortuitous for China?

Well, for one thing, no American president has – until now – driven steadfast allies running into the arms of either Xi Jinping and any of his predecessors as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. The crown jewel of this debacle has been Canada’s embrace of China as a trade and political party. 

Thanks to Trump, it’s now as easy to go from Toronto to Beijing as it is to go from Toronto to New York. China recently waived visa requirements for Canadian citizens despite a history of not always being welcoming to those folks. And given the way border crossing has become tougher in North America, a Canadian needs his or her passport to go to either China or the U.S.

Because of Trump’s idiotic tariffs – his tariffs should never be described without the adjective “idiotic” – Canada has now increased its purchases of Chinese raw materials and products, while China has decided that Canadian soybeans taste – if’s that what you do with soybeans – better than ones grown in the 50 states.

In addition, Trump’s determination to stomp out vehicles that don’t run on good ol’ drilled-from-the-ground petroleum, Chinese electric cars will soon find their way into Winnipeg, Sudbury and Halifax. And, unless he’s stupid enough to further restrain Canadian-U.S. ties, Trump will be able to tool on his golf cart at Mar-a-Lago while Chinese-built electric vehicles purr on the streets of Palm Beach.

It’s not just Canada. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently returned from a productive mission to Beijing.

So we’re driving – literally and figuratively – our greatest historical allies into China’s sphere of influence. That wasn’t exactly the intention.

I think Trump is fine with China aligning with Japan and South Korea – again, among this country’s best allies since the end of World War II. It’s in line with the vision he shares with Xi and their puppetmaster, Vladimir Putin. 

Asia is China’s sphere of influence. Europe is Russia’s – that’s what the Ukraine war is about. A

And Trump wants control of the Western Hemisphere. That’s what the Greenland nonsense is about. That’s what the Canada as 51st state nonsense is about. That’s what the seizing of Venezuela’s Maduro is about.

But by being Trump, Canada isn’t falling sway to his, um, charm. It’s aligning with the slighted Europeans – including such angry nations as Britain, France and Denmark. And if it benefits Canada with the bonus of pissing off Trump, Prime Minister Mark Carney has shown that he’s all in – or “elbows up” as they say up there.

While there are multiple polls showing how politically weak Trump is in the United States, it’s unrealistic to believe he won’t still be president when the Year of the Sheep rolls around on February 6, 2027.

So fighting his dictatorial willhea (that’s a word my father made up to indicate a craving) is going to take a lot of energy in 2026, it’s what we have to do. It’s what we have to keep doing to save the country we believe in.

Honestly, though, I’m all for making a part of Trump a part of this Year of the Horse.

I’ll give you a guess as to which part.

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ERASING ERASURE

Carter Woodson created what has become Black History Month because he refused to be erased.

Woodson became a black historian the hard way. His parents, both slaves until a few years before he was born, needed his income in rural Virginia. So he worked as a sharecropper and miner, moving to West Virginia at 17 to dig for coal there.

Well past the age most people graduate from high school, Woodson began attending classes. He finished in less than two years, then got a degree from Berea College in Kentucky. After a stint working for the U.S. government in our then-colony of The Philippines, he got a second bachelor’s from the University of Chicago and then a Ph.D. from Harvard.

But this was the early 20th century – I’m guessing the time period that some folks in red hats perceive as when America was great. 

So when Woodson, with credentials that probably blew away most of those deciding, was refused admission to American Historical Association conferences, he took his wisdom and created the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History.

Because Woodson knew – as anyone with even a smidgen of understanding knows – that Black history is American history. It’s an integral part – American history and accomplishment is woefully incomplete without an understanding of what Black people endured and contributed to this country.

Woodson first created Negro History Week 100 years ago. It later became Black History Month and continues to this day with the guidance of what’s now known as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. 

He put in February. Not, as some comedians like to joke, because it’s the shortest month, but because it’s the month in which two of the most important figures in Black American lives – Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass – were born.

Black History Month has grown more prominent in recent years. The association that runs it has an annual theme for its commemoration and program, this year focusing on the celebration’s centennial. Other years have seen attention given to education, economics, politics and the arts.

Of course, since the 2024 election, Trump and his gangsters have tried to diminish Black history. There should just be history is the gist of what they’re saying, trying to make it seem as though racial bigotry and animus have been eliminated.

In some cases, retroactively. In Philadelphia, signs discussing how enslaved Africans worked at George Washington’s home were taken down; the city is suing the administration to get them returned. Last year, the dolt occupying the Secretary of Defense’s (that’s right!) office was forced to retreat after an attempt to remove references to the Tuskegee Airmen from training material.

Erasure is not limited to Black people. You’re watching it in real time at the Super Bowl.

It is – to say the very least – insulting the intelligence of anyone with half a brain to think there needs to be an “All American” alternative to the scheduled official halftime performance of Bad Bunny. It implies a) that the Super Bowl is a strictly United States event; b) that Puerto Rico, Bad Bunny’s home, is not part of the United States; and c) that any of the human leaf blower voices listed on the alternative show are in any way comparable to one of the most dynamic and entertaining performers in the world.

But bigots seem determined to have their say. I’m an elderly Italian-American man and the only Spanish I used to know was the translation of English language ads and warnings on the New York City subway (Aviso: La vía del tren subterráneo es peligrosa. Si el tren se para entre las estaciones, quédese adentro. No salga afuera. Siga las instrucciones de los operadores del tren o la policía). That said, the only reason I’m watching the game is to share the joy of Bad Bunny with hundreds of millions around the world.

Bad Bunny, like Carter Woodson, refuses to be erased. So do other Black, Hispanic, Asian, and indigenous people. So do those of us Caucasians who refuse to accept a homogenous white identity, instead relishing the history of our immigrant ancestors.

Combined, those histories tell the real story of a country that hopefully will be great again after we fight off Trump’s effort to destroy us from within.

If you wonder why Black History Month is a big deal, there are two important reasons. One is that you’re going to hear and read a lot of interesting stories that you didn’t know before about Black contributions to America’s struggle.

The other is that no history is invalid or unworthy. History is history. It’s how we know that reverting to the past doesn’t make America great – learning from it and improving on it does.

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L’ETOILE DU NORD

When my wife and I visited Minneapolis in 2024, we loved it.

Of course, having close friends there doesn’t hurt. Or the fact that, as in every other trip I’ve taken to the state of Minnesota, the temperature never fell below 70°. That includes two trips in late September and early October, when New York was in the 40s. I have no idea what it’s like when the high is minus 10°.

But even putting those things aside, we noticed things about Minnesota that surprised our Gotham-centric eyes.

First, it’s a really beautiful place. The Mississippi River begins in Minnesota and it frames Minneapolis. It’s not as wide as it gets when you’re further downriver – in St. Louis, for example. It seems like you see life on both sides.

Not to mention Minnehaha Falls, a wonderful park that includes the impressive cascade on the outskirts of the city.

Second, we ate really well there. The idea of peanut butter on a hamburger would gross me out. Not in Minneapolis. Same with a stuffed hamburger. Or a tater tots casserole, aka hot dish.

We even ventured to an Italian restaurant. I never do that outside New York since it’s hard to believe any other city – except maybe Boston – has decent cuisine of my ancestral home. But it was wonderful – a great array of antipasti, pasta and carne that would be at home in Carroll Gardens or Arthur Avenue.

The Twin Cities don’t lack in culture. We attended a wonderful production of “The Lehman Trilogy” at the relatively new version of the Guthrie Theater. In a previous trip, we visited the beautiful Walker Art Center. There are independent bookstores all over the place.

And, of course, Minnesota is the home state of Prince and Bob Dylan.

You’ve heard that people in Minnesota are over-the-top nice and try at all costs to avoid hurting your feelings.. Let me give you an example:

On our last day in the area, we had lunch with friends at a pub in the south part of the city. It was a Monday, and I was somewhat distracted by the fact that the Mets needed to beat Atlanta to make it to the postseason.

I tried to avoid the game – my friends aren’t big baseball fans. But as were leaving the restaurant, I watched on the TV screen as Francisco Lindor homered to put the Mets ahead in the ninth inning.

I do not hide my feelings when I’m watching the Mets. I let out an enormous “Go, go, go, yes!” as the ball cleared the fence.

At which point a server in the restaurant, quite naturally for a Minnesotan, blurted “Who cares about the Mets?”

I was undaunted. I went out to the parking lot to catch the end of the game and say goodbye to my friends. At which point, the server came running out and apologized profusely for her outburst.

I mean, the rowdy New Yorker is the one who disturbed everyone’s lunch. But she was the one who expressed remorse. My wife and I laughed, because there was no way this ever happens in New York without somebody’s middle finger going up.

Minnesotans are nice. They look out for one another. There’s less crime and a genuine effort to alleviate poverty. They are culturally diverse, welcoming people from throughout the world to a place where a lot of immigrants from tropical areas are probably shocked by the climate.

It might seem like heresy for a native New Yorker, especially if you know how chauvinistic I am about the City that Never Sleeps. But I could live in Minnesota.

So why did Trump pick on Minnesota?

Exactly because of all of the above. And because Minnesota hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1972 – and has only voted for a Republican (Eisenhower twice) three times since 1932, the first time it ever went Democratic.

The red states where Trump is beloved are generally failures. Crime is higher. Living standards are lower. And, of course, bigotry keeps anyone not white and Christian from thriving.

That won’t do as far as Trump and his minions are concerned. Their hatred for Tim Walz and Illan Omar and Amy Klobuchar and everyone else from Minnesota is based on the perception that the competence of Democratic leadership is a taunt rather than an example.

So Trump and Stephen Miller and the rest of the pond scum were determined to make life miserable in a place where it isn’t. The results are there. Hundreds of non-criminal immigrants – undocumented or otherwise – whisked away by secret police. Disruption of businesses, schools, houses of worship. And murder – at least two that we know of.

What Trump and Republicans didn’t count on was the fact that Minnesotans are fierce about their niceness. They mistook civility and kindness for complaisance and apathy, and ended up with exactly the opposite.

I love Minnesota. I love the Minnesotans I’ve met in my life. They are real Americans, the real patriots. And they deserve better than what January 2026 has given them.

It’s the North Star State, l’etoile du nord, because it’s a guiding light for the United States and the world. Never more than now.

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