By Bob Gaydos

The red card call.

   So we lost. Of course. Trump was involved.

    The United States Men’s Soccer Team lost to Belgium, 4-1, Monday in a World Cup knockout match. That’s the equivalent of losing by 20 runs in a baseball game. 

    By all accounts, Belgium was good, but not that much better than a refreshingly talented USA team whose top scorer had just the day before been ruled eligible to play even though he had received a red card, one-game suspension in the previous game.

    To the world, the cards seemed to be stacked in the U.S.’s favor. 

     Not really. Not when Trump is involved. Just as happened with the New York Knicks, a team playing very well and seemingly immune to pressure in highly competitive competition, the men’s soccer team seemed to be off its game Monday. A bit disorganized. Not loose. Possibly feeling pressure to somehow win a game without the rest of the world thinking it was fixed in your favor?

    The loss solved that problem. The loss and Belgium playing well. No asterisk, real or imagined, will be needed next to a U.S. win. Somehow, that doesn’t feel comforting.

     To review, Trump, who knows little about soccer and cares less, had intervened in that red card suspension of U.S. star Folarin Balogun by calling FIFA President Gianni Infantino and asking the organization to review the penalty. Infantino is a friend of Trump’s. He also apparently has no shame. The call was reversed, Balogun got to play, Belgium got to show what it had and the U.S. team had to deal with worldwide criticism of favoritism with the president of the host country personally getting its team’s star player reinstated in an elimination game.

      Which is how all the world except Trump saw it. He saw it as he always does — a way to make a deal, regardless of how smarmy it looks, if he can get a win. He doesn’t care about the pettiness. Maybe he doesn’t even understand or care why people might be upset. So he made a call and the guy got to play, so what?

     So the rest of the team was put in a high pressure situation of having to somehow win without worrying about the political fallout. Just like the seemingly unflappable Knicks, on an 11-game winning streak in NBA championship play, having to win at home in a Madison Square Garden filled with tension and animosity because Trump decided to attend and was roundly booed by the crowd. That could upset the temperament of even talented young athletes.

   The Knicks had to go back to San Antonio to win their championship for the city. They did. New York celebrated. The U.S. men’s soccer team, on the other hand, got to go home, wondering forever how well they might have done without their star player against Belgium if Trump had just minded his own business and let sports be sports, rather than just another way to try to steal something.

   He’s a national embarrassment. No asterisk needed.

By Bob Gaydos

The red card call.

This will be short and not so sweet. The match is tonight.

He just couldn’t help himself. He had to meddle in a much beloved worldwide sporting event and leave a taint that will further stain America’s reputation regardless of how the match plays out.

     Yeah, Trump. He got on the phone to call FIFA President Gianni Infantino to ask the soccer organization to review a red-card suspension given to U.S. star player Folarin Balogun for an illegal tackle in a game Wednesday against Bosnia-Herzegovina. The red card carries a mandatory one-game suspension. That meant Balogun would be unavailable for tonight’s (Monday night) match against Belgium.

      Trump says he heard about the suspension and that there were complaints the red card call was unfair, so he called his buddy Infantino (he gave Trump a phony FIFA Peace Prize, remember?) Sunday to ask him to please review that call again.

      Presto! Comes news Sunday that the suspension has been suspended and Balogun, leading scorer for the U.S. team, is eligible to play in the knockout game.

       Belgium was outraged. Indeed, most of the World Cup community was outraged. Why is the president of a host country, the U.S. no less, interfering with the prestigious soccer event? Trump said he thought the call and red card wasn’t fair. So what? FIFA has rules and procedures to deal with penalties. Bad calls happen all the time in sports. It’s the sporting body’s responsibility to deal with them, not some wannabe poobah’s place to get involved.

     Belgium said it was appealing, although it didn’t have much time or clear direction from FIFA on how to proceed. By 5 p.m. game time in Seattle no less. I have no idea what will happen as I write this. I’m just disgusted that Trump has to stain this event. And Infantino has damaged FIFA with his obsequiousness. I’d love to see the U.S. team win, but if it does with Balogun playing, the victory will be forever tainted. Meanwhile, the whole world is rooting against us now. It’s unfair to the team and Balogun, who handled the questionable call and suspension with class.

