By Bob Gaydos

Hades … too much to pray for?

     Had breakfast with a friend the other day, trying out a new coffee shop in town. Nice addition.

      The conversation touched on the usual stuff. Too much rain. What’s planted in the garden, the hummingbird count, the challenges in living in a house with another person. Living on a planet with certain other people.

      That last proved provocative. With regard to those certain other people, my friend offered that, if he were a praying man, he would pray for The Rapture.

      I got his intent, but I suggested that I thought he had it backwards. Having read “Left Behind,“ I knew it was the good, caring, kind, faithful humans who were transported off the planet to Heaven, I believe, leaving their clothing and loved ones behind.

      The others, the nasty ones, the ones my friend wanted to be rid of, stayed and, through a series of books, fended for and against themselves and other non-believers. So I suggested that, assuming we wanted to remain in whatever state this is for a while longer, what we needed was a Reverse Rapture.

   We needed someplace we could pray for all those You Know Whats to be sent to, without any get-out-of-jail card in the form of an Orpheus, if I may be allowed to mix my miracles.

     Hades. Yes, Hades. The Underworld would do.

     So, who would we want to go? Personally, I’d start with Trump and his immediate family. The whole crew. Every member of his Cabinet and White House staff. Every lawyer who ever worked for him, except for Michael Cohen. Elon Musk. J.D.Vance. Every current Republican member of Congress, except for Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. The authors of Project 2025. Anyone who wears a Maga T-shirt or hat. Anyone who identifies as a journalist but works and lies for Fox News. Putin. Kim. Hamas and all the other terrorists. The pushers of fentanyl. Lara Loomer. (Speaking of Loomer and Kristi Noem and the Barbi press contact and the attorney general and all the other Trumpettes, Hades will come with no cosmetic amenities, including plastic surgeons. Zero. Just saying.)

    Also, all those mask-wearing ICE employees who’ve been enjoying grabbing people off the street, out of their homes, wherever, with no warrants or concern for the people or the law. And Clarence Thomas, to fulfill Hades’ DEI requirements.

     And, really, anyone who voted for Trump three times. What were they thinking? They get a special wing in Hades where The Apprentice plays on big screens constantly. In Spanish. And they have to use their bitcoin to buy English subtitles, but they already gave it all to Trump, who gave it all to the Saudi royal family (they’re there, too), who promised to build a Hades Trump Tower using white South African immigrants for labor. It could take a while, but who really cares?

     Now, all that cosmic deportation would obviously leave behind a whole lot of room, especially in this big, beautiful country, and a lot of available work for good, caring, reliable, nice, talented, decent, tolerant human beings, maybe from Venezuela or Mexico or Greenland or Panama or El Salvador.

      Too much to ask for, you say? Especially over breakfast? Hell, if you’re going to pray for anything, especially a Reverse Rapture, I say why not go all in?

       Besides, checks and balances seems to be broken.

                                     ***

Additions to the prayer chain are welcome.

By Bob Gaydos

“I don’t know.“

No, that wasn’t a multiple choice question that Donald Trump had just been asked by an ABC News reporter. He was asked if he thought it was his duty as president to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America.

Pretty simple and straightforward, most Americans would think. Instead of giving us choice A (yes) or B (no), Trump gave us C (I don’t know).

He expanded: “I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are obviously going to follow what the Supreme Court said.”

Despite his sworn oath, it has become Trump’s standard answer to questions about following the law upholding the Constitution. Blame it on his lawyers. The only ones left who are going to represent him in court. They know the answer. They’re just not saying. Not if they want to keep their jobs. A Justice Department lawyer who goes into court and admits there is no constitutional basis for the argument he or she is making is volunteering for a pink slip.

But then, one can say they should’ve known better when they took the job to represent Trump in the first place. It’s not as if there’s no track record to check.

But honestly, “I don’t know” seems to be the mantra for Trump with regard to just about anything that comes up. He just doesn’t always say it out loud.

Like, I shouldn’t be so friendly with a Saudi prince who had a journalist who worked for an American newspaper killed and dismembered in the Saudi embassy in Turkey because he didn’t like what the reporter wrote. Who knew? Or, I shouldn’t speak highly of an “attractive” Syrian president who once delighted in killing American soldiers in Iraq as part of Al Qaeda. Or, I shouldn’t take $400 million gift airