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NOBODY ASKED ME, BUT…

The legendary sportswriter Jimmy Cannon, one of my career inspirations, used to occasionally put together a column of his random pronouncements on life.

The column was entitled “Nobody Asked Me, But…” and was cherished by his readers at The New York Post, the New York Journal-American and the King Features Syndicate nationwide.

Now, what’s embarrassing about what I’m about to do is that Wikipedia, of all things, is pre-calling me out on this. In its Jimmy Cannon entry, it has these two lines:

This gambit has been eagerly seized upon by newspaper columnists ever since, not only on the sports page but in every other section. Columnists who “borrow” this device will typically lead off with some lip-service tribute to its originator, such as “In the words of the immortal Jimmy Cannon: Nobody asked me, but…” and then they’re off.

That itself is not an original Wikipedia thought. It was cribbed from a 2008 column by Michael Getler on the PBS site.

To cut to the chase, I had some random thoughts. And since you already know the world’s a mess and Trump is an idiot, for this week, I’ll pass on some of these musings. 

I’m not going to start them with “Nobody asked me, but…” But, to be honest, nobody did.

—

— I can imagine most prominent people doing mundane things. I can’t imagine Donald Trump doing any of them.

Can you picture him grilling burgers in the backyard? Pumping gas at a self-serve pump? Coaching a girls’ softball team? Putting up the Trump family Christmas tree? 

Neither can I. I can see every other President in my lifetime – even patricians like JFK, Ronald Reagan and the Bushes – doing that.

I can’t even imagine him dressing himself – and that’s despite the fact that he’s dressed like someone dressed themselves but don’t know how.

— Soccer – football to those of you outside the USA – bores me. Among its other misfeatures is the idea that when the clock runs out, the game – oops, sorry, the match – might not be over.

But stoppage time – the amount they put back on the clock for timeouts and other interruptions – might have a real-life usefulness. If – and only if – when someone dies, the power that runs the universe gives you back the time you lost forced to do stupid, time-wasting things.

This thought occurred to me yesterday as I tried to open one of those plastic bags ripped off a roll in the produce section of the supermarket – and it took me five minutes to secure a bulb of garlic.

I think two years total returned would be about right.

— It was 75 degrees the day we returned to New York after two weeks in Hawaii.

Two days later, I wore four layers and still shivered as I watched the Mets at Citi Field for the first time this season.

Today, four days after that, it was 80. Until it was 65 when the clouds rolled in and a shower passed through.

The beginning of spring here is now a time for making firm plans. The ground might be freezing. Or melting. It might rain. Or snow. Or burn with the heat of a blow torch.

— We passed two cars pulled over to the side of the road. Apparently, there was some sort of mishap involving the vehicles.

My wife watched two guys come out of one car and confront the woman driving the other. She wondered who was at fault.

I told her that was easy to tell.

Her car had New York plates. Their car had New Jersey plates. The cops can write those guys a ticket now.

— Speaking of New Jersey, I admit to falling for an April Fool’s prank played by the state government.

The state released a social media statement saying it was ending the ban on self-service gasoline pumps – that everyone who drives in the Garden State needed to learn how to pump gas, pronto!

I was all set to lament the passing of the best thing about New Jersey – you never get out of your car at a gas station. The rest of the country can only imagine what was standard practice when I got my license in the 1970s.

But, again, apparently Gov. Mikie Sherrill and the gang was just looking for a few yuks on April 1. Hope the guffaws last awhile. Well played.

— Finally, I turn 72 today. 

That, to me, is the biggest joke of all. 

I couldn’t imagine being 72 back when birthdays were big days of celebration. When my parents bought presents and took me bowling or to miniature golf, or had friends and/or family for a party. I couldn’t imagine it when the AP started giving me the day off as part of working there in my early 20s. 

Being 72 is unreal. It’s remembering completely different worlds at various stages of life. 

The future is always depicted as scary. And there are things about my 72nd birthday that do frighten me. The world is getting warmer. It’s getting angrier. The United States has forfeited its place as the moral leader of the world.

But there are reasons for hope. I can listen to any song written in or before my lifetime. I can watch any movie from the beginning of cinema. The next episode of “The Pitt” is coming up.

For the first time in over a half-century, people are returning to the vicinity of the moon – a place where men once walked. 

So despite all the gloom and doom scrolling, despite Trump and the worst people ever to run the world running the world, I’ll choose optimism. I’ll choose to think that I will see better things.

Nobody asked me, but that’s what I believe.

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ALOHA (THE GOODBYE EDITION)

POIPU, HAWAII – By the time you read this, I will have left Kauai, where I’ve spent the past two weeks.

It’s been mostly terrific. Because I love Hawaii. Especially this island, Kauai.

We’ve been very lucky – almost lottery-quality lucky. The three other main islands – Oahu, Maui and Hawaii – were inundated by rain in what’s called Kona Storms. Parts of the other islands remain underwater. People needed to be evacuated from homes, roads flooded. Miraculously, and thankfully, there is no official death toll attributed to the storms.

Here on Kauai, we got a lot of rain right after we arrived two weeks ago – 6.5 inches at the airport where we landed. We spent the first two days of our vacation cooped in our room.

But it stopped raining early last week and, for the final days of our trip, we got what we came for – sunshine, warmth, a chance to wander around the Garden Island.

Hawaii and Kauai, when they are like they’ve been this week, are glorious.

Yes, there’s the weather and the Pacific Ocean.  The lush greenery. The best seafood anywhere. The magnificent sunrises and sunsets.

Hawaii, though, is glorious for what it represents; the incredible diversity of the United States of America.

It is the crossing point for so much of the human race. Starting with the Polynesians, who settled on the uninhabited islands in the first millennium and lived perfectly well until the late 18th century. 

That’s when the British came. They didn’t expect to find the islands, but once they did, they liked what they saw. They enjoyed the food, the pearls and the young women. They gave back guns and diseases. 

The Russians came here, too. So did the Japanese and Chinese. 

And, of course, the Americans. 

I’ve spent much of early 2026 reading history about Americans and their attitudes toward indigenous people, both in North America and beyond. They weren’t much into sharing, or abiding by agreements. I think that’s what Trump sees as America’s greatness, aka double dealing. The islands ended up belonging to us.

In 1960, Hawaii became the 50th state. We haven’t added any since. 

When you come to Hawaii, you notice two things about people. One is that the folks who stay in hotels and resorts tend to be overwhelmingly Caucasian. Certainly more so than home in New York.

The other thing is that the people who actually live and work here are overwhelmingly not Caucasian. They’re an incredible mix of native Hawaiian, Asian, Hispanic and everyone else you can imagine. 

With all that difference, you might expect conflict. Nah!

I have not seen hot tempers or a lot of rudeness. I’m sure the folks who live here could tell me stories. But, for the most part, everyone says “Aloha” to each other and smiles. It seems as genuine as a casual encounter can be.

Amid that placidity is what’s around us – a turbulent ocean. The waves make a lot of noise. They spray and splash and crash and thunder on the lava rocks and the sandy beaches. It’s choppy and looks especially daunting to those of us who live near more tranquil waters.

It’s a lot like the world we live in.

There’s a lot of churn out there. There’s a lot that can get in the way of our happiness. Rogue waves after a tsunami. The flooding you can expect from 24 inches of rain in three days. A brutal sun that burns skin a little faster than in northern climates.

And yet, working together, we solve it.

We get on surfboards (actually, they get on surfboards, I’m not going near one). Then we ride the waves, crash out eventually, and go back out and do it again and again.

The magnificent music created by the slack key guitar and ukelele ease the mind and reach deep into the soul. You could float a tanker with all the sunscreen for sale.

People wear loud shirts and dresses, forget what socks are, read and walk and dream. 

Hawaii is what America should be. It’s impressive that it actually is part of America, because except for the flags and the occasional post office, it often seems like another world.

That’s not to everyone’s liking. There are bumper stickers and graffiti saying “Hawaii is not America.” And the Americanization that has taken place is scary enough to some people that a song on Bad Bunny’s Grammy-winning album warns Puerto Ricans against suffering the same fate.

So let’s work it out. Let’s find a way to make sure Hawaiians and every other American can be their true self and enjoy the pursuit of happiness promised in the Declaration of Independence nearly 250 years ago.

Let’s welcome those who aspire to be us, who want to contribute to a great national effort toward the more perfect union sought by the Constitution. No one – no one! – is “an illegal.”

Let’s solve our real problems amid the stormy seas around us – climate change, equality, economic justice. Let’s explore and question and tolerate and enjoy.

That’s what I see on the beach here on Kauai. I know when you read this I’ll be back among the maelstrom we’ve been experiencing all year – hell, ever since Trump went down the escalator.

But, for now, I’m going to enjoy it – and wish fervently that you and your loved ones get to enjoy it again as well.

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A SHOT IN THE FOOT

If you’re not aware of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech Tuesday at the World Economic Forum, learn about it fast.

It’s the future Trump bequeaths us. A world in which we, the people of the United States, no longer matter the way we have my entire 71-3/4 years. 

What Carney said, basically, is what we’ve been trying to point out since this country put Trump back in the White House a year ago. 

Basically, the world is tired of trying to figure out what this buffoon wants or doesn’t want. Of him proposing nonsensical actions and wondering if he really means it. Of criticizing and belittling our loyal partners while turning tyrants and murderers into role models and buddies.

Who the hell thinks one of our enemies is Canada? Or Denmark? Or Mexico? Or France?

Who the hell looks up to Putin? Or Xi? Or MBS? Or Netanyahu?

The civilized world is through with this crap. Unlike the American Left, they can and will shake Trump off. They will treat us like the second-class power we’ve become. They’ll deal with us when it’s in their interest and ignore us when it’s not. And if we try to bully our way into what rightfully belongs to them, they will fight – even if they lose, they’ll make us bleed and hurt.

Since the end of World War II, we’ve claimed to be the moral and cultural compass of the world. We talk about freedom as if we are the best exemplars of it – as if other countries don’t have it as much as we do.

Because they thought we were trying to achieve a more perfect union, they gave us the benefit of the doubt. The civil rights movement, which Trump asininely proclaims hurt white men, made other nations believe that we were reckoning with centuries of racism and the legacy of slavery. We wanted emerging nations to embrace democracy and the electoral process – even as we tried to make it harder for some to cast a ballot.

Carney called BS on this. The United States has turned from paying lip service to ideals to not even trying. It remains a powerful nation, with a massive military and weapons enough to destroy the world. And, with this cetriolo seeking a dictatorship or absolute monarchy, the policy of this administration is to get what it wants by whatever means necessary – mores, alliances and tradition be damned.

The Greenland debacle is the epitome of it all. I mean, it has never crossed a rational mind that there should be any dispute. If you read a book, if you ever watched “Borgen” on Netflix (a great Danish TV show!), you know that Denmark and Greenland have an 800-year history that has worked itself out. 

The United States has as much access to Greenland as it could possibly need right now. And yet, we put our relationship with all of the European Union at risk because of some need to add territory.

Trump appeared to back down Wednesday after his debacle of a speech at Davos, giving the face-saving we’ve-agreed-to-talk-about-it he loves to use when he caves from his ridiculous demands.

But my guess is the world is fed up. It has more important things to do – there are real problems to solve involving climate change, global migration, technology and economic justice. If the United States wants to ignore this, that’s its problem.

Except that we’re Americans, so it’s our problem.

Here’s one way this will all manifest itself:

The United States dominated the automobile industry for much of the 20th century. It only ceded its leadership when it refused to innovate – and Japan and South Korea filled the void. That’s why Toyotas and Hyundais dominate the road – and Fords and Chevys get harder to find.

Now, just as the American carmakers figured it out and started down the path of non-gasoline powered vehicles, Trump is ending any incentives to keep going. He wants more oil – re: the Venezuelan tomfoolery. He wants to drill in parts of this country set aside for environmental protection.

That’s dumb. That’s also expensive – while gas isn’t as high as it was a few years ago, you still pay something between $2.50 and $3 a gallon for it.

Meanwhile, Europe and China have looked at the innovation in electric vehicle manufacturing and are betting big on it. The progress made in the last 10 years is phenomenal – imagine what it’ll be like in 2036.

Except here. The rest of the world will be running on sustainable, low-cost electricity while we putt-putt and need to fill the tank.

Joe Biden tried to fix this. Kamala Harris would have protected and expanded his gains. Instead, Trump is trying to erase it all.

It’ll be this way in everything else. Food and appliances. Airplanes and technology. The arts and sports.

The images of America that will guide the rest of the world won’t be F-16 flyovers and the Academy Awards. It will be watching goons terrorize the people of Minneapolis and sending people to countries they’ve never known. It’ll be the adoration society for a senile dingbat with no culture, no soul, no compassion and no intellect.

We’ve cast aside our empire. We ruled the world – and the world didn’t seem to mind.

Now it will. We shot ourselves in the foot. This time, the wound won’t heal as fast as Trump’s ear did – if it heals at all.

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BOARD GAME

I first became aware of Venezuela when I was about 6.

I received a board game for Christmas that involved moving cargo from one international port to another. It was a great way to learn about international ports, one of which was Maracaibo, from which the country exports its oil.

Then, of course, when I was a little older, I got Risk. Venezuela is one of the key locations in the game of global conquest, the gateway between North and South America. 

In later years, when I would play with family, my daughter and my brother would constantly battle over the spot, stacking the plastic soldiers in the country and on its borders. If I’m not mistaken, the last Risk winner got a small Venezuelan flag – i think my daughter has it now.

While we’re mentioning Risk, another key location is Greenland, the bridge between North America and Europe. Like Venezuela, it seems like a lot of the action in the game takes place on those two spots.

You would have hoped that grown adults, ranging in age from their 50s to just shy of 80, got their desire for world domination or massive cargo fortunes out of their system by the end of adolescence.

But then again, can you imagine a young Donald Trump playing a board game? Or a game of any kind, other than golf for status seeking? Like the guy in the Sheryl Crow song, Trump’s “never had a day of fun in his whole life.”

A lot has been made about why Trump decided that January 2026 was the time to go after Nicholas Maduro and get the oil he thinks he and his oil executive benefactors deserve. 

He’s trying to distract from the still unreleased Epstein files. He’s trying to distract from Jack Smith’s January 6 testimony before a House committee that puts him squarely at the center of a plot to overturn the 2020 election. He’s trying to distract from the disastrous impact on the economy of his idiotic tariffs. He’s trying to distract from his declining health.

All that stuff about distractions might be worth nothing. Except for one thing.

Real people die.

It’s estimated that 80 died in the attack. Some were Venezuelan military personnel. Some apparently were Cuban advisers, bringing another country into this tussle. And some were civilians who apparently were destroyed in order to save them.

As far as we know, no Americans were killed. It would have been a real botch job if there had been,

In the reaction to the raid, people in both parties have talked about how it’s good Maduro is no longer in power. I’m sick of hearing it.

Yeah, Maduro is a bad guy. So is Vladimir Putin. So is Muhammad Bin Salaam. So is Benjamin Netanyahu. So is Kim Jong Il. 

And so is Donald Trump. If you think he’s any better than Maduro, you’re deceiving yourself. If anything Trump is enabling other bad guys with his recklessness, his contempt for civility and his overwhelming greed.

People in both parties praised the U.S. military for its professionalism. That’s also crap.

The United States military was in about as much danger in the raid on Venezuela as your kid is playing “Call of Duty.” Somebody in Venezuela sold old Maduro and led the CIA and the military to him. 

If you’re a military member who participated in this, ask yourself if you think you warrant the same honor as somebody who defused an IED in Afghanistan or was rescued from a downed  helicopter in Iraq. The Venezuelan raid was like shooting fish in a barrel.

It is not valor to fight someone who hasn’t fired a shot at you. 

That’s something every member of the military needs to keep in mind if stupidity’s reign goes unchecked and the forces of this country are used to capture Greenland. Or Cuba. Or Mexico. Or Canada. Or anywhere else. 

Doing so would be a war crime. You would be accountable to the civilized people of the world. And, if you believe, to your God.

People have lives. They have hopes. They have ambitions. They have love for their families.

They are not chips or squares or blocks or little figures on a game board. They are not incidental. This isn’t Risk or some shipping game.

It’s time for these sugar-hyped manchildren to grow up. Particularly the nearly 80-year-old one in the White House. 

It’s making everyone’s life miserable.

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211°F

It doesn’t seem as if this can go on.

For the better part of the last year – since noon ET on January 20 – the United States has been building toward a rolling boil. The temperature ratcheted up almost every day by some new outrage emanating from a desecrated White House.

Until we got to this point. A new year that starts with a divided – maybe hopelessly – country. Sectional bitterness. Different standards of morality. Disrespect for the humanity of people who aren’t your type.

It has to end in 2026. The problem is how.

Is there some way, any way, to take the temperature down? To lower the gas? To add some cold water to the mix?

Or are there enough people who want it to boil over that it can’t be stopped?

Is this the revolution that people on the right have craved since the 1960s? Is this how we end a representative republic, how we end democracy, how we end the fantasy of a melting pot or mosaic that embraces all who enter?

It can’t stay this way. This nation feels like I imagine Europe felt like in the years before World War I. And all it will take is a spark – an Archduke Ferdinand moment – to set off a cataclysmic conflagration.

Before you think I’m overly pessimistic, let me correct you.

I think we can pull it back. I think the year will see us step away from the turmoil and civil war that some seek with both hands.

But it’s going to take a few strong acts and a little luck. And it’s not going to be painless.

Part of it will be economic. The idiotic tariffs. The surging cost of healthcare thanks to the tax break bill for the wealthiest, The immigration policies that will lead to both higher unemployment and a labor shortage at the same time, which is really hard to do.

And, more importantly, part of it is in our hands.

First, we have to somehow show the MAGA cult why this path leads to American ruin.

In a way, what’s happening at the Kennedy Center – yes, the Kennedy Center – is example A. 

Trump wanted to put his imprimatur on American culture as a way of securing his hold on the public mindset. The problem is he doesn’t understand it – he has no concept of the arts.

Can you imagine him looking at a Hopper or Monet painting and reflecting on what’s portrayed? Can you imagine him watching “Severance” or “Pluribus” or “Hamnet” and having an intelligent discussion on the show or film’s message? Does he know who Charlie Parker or Aaron Copland or Richard Smallwood are, much less any of their work?

So when artists started boycotting the center because he insisted on putting his name on it, he couldn’t fathom that. Don’t they just want to get paid? Everybody has their price, right?

No. That’s not how art works. That’s why I am now the proud owner of digital music by Chuck Rudd, Kristy Lee and The Cookers – and will, in all likelihood, discover new artists whose work I enjoy.

And that’s why you should buy their music, too. Standing up on principle, damn the cost, is hard. Especially in a profession in which you either make a fortune with a hit record or barely make ends meet striving for excellence.

The other message by the other artist withdrawals from the Kennedy Center is that I hope MAGA types enjoy the mediocrity of artists who support Trump. Because they are no longer part of the world in which the best art is created.

They’ve probably felt that way for a while. But the non-MAGAs and the rest of the civilized world are about to create a society that excludes them, that doesn’t care if they buy tickets or not. 

For example, if Greg Gutfeld and Rob Schneider are what they’re left with in the world of comedy, MAGAs might never find anything funny again.

Second, there needs to be a zero-tolerance policy toward discriminatory hate.

Trump’s now on the rampage about Somali immigrants and Americans of Somali descent. He’s been fueled by the fraudulent effort to claim newfound fraud in Minnesota day care centers,  something Gov. Tim Walz already handled.

I’m sick of racial bigotry. I’m sick of gender bias. I’m sick of antisemitism. I’m sick of islamophobia. I’m sick of people claiming religious superiority. 

We all should take a no-tolerance policy toward it. No more winking, or claiming that Grandpa is confused, or our neighbors usually mean well.

Call it out. Don’t support businesses or organizations that demonstrate intolerance.

We’re always afraid to make waves. Make waves.

Finally, vote.

Not just on November 3 when the nation is scheduled to elect a new House, a third of the Senate and more than half of the nation’s governors.

Vote in school board and school budget elections. Vote in library and sanitary district elections. Vote in primaries. Vote in runoffs.

Vote every chance you have to vote.

One of the ways the right wing has ascended is taking seriously elections most Americans dismiss. Local government often seems parochial and contingent on a buddy system in which you’re on the outs if you don’t know the gang. 

Let’s end that. You pay taxes, too. You contribute to these communities in big and small ways. Act like you’re a stakeholder. Because you are – and if people claim it without a fight, they can go on to the next level and propose book bans and citizenship tests.

I don’t know if any of that can stop the boil that American society is headed to. I hope so. We were taught in school that the Civil War was a one-time thing, that no one would ever again seek to dissolve the union.

Donald Trump and the people who have backed him – from Vladimir Putin to Elon Musk to Stephen Miller – don’t care. We – and this republic – are collateral damage to getting what they want.

We don’t have to take it lying down.

Hope it’s a happy, healthy and free 2026 for you, your loved ones and the United States of America, 

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YES, IT’S A BIG DEAL

I was jealous of my New York City friends and family who are able to vote for Zohran Mamdani for mayor.

I’ll get back to that point in a bit. But first, let’s discuss Election Day 2025.

It doesn’t garner near the attention that Election Day 2024 did or even Election Day 2026 will. That’s understandable to an extent. The people on the ballot in a presidential, gubernatorial or congressional race get lots of attention on TV or online.

But this year’s elections – if there is, in fact, an election where you live – are generally local. You might know the town supervisor as the guy who lives a couple of blocks away or the woman whose kid goes to the same school as yours. But they’re not generally prominent figures – people who show up on a screen in your home.

Until they are. Local governments are like farm teams in baseball. Most of the people involved never make it to the big leagues – but generally you become a national or state political figure after winning some smaller race in a community.

For example, I just saw a social media post from U.S. Senator and former presidential candidate Cory Booker. His first election was to a municipal council in Newark, New Jersey, in 1997. Mitch McConnell, the venerable Kentucky senator and former party leader, first won a county executive race in 1977.

And even if these people up for election next week don’t become national names, they potentially affect your life in many ways. 

Councils appropriate money and help determine who gets taxed and by how much. Judges preside over criminal and civil cases or even that speeding ticket you want to fight. Town clerks collect your property tax money and send you the receipts that you need for your IRS filing. The highway superintendent makes assignments for clearing your street after a storm.

So the people who say something like “Well, nobody’s up this year, why do I need to vote?” don’t really understand how our system works. That what happens at the local level is just as important as what happens nationally.

The most prominent races this year are for governor in New Jersey and Virginia. Incumbents are term-limited in both states – a Democrat in New Jersey, a Republican in Virginia. 

The Democratic candidates in both states – Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger – are ahead in pre-election polls, but are hardly shoo-ins. And even if they were, it’s important to send a message to Trump and his ilk that their conduct is unacceptable.

We should be trying to beat him bigly.

There are also mayoral races in many of the nation’s big cities. Including, of course, New York – the race which has dominated political coverage for months.

The leading candidate, Democrat Zohran Mamdani, may be running the best campaign I have seen in my lifetime – and I’ve been a political junkie since I was 5 years old. It is not, as fear-mongering detractors argue, that he is converting gullible millennials into socialist zombies.

What Mamdani does so well is listen. He spent the first part of his campaign figuring out what New Yorkers want – to afford living within in the five boroughs. His proposals, which are more detailed than any I’ve seen in a campaign, get at how he will address costs. Nobody is complaining that he is not specific.

Friends outside New York ask if Mamdani translates to their part of the nation. The answer is not that Georgia or Illinois or Virginia need necessarily embrace his democratic socialism. The answer is that Democrats need to hear what their potential constituents are saying about their problems, then propose solutions that people believe could work.  

It’s a trial-and-error process, not a Mount Olympus process. Making people feel as though they’re invested in their community’s success is how Democrats will re-emerge as the dominant political party – and, in the process, save the United States from the Republican-spearheaded drive toward totalitarianism.

Where I live, northwest of the city in Rockland County, politics are a little bleaker – and very weird.

Rank-and-file Democrats can’t stand the county executive, a former New York City cop named Ed Day. He always seems to run on fear of the city, that we in Rockland don’t ‘share the values” of the Gotham menace.

Which is shorthand for “we don’t have a lot of people of color up here” and we don’t want any more.

For example, Day’s campaign literature – a waste of money, as you’ll see in a bit – talks about how he managed to fight New York City’s effort to ship 400 undocumented immigrants to hotels in the county.

What Day doesn’t say is that those immigrants were shipped to Manhattan by Ron DeSantis in Florida and Greg Abbott in Texas, used as political pawns to make some stupid point. If those clucks wanted to maybe help alleviate a problem of getting overwhelmed by migrants, maybe they would have worked with neighboring areas to relocate the, you know, human beings. 

But expecting DeSantis or Abbott to act in a way consistent with the Christian teachings they boast of heeding is folly. And you can count Ed Day with them.

The biggest problem with Rockland, as I alluded to last week in my post on the No King’s Day event in Nanuet, is that there are few young people here. Young professionals do not want to live in a place where people are looking to ban books in schools and where the only jobs being created are low-wage ones in warehouses.

But the Republicans in Rockland, who attained dominance only within the last decade or so, have figured out how to maintain power. They’ve basically co-opted the Democratic party organization – so much so that there is no Democrat running against Day. (Which makes you wonder why he wasted any money on campaign literature). There is an independent who qualified for the ballot.

I voted for him when I cast my early vote this week. I voted for whatever Democrats were on the ballot for town and county offices – unless they were cross-endorsed by Republicans.

There were three other races in which no Democrat was on the ballot. For highway commissioner, I wrote in my son, who at least has some experience working for the town. For a judgeship, I wrote in a friend who lives in the county (and usually reads this blog). 

When it came to a town judgeship, I was hard pressed to come up with anyone else to write in.

And that’s when I remembered how jealous I was that New York City folk have Mamdani to rally around.

So I wrote him in. 

There are those of you who think that I wasted my vote. You’re entitled to that opinion – let’s face it, he’s not going to beat the Republican woman running unopposed.

But, first, she ain’t going to be elected unanimously. I took care of that.

And, second, I wanted to send a message that I want to see candidates like Mamdani in Rockland who are more receptive to the real needs of the community and less interested in scaring us with New York City bogeymen.

So, back to the first sentence of this: I was jealous. I’m not any more.

Make yourself feel better and do good by your community. Vote in this election and make your voice heard. Even if you write-in Zohran Mamdani.

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DO KIDS WANTS KINGS?

If it accomplished nothing else, last Saturday’s No Kings Day of protests felt good.

An estimated 7 million Americans took time from their Saturday routines to march or gather. There were events in every state, about 2,700 of them in all, and they all seemed peaceful and boisterous.

That’s great. You know it had to put a bug up Trump’s ample rear. And the caterwauling that’s followed – that’s precious: We all got paid by George Soros. We’re all Hamas sympathizers. We hate America. We’re all antifa.

Actually, the antifa part is correct. The millions who marched are unapologetically, uninhibitedly, undeniably anti-fascist. That’s why the hell we were there. People railing against antifa should be taken to the nearest national cemetery – or one where someone in their family is buried – and see the OG. The guys who stormed Normandy and Iwo Jima are the Babe Ruths of antifa.

But one criticism that actually bothers me is that the people protesting are a bunch of aging hippies out of touch with the real America.

Because, at least at the protest I attended in Nanuet, New York, most of the 4,500 people standing alongside New York Route 59 were about my age, 71. Many were older. And there were very few people – other than the organizers – younger than 45.

Now, one reason that might be is that Rockland County, the suburban area where I live, is pretty devoid of younger people. Most of my neighbors are around my age. Most of the people I see in the supermarket or the post office are around my age.

In fact, I’m always a little startled when I go someplace – either in Manhattan or on our recent trip to Seattle – where there are so many people in their 20s and 30s. Other than having to accept that “Too Shy Shy” by Kajagoogoo was an actual song from when I was their age, I find hanging around younger people gives me a lift.

What I worry about is that I didn’t see high school students or young adults in the crowd. The people for whom the battle against totalitarianism is being waged.

Maybe they were busy. Saturday is a day for football games. It’s the day when many young people are working at the Shake Shack or the Panera Bread behind the rally in order to earn money for higher education. Apple picking. Pumpkin carving. Shopping at the outlets.

Or maybe they feel as though this doesn’t affect them. Younger people have a harder time seeing the stakes. They’re not used to this.


We were told by our parents about the Depression and World War II. Our not being able to talk about that first-hand makes the idea of Nazis and fascists abstract or curious to our kids – I can’t explain why so many younger people seem enamored with swastika tattoos. Either that or there’s been another periodic outbreak of one of the world’s oldest diseases, antisemitism.

There are indications that more younger people were drawn to Trump’s 2024 campaign than his past garbage spewing. They were bothered by the high cost of living over the past few years, triggered in large part by the supply chain problems resulting from the pandemic. 

Many were also bothered by the two wars that dragged on last year: Russia vs, Ukraine, Israel vs. Hamas. Death and destruction that the United States seemed powerless to stop.

And there’s this issue with gerontocracy. Everybody’s over 70 – hell, some of the leaders in this country are over 80. When are they going to give up power to another generation that has stopped waiting patiently?

For whatever reason, young people stayed away from Nanuet. And we could have used them.

What I hope younger people are finding out is that Trump is not their friend. He doesn’t even comprehend who they are or what they need. He’s joyless, artless and money-mad. He could care less about anyone other than himself and the toadies who suck up to him.

Trump is never going to be a real king, set upon putting one of his worthless offspring on the American throne. But unless there’s some hidden desire to not go through the rigamarole of elections, he’s looking for something a little more permanent for the rest of his miserable life.

I might be dead wrong about this. The kids might have marched in the cities where they feel at home. Where they can feel free to wear funny costumes and devise clever signs. Where this is all fast becoming a matter of quality of life – and even life-and-death for some of the people they care about.

And the younger people who are hip to Trump’s jive seem to be doing the best job fighting the tyranny of Trump’s slow-moving coup.

They instinctively know when to pull out the iPhone or Galaxy to record atrocities in neighborhoods and on city streets. They’re better equipped to throw their bodies in front of masked secret police in Chinatown and on State Street.

It would be nice to have millennials, Gen-Z and Gen Alpha on our side. This fight needs the generations that love Taylor Swift as much as it needs the generations that love James Taylor.

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SAY “AAAH!”

This government shutdown droning on for most of the past month focuses on healthcare.

Democrats say the budget outline bill passed by Republicans earlier this year supercharges price increases for insurance. The Republicans say they are cutting waste and showing that the Affordable Care Act – what everyone knows as Obamacare – is a failure.

Many of us have already received the proposed monthly rates for 2026 coverage. They aren’t pretty. I’m on Medicare, with much lower costs than people below age 65, and my rates are doubling – with less overall coverage. 

If I’m a younger person paying multiples of what I do, I imagine being terrified by what I’m looking at. To the extent that it might cross my mind to forego coverage – a disaster in the making if something terrible happens, as it does too often.

What makes the Republican stance particularly intriguing is that, by all indications, the clamoring for repealing Obamacare that immediately followed its enactment has just about vanished. It was unpopular at first due largely to a mistake Obama made in selling the program – that nothing about your healthcare would change and that you could keep the doctors you wanted.

But there were doctors and insurers who didn’t want to go along. And a lot of people did – and continue to need to – change doctors, dentists and other healthcare professionals.

We’ve gotten used to that. In the end, being able to afford being well supersedes whether or not you can talk to your doctor about how the Mets did this year.

In the process, millions of people who didn’t have healthcare got it. Obamacare’s popularity has soared in the 15 years it has been in existence. So much so that John McCain might have been trying to save his own party when he did his famous thumbs-down that stymied one of umpteen Republican efforts to kill the ACA.

One funny thing about Obamacare is that its origin story is Republican. It’s fairly similar to the healthcare program in Massachusetts shepherded by Mitt Romney when he was governor. The ideas of using the existing insurance market and mandating coverage came from him.

But here’s where this all gets weird if you look at it from a less-partisan point of view. Did Republicans turn vehemently against Obamacare because they seriously don’t believe in providing protection against rising healthcare costs, or did they do so because Obama adopted their idea?

What they’ve said is that they want to “repeal and replace” the ACA. They have never, in 15 years, told us what they would replace it with, only that “repeal” would come before “replace.”

It’s reached the point of laughable – in the debate with Kamala Harris, Trump said he had “concepts” of a plan.

You would think, after 15 years, if Obamacare was so godawful terrible, that plan would be beautifully fine turned, with input from conservative thinktanks that would address the supposed flaws.

And then, if Democrats were true to their mission of providing quality healthcare at lower costs, they would seriously consider the GOP plan and adopt those parts that they believe would work.

It’s just that the Republicans don’t have that plan. They haven’t told us what Trump’s “concepts” are.

Instead, they’ve blamed all the problems facing America’s middle and working classes on desperate people fleeing economic and/or political terror in countries throughout the world. Also known as: They’re coming here to take our jobs and get stuff for nothing.

In a way, I hope these premium hikes people are getting in the mail or online might help put this problem into real perspective. The government shutdown is already bringing pain to the nation and its economy – and that’s only going to get worse as it drags on.

But, as Jon Stewart pointed out on his show last week, fighting to keep healthcare affordable is the very least an out-of-power Democratic Party can do for its constituents – actually, given how Trump voters will be disproportionately hurt by this, what it can do for the whole country.

It would be nice if the United States had a political system that worked to solve real problems, not manufactured ones. 

But instead, we fight viciously over what is actually a problem – and that’s a disaster in the making. And we get caught up in nonsense – did Katie Porter yell at an interviewer in California, is Bad Bunny really an American, will Zohran Mamdani impose Sharia law on Brooklyn?

When the healthcare debates started, I was on board with a single-payer system. I would be willing to pay more in taxes if it meant I never had to worry about getting sick and going into deep debt. Obamacare was a way to get some of what I wanted and, as its namesake likes to say, good is not the enemy of perfect. 

If some principled conservative has a way to make healthcare more available and cheaper, I’m ready to listen.

Otherwise, leave what’s working alone, rescind the tax cuts that wipe out healthcare subsidies, and get this country open again.

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¿DÓNDE ESTÁ MI HERMANO?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But.

¿Dondê esta mi hermano?

Mi hermano estâ aquî. Gracias a dios..

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SETTLERS

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

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

So complacency is a default mode. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

So welcoming immigrants has always been in our best interest. 

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

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

Regression.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But that’s not how it works.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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