     Not so Trump. Clueless. It’s always about him and he messes up everything he touches.

     The option was still there for the U.S. team to not play Balogun in the match. But how do you sit your star player when the bosses of the tournament say he can play?

     More will be revealed, I guess. Talk after the match.

RJ Photography

(Not being in much of a celebratory mood for America’s 250th birthday party, I went searching for my mood on the Fourth of July 2021, America’s 245th birthday. It’s not quite the same, but I think  what I wrote then helps explain my mood this year. I offer it again  and I feel exactly the same. Hang in there, America. Happy birthday. )

By Bob Gaydos

There’s something about Donald Trump that has always puzzled me. It’s not the fact that millions of Americans could and still do bow at the feet of this inveterate grifter. For a long time I’ve been of the opinion that there are a lot of people shuffling through life in this country unknowing, uncaring and unapologetic for their behavior. Also racists.

     They are here, they listen to Fox “news” and I don’t expect most of them to change or go away. It’s a free country, even for bigots.

      No, what has had me stumped for five years is that so many Americans have carried on as if Trump is just a little anomaly in the history of this nation. No big deal. When can we go to the movies again?

       For me, Trump has been a major threat ever since he announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president. It wasn’t just that I knew how slimy he was; it felt just so wrong for him to even be involved in this democratic process. We’re talking about president of the United States of America, for Pete’s sake, I said to myself over and over. What is Trump doing in this? It’s almost a physical reaction for me. It lasted through his whole presidency. Why are all those people on Wall Street behaving as if this is just another 9 to 5 interlude? This man is an insult to the presidency.

         That’s how I felt. Still do, although the election of Joe Biden has eased my concerns considerably. More to the point, for the purposes of this column, I think I know why I’ve had such a strong reaction to Trump. Why I never used the word, “president” with his name attached to it. Why I took it so personally.

          I was lucky.

          That’s what history tells me. Or rather, a bunch of historians. Some 142 noted historians were surveyed by CNN for the cable news network’s latest rating of American presidents. It does this whenever there’s a change in administration. Trump somehow managed to not finish last. More on that in a bit. What struck me most, personally I guess, is that the historians rated an era that included my first 28 years alive as the best stretch of presidents in the history of America.

          Wow.

           It started with Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933 (I was born in 1941) and continued through Harry S Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1969. FDR was Number 3 on the list, behind Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. Ike was fifth, Harry was sixth, JFK was number 8 and LBJ ranked 11th.

           Richard M Nixon (number 31) ended my personal winning streak of presidents and it was mediocrity or worse, in my opinion, until Barack Obama in 2008. But boy, those first 28 years! No wonder I resented Donald Trump in the Oval Office. I was spoiled and didn’t know it. I grew up with mature, responsible men as presidents, men who put their country ahead of their party and certainly ahead of themselves. Men who surely had their faults, but who each in his own way inspired confidence that he was always trying to do the best for all Americans. That’s what president did, I thought. Made us feel we had the right person making difficult decisions. Made us feel confident about the future. Made us proud to be Americans.

           FDR created the social fabric we take for granted today. Truman steered us steadily through the end of one war and into another while maintaining his touch with average Americans. Everybody seemed to like Ike, the war hero who warned us of the military/industrial complex. JFK, the orator, had his photo hung in virtually every Catholic family’s kitchen, alongside The Last Supper. He dreamed of going to the moon and gave us the Peace Corps. When he was assassinated, LBJ took up the tough fight for the Equal Rights Act and wrestled it through the resistance of southern senators. He knew how Washington worked. 

            Nixon lowered the bar before resigning. Ford didn’t do much as a fill-in. Carter was sincere but disappointing. Reagan got rated 10th by the historians, but I think he should trickle down several spots despite his affable communications skills. Bush senior was unimpressive, Bill Clinton was sporadically effective (he balanced the budget!) and George W. Bush, installed by the Supreme Court, was a disaster. I actually wept with pride when Barack Obama, the first black American president, addressed the crowd in a park in Chicago on his election night. We’re back, I thought.

             And then came Trump.

             An insult to the American psyche. A symbol of the decay of one of our two main political parties. And the fourth(!) worst president in American history. Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson James Buchanan — they rated worse than Trump. All I can say is I’m glad I didn’t live through their presidencies if they were worse than Trump. But history evolves over time and it is not too much to hope that he will ultimately bottom out.

             In the meantime, though, I am glad to know that I am not in some way weird for regarding the Trump administration as more than an anomaly in politics. I grew up with presidents who could read and speak with intelligence, who respected science, who had the respect of other world leaders, who did not lie with every waking breath, who did not divide Americans with angry insults and threats, who understood the Constitution and the obligation of presidents to serve the people, not vice versa.

           I grew up with real presidents. Trump dishonored the office. History is on my side.

***

(I am glad to report that Trump has now fallen  to the bottom of the list of American presidents.)

By Bob Gaydos

Pope Leo XIV sees unchecked AI as a threat to humanity.

  Meet Generation Duh, the high school Class of 2026. They can’t read (only 35 percent are at or above proficiency standards), they can’t add (22 percent are at math standards), don’t know much about history, don’t know much biology, don’t know much about a science book, don’t know much about the French they took .,,

     But they do know all about A.I., and one and one still makes two. You still have to write papers to pass classes and it seems that high school and college students are more and more using A.I. programs to write their papers. But their instructors, paid to teach students how to actually use their language properly, are flagging the A.I. “creations” because the writing can be predictably formulaic and trite. (I can usually spot it 20 seconds into most YouTube offerings and that doesn’t count the mispronunciations.)

     But fear not all who resist putting pen to paper, the latest development in A.I. technology are programs — “tools” they’re called by their developers — to make A.I. “more human.”

     Think about that for a moment, fellow humans. Sit with it. A “tool” to make something artificial, something which, in fact, is based on the perhaps illegal thefts of lifetimes of creations by humans, read more like something humans created than something, well, artificial.

       Intelligence …?

      This is where we are.

      The creators, and some of them are young influencers on social media platforms, have come up with programs to make it harder to track the A.I. writing by making it seem more like humans did it. Put in typos. “Write” the paper over an extended period of time rather than dropping 1,000 words all at once to avoid programs that can detect the progress of a creation. Add a few extra words. Make it not quite so perfectly mediocre. Human.

       This of course is happening in conjunction with a social media revolution that is producing a generation of young people who not only do not write their own papers, but do not read anything but commentary on their phones, much of which is A.I. or human creation badly in need of editing. And yes, current reading scores reflect a significant decline in the reading levels of students that started with the pandemic and has worsened with the growth of social media and A.I.

       It is not a promising development in human evolution.

      This also is happening at a time when those in positions of power to put some guardrails on A.I., for example, the Congress of the United States, are so in awe of or financially indebted to huge tech corporations for campaign contributions that any mere suggestion of limits on Artificial Intelligence is met with blank stares. Also, Republicans, who have control of Congress, have spent most of this year in recess to avoid dealing with other issues (Jeffrey Epstein) that are embarrassing to their leader, Donald Trump.

     This avoidance of the A.I. issue also helps Trump because the remaining base of his dwindling support consists of the poorly educated and those currying to them for votes or profit.

     On the positive side, perhaps the most prominent voice to speak out for some need to protect and encourage human intelligence, indeed humanity as a species, is not a minor one — Pope Leo XIV. 

     The pope wrote a 42,300-word encyclical on the need to place limits on A.I. In essence, he warned that AI must serve humanity rather than concentrate power or automate human dignity out of existence. Yes, I am willing to believe he didn’t have A.I. write his paper for him.

      The Chicago native read his encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence, at the Vatican in May. He was standing next to Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic, one of the pioneer A.I.companies.

       Olah responded to the pope’s remarks with a request. He said, “We need more of the world — religious communities, civil society, scholars, governments, and indeed all people of good will — to do what His Holiness has done here: to take this seriously, to look closely, and to push events in a better direction.”

      Briefly, according to both men, that means addressing what to do about all the people who will lose their jobs because of AI, how to prevent governments from using A.I. to make military decisions of life and death and how to avoid looking at the tech companies who develop A.I. as too rich and too powerful to be held accountable to the law and basic morality.

    To keep them, as well as their creation, more human. 

                                ***

(With apologies to Sam Cooke for stealing the words to his big hit, “Wonderful World,” and thanks to Google AI for quickly finding the pope’s and Olah’s comments on the future of AI.)

If you flatten it, you replace it. That oughta be the rule of the road.

By Bob Gaydos

As I suspected, this article, which I first published three years ago, has become a piece that bears repeating every year. because (1) there are (hopefully) new readers and new neighbors who will not have seen it and (2) I keep noticing things to add to it and (3) some people don’t seem to get one of the messages.

The original need to repeat was prompted by what I saw as a disturbingly increasing problem on narrow country roads: getting out of your own driveway. Specifically, backing out. This should not be a hazardous duty mission. Unfortunately, it often is. As I see it, it boils down to a lack of consideration or understanding. So, the annual summer reminder.

***

For most of my life, I’ve lived in small cities (Bayonne, Binghamton, Annapolis, Middletown) and one large town (Wallkill), which is really a mall-dotted highway surrounded by housing complexes. Throw in a few years living on college campuses. Basically, it’s been city or community living.

When you live with a lot of other people close by and you want to be relatively content, you learn the rules of the road, the do’s and don’ts of getting along. Mostly, it’s mind your own business and don’t make a lot of noise.

A few years ago, I moved to the country, a bit of upstate New York between the Hudson River and the Catskills that is often protected from major weather issues by the imposing Shawangunk Ridge.

Country living means owls, woodpeckers, chickens, coyotes and starry skies, oh my.

It’s nice. Well, usually. It’s quiet. Usually. In any case, it most definitely has its own rules of the road. Things a transplanted city boy ought to know. Something I call country etiquette.

The notion (see how I used the word “notion“ instead of “idea“?) that there was such a thing as country etiquette grew out of a recent conversation about a not uncommon country experience.

A few years ago, our quiet summer evening at home was disrupted by a loud squealing of tires and a loud thud. Right in front of our house.

We rushed out to find a car sitting in a culvert in front of our house, a distraught young woman sitting behind the wheel and our mailbox on the ground, post and all. I don’t recall who called 911, but state police arrived quickly, talked with the driver (who was shaken but not hurt), someone called a tow truck, we went back in the house and eventually everything was back to normal, except for the mailbox. Its career was over.

In short order, we replaced the mailbox and occasionally wondered what happened to the young driver. I suspected alcohol may have been involved.

A couple of weeks later, the whole scene repeated itself. Nighttime. Squeal. Thud. Car. Culvert. Young woman driver. Unhurt. Mailbox kaput.

Deja vu all over again, as Yogi Berra once said. Same follow up. Police. Tow truck. Mailbox flattened.

Again, we replaced it and the new one has survived ever since, although it’s leaning. But here’s the thing. Neither driver offered to pay to replace the mailbox (they both got out of their cars and talked to us) or to have it repaired. Now, it seems to me that a basic rule of country etiquette ought to be that if you wipe out someone’s mailbox (and get caught at it), the decent thing to do is to make it right again. Pay for a new one.

And that’s what got me thinking about other rules of country etiquette. What are some things to help someone new get along with neighbors who may not live right next door? Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

— Having a handy supply of eggs is nice, but keep your chickens in your own yard as much as possible. Free range doesn’t mean the whole neighborhood, or, especially, the busy road. And chickens don’t move that fast.

— Don’t shovel your driveway snow into the road. It’s only extra work for the highway crews and it’s dangerous.

— When driving, wave at people walking along country roads. It’s downright neighborly.

— Walkers, please wear reflective clothing at night. It’s awfully dark out there sometimes and the roads are often winding and have no shoulder. We’d like to get to know you.

— Don’t let your dog walk on the road side. Preferably, don’t walk your dog on the road at all. Some drivers are less attentive than others. (See reference to mailboxes above.) And yes, clean up after Snoopy.

— Slow down and maybe swing wide for people at their mailbox. (A personal peeve of mine.) You can even wave.

— In fact, slow down in general. Posted speed limits are not merely suggestions and police will ticket.

— In special fact (and this is the issue that needs to be readdressed, which I mentioned at the top ), if you see someone backing out of their driveway or road to get on the typical narrow, no-shoulder, two-lane road in the country and you are a good quarter mile away, slow the heck down. Please. Let them get out in peace in one piece. It’s hard enough to back into a narrow country road with trees often blocking your vision without worrying whether that driver whizzing down the road is texting or talking on the phone or so totally engrossed in something on the radio that they don’t see you, even though you see them.

— In further fact, if you’re not going to back up a lot of traffic, just be nice and let people back out of their driveways even if they haven’t gotten their rear end out yet. It’s common courtesy. Yelling through your closed window at the person backing out is not. Being foreign to the area and in oh such a hurry to get to the state highway 5 miles away is not an excuse either. I suspect this may at least partially be the result of more city folk moving to the area, in which case this column should be all the more valuable to them. If you know someone who fits the bill, share it with them.

— Be patient with a farm tractor on the road. He’ll be out of your way shortly, or he’ll pull over as soon as he can. He’s working. Wave.

— Be honest at roadside food honor stands. Act like there are cameras in the trees.

— Free stuff at the foot of a driveway is really free. Don’t be embarrassed. If you want it, take it. Someone always does.

That’s what I came up with so far. If you have other suggestions, please leave them in the comment section.

While I’m at it, I figure I might as well add another feature of country living — a potpourri of handmade road signs. Here are a few I noticed:

— Corn maze, hay ride, pumpkins, pickles, sweet corn

— Beef sale

— Fresh garlic

— Sunflower patch, mums

— Hay

— Honey

— Farm fresh eggs

— U pick pumpkins

— Horse crossing

— Fresh key lime pie,

— We buy ATVs dead or alive

Like I said, nice.

‘Til next time at pet-friendly, open-carry Tractor Supply.

By Bob Gaydos

SpaceX, SpaceX, SpaceX, SpaceX, Musk, SpaceX, Tesla, SpaceX, SpaceX, trillion, Musk, SpaceX …

If you had even a fleeting awareness of media reporting on the stock market for the past week or so, you could not escape learning that Elon Musk was offering what turned out to be a record-breaking IPO, allowing all the world to buy stock in his out-of-this world company, SpaceX.

You would also have learned that Musk would retain control of 80 percent of the shares of the newly traded company and, oh yeah, that the rush to buy shares and the resulting valuation increase in his company had made the South African billionaire, the world’s first trillionaire.

The world’s richest man just got much richer.

Shares for SpaceX were initially offered at $135, closed at $161 on the first day and have risen and fallen in the week since the offering as all the financial “experts” try to figure out if this is a really good investment or not.

That’s not what this is about. This is about what the world’s richest man — the world’s first trillionaire — plans to do with his unprecedented wealth.

Take it to Mars. Or the Moon. Or, preferably, both.

Because, apparently, there’s nothing a trillion dollars could do to make life on Earth better, even simply more livable, for millions of earthlings in need of food, clean water, a decent place to live, good health care and a basic education.

No, the man born into wealth and possessing a gift for buying other people’s excellent ideas and turning them into the promise of progress, albeit apparently unfortunately delayed by other people’s short-sightedness, wants to create a colony on Mars and permanent habitats (domed condos?) on the Moon for those who won’t live long enough for the trip to Mars.

Swell.

Just what we need. A dream of a better life on another planet, presumably populated by residents of Musk’s choosing, which is to say, all white. Maybe even all conceived by him, the father of 15 right here on Earth.

He also wants to put energy stations in space to handle the load for the coming AI revolution, which holds the promise of creating a perfect society by eliminating millions of jobs on Earth for those who actually still have access to food, water, health care, etc. And, not to forget the military, Musk wants to boost the payloads of his Starship rocket to be able to transport military personnel and materials anywhere on earth in less than an hour. Just like Amazon. Make war more efficient for the highest bidder.

I don’t get it, but I can’t say I’m surprised. After all, it was Musk whom Donald Trump turned to when he wanted to eliminate tens of thousands of federal jobs, eliminate food and health programs in the United States and elsewhere on the planet and in general snoop around in everybody’s life.

Doge, they called it. Department of Government Efficiency. Musk failed at that. Somehow, his young geniuses couldn’t manage to follow the law while they set about destroying people’s lives. Trump fired him. But, heck, even driverless vehicles have problems sometimes, right? What’s the big deal? We’ll figure it out. He just needs a few billion more to work out the kinks.

It stinks. Yet billions are pouring into Musk’s new publicly traded company because no one apparently wants to miss out on the promise of profit, if not the actual thing. Spending billions to improve the lot and lives of people in Third World countries is apparently not an attractive investment. Tossing a few billion at Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, etc.? Forget about it. Even their own members of Congress wouldn’t buy into that.

The thing is, Musk could do both. He could take care of the many needs on Earth and still go to Mars with a pit stop on the Moon. Maybe there’s something in the genes of the super rich — at least some of them — that allows entitlement to smother gratitude. Giving back is not in the vocabulary. Heck, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, number two richest person on Earth, felt the need to buy the Washington Post, one of the nation’s most respected newspapers, and turn it into a hollow shell of its reputation because he didn’t like what it said about his rich friends.

Musk, of course, is entitled to do as he wishes with his money, within the law. But his new publicly traded SpaceX will allow the richest man on the planet to do as he wishes with a lot of other people’s money as well. I’m not sure a lot of people have thought through the return on their investment.

The daisy                            RJ photography

By Bob Gaydos

The roses came and went,

 their glory quickly spent.  

The peonies were gone 

from glorious to brown.

The Solstice was still

several days to come,

yet spring had early

lost its glistening crown.

Fear not whispered the daisy,

its petals crisp and white.

I’m here to right 

the unexpected blight. 

Guess you just can’t 

keep a good flower down.

By Bob Gaydos

Champs!

    When there’s really too much news going on (which now is almost every day), I turn to the approach of one of my  favorite sports columnists in my early years. Jimmy Cannon had opinions on more than balls and strikes. So…

     — Maybe it’s just me, but: The devil is in the details. The so-called memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran allows Iran to enrich virtually everything (it gets hundreds of billions of dollars) but uranium, which it had already agreed not to do in a deal brokered by Barack Obama that was torn up by Trump in his first term. It also requires Israel to agree to stop hostilities, notably against Lebanon, a requirement that may prove hard to enforce since Trump started the illegal war against Iran at the prompting of Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu, who shows no signs of wanting to end his military campaigns and face charges of corruption in Israeli courts. Sound familiar? A typical Trump “win.”

      — Maybe it’s just me, but: Kash Patel is pathetic. The make-believe director of the FBI proudly announced the bureau’s avoidance of a potentially deadly attack with the arrest of a group of anti-MAGA young men who planned to attack Trump’s birthday party brawl on the White House lawn. Turns out the suspects were actually disenchanted MAGA creeps who didn’t trust the government (ironically) and thought it was covering up the Epstein files story. It also turns out the suspects were turned in by the parents of one of them and were arrested by the Secret Service before the June 14 event, so no one was in danger.

     — Maybe it’s just me, but: More on Ka$h. He’s so out of his league, he’s reportedly paying his security detail an extra $4,000 a week apiece (unauthorized) not to tell the media that he drinks on the job, often doesn’t wake up for work and really has no clue what he’s doing. Somehow, we’re finding out anyway. If he were a woman, Trump would have fired him by now.

    — Maybe it’s just me, but: Trump continues to display cognitive decline, including at the G7 talks, where he was perpetually out of touch with what was going on. To him, it’s just one continuous con job. The other world leaders present were mostly polite, but could not help but notice Trump’s disconnect. It is a national embarrassment for the U.S. and a potentially dangerous one. I repeat, again: This falls on the Republican Party, which has the power within its hands every day to remove him from office and replace him with someone who is at least mentally capable to deal with the demands of the job. All it needs is the moral fortitude to do it.

      — Maybe it’s just me, but: Jimmy wouldn’t let me finish without congratulating the New York Knicks for winning the NBA championship, despite Trump. Also, congrats to the current champs on rejecting the Trump invitation to have Big Macs in the White House in favor of a ride in the Canyon of Champions in NYC. Well done.

      — Maybe it’s just me, but: Sometimes patience is rewarded. On a personal note, fifty-three years ago, I got to watch the Reed, Bradley, DeBuscherre, Frazier, Monroe, Barnett, Lucas, Meminger, Bibby, Jackson group that won the last team title. Nice seat in the Garden press box during a brief stint as a sports editor. Gotta remember the good times when the other stuff piles up.

                                     — 30 — 

By Bob Gaydos 

The original Stars and Stripes

     Sunday, June 14, is the 251st anniversary of the birth of the U.S. Army. It is also the 249th anniversary of the birth of the Stars and Stripes, the American Flag. (Priorities. The colonials needed an army before they could declare their own flag.)

     It is still known as Flag Day, but it never had enough pull in Congress to be declared one of the “official“ federal holidays, meaning it’s celebrated but nobody gets a day off. So, no day off for Flag Day, but you wouldn’t even know it exists since the so-called mainstream media have ignored that fact in reporting on the mixed martial arts fights that are scheduled to take place on the torn up White House lawn on Sunday to celebrate Donald Trump’s birthday.

      Yeah, June 14 is his birthday, too. The gods must have been angry or drunk. So, no, there will be no ceremonies at the White House to honor the flag, its history and protocols surrounding it. (For example, civilians not in uniform do NOT salute the flag, as Trump does, but rather place their hand over their heart.) For that, you’ll have to go to the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. The Stripes and Stars Festival, honoring the flag, will take place there and at the Betsy Ross House and on Independence Mall. They get it in Philly.

      If you’re around New York City and in a patriotic mood the Committee for the First Amendment is presenting a Concert for the First Amendment at Town Hall Sunday night. Bette Midler, Patti Smith, Julia Roberts, Rufus Wainwright and Jane Fonda are among those scheduled to appear.  It will also be streamed for viewing at watch parties nationally. Local veterans groups also sponsor events to honor the flag.

     At the White House, you’ll get seven matches in which two men get into an octagonal “ring“ and try to beat the crap out of each other any way they can. No Marquis of Queensbury Rules. It’s kind of like the way the birthday boy approaches politics. Reports of cockfights scheduled on the back lawn for July 4 could not be verified.

     The grotesque fighting structure on the White House lawn, which Trump says he might want to just leave there when the fighting is done, joins the demolished East Wing and rising skeleton of a grand ballroom, the outdoor dining patio that replaced the torn up Jackie Kennedy Rose Garden and all the golden glitz inside as part of Trump’s focus on redecorating a house in which he is only a temporary tenant. An odd preoccupation for a man who has a war to fight.

     In any event, the Ultimate Fighting Competition Freedom 250 event (the 250 is the obvious token effort by the White House to make this seem like a patriotic event in honor of the 250th birthday of America, not Trump’s birthday) is scheduled to go on Sunday night with the full fight card, although some of the RSVPs might not be to Trump’s liking.

    Reports say some of the scheduled fighters weren’t too thrilled with appearing and some of Trump’s special invited guests were apparently not ready to cough up $1 million to sit in the box next to Trump as he dozes through seven matches. And the viewing screens set around the city were not expected to draw the huge throngs Trump typically predicts for events he sponsors. Also, it’s going to be brutally hot and it might pour. One can always hope.

     Maybe the gods will have sobered up.

Addiction and Recovery

The Big Book

By Bob Gaydos

On June 10, 1935, Bob Smith, a doctor in Akron, Ohio, had a beer to steady his hand for surgery he was about to perform. It was the last drink of alcohol Smith, who had tried and failed to stop drinking many times, ever had. It became the founding date of a movement that in 90 years has grown to some 2 million members around the world: Alcoholics Anonymous.

Smith was the famous Dr. Bob, the first person Bill Wilson “talked” into sobriety by repeatedly telling the doctor how he, himself a hopeless drunk, had managed to stay sober. Wilson had failed with other potential converts, but realized at some point that, while the others were still drinking, he was managing to stay sober by telling other alcoholics his story. Smith eventually followed the same path and the story-telling has continued ever since.

Eventually, the two men put their stories and other stories of recovery into a book, along with the steps they took to get and stay sober.

It is one of the best-selling and most influential books of all time, with more than 30 million copies having been sold and millions of lives changed by what is contained on its pages. Yet it is not exaggeration to suggest that many of its readers don’t know the actual name of the book.

It is known, proudly and even reverentially, by most who have read it as the Big Book. Officially, the book’s title is “Alcoholics Anonymous,’’ the same as the 12-Step program for treating alcoholism (and other addictions) described within its covers. A dozen years ago, the Library of Congress included it on a list of “Books That Shaped America.”

There are 88 books on the list, ranging from Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense,” to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Tarzan the Ape Man,” with the common factor among all being that “they shaped Americans’ views of their world and the world’s views of America.”

While it may not be for everyone, the Big Book has certainly shaped people’s views and lives. Since it was first published in 1939, it has been the textbook, if you will, of how to get and stay sober for millions around the world. AA has spawned numerous other 12-step programs to deal with addictive behavior. And, while basing its recovery program on established spiritual, psychological and medical precepts, Alcoholics Anonymous has also widened the dialogue within all three areas and influenced the way practitioners in those fields deal with addiction.

One could say the Big Book is a classic example of what it preaches. Much of the recovery program contained is taken from the Oxford Group, a Christian fellowship that emphasized self-examination, making amends and working with others. (Wilson and Smith both were members of the Oxford Group for significant periods.) But the Oxford Group’s heavy religious emphasis did not sit well with many of the other drunks who were early member of AA. As a result, most references to “God” were eliminated or changed to a “Higher Power of your understanding.”

Editing also changed the preachy “you” to the inclusive “we” in describing how alcoholics got sober. Thus, this is what we are and this what we did. If you follow these suggestions, “Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.”

What do current members of AA think about the Big Book? A sampling of recent comments:

• “When I first read it, I had to say, ‘(Expletive!) I’m an alcoholic. How did they know?’”
• “I used to walk around with the Big Book (in early sobriety) like a protective shield.”
• “It helped me understand I have an allergy.”
• “In many ways it’s like the bible for alcoholics. It provides direction and order.”
• “Think about the impact. One person reads it and passes it on to others for more than 30 million.”
• “When they get (the Big Book) people are usually in such pain, they will read it.”
• “It gave me a guide for living, far beyond just not drinking.”
• “Simple rules for broken people.”

When it came time to publish the book, Wilson and the others chose The Cornwall Press, a now-defunct printing operation in Cornwall, N.Y.  Because they were going to charge $3.50 for the relatively short book, they wanted it to look impressive, so they used thick paper and the widest possible margins. Hence, the “Big Book” nickname. Subsequent printings were smaller in size, but the name stuck.

The first press run was for 4,800 copies, with the promise from the printers that more would be printed when the first copies were sold. But even those original copies were in limbo as the printer refused to release any books until they were paid for. Although printed in the winter of 1939, only a few copies were paid for at the time. The significant release came in early 1940 — 86 years ago. Today, with inflation, “Alcoholics Anonymous” sells for around $12, but many AA groups simply give copies to new members, continuing to spread its message from one drunk to another.

rjgaydos@gmail.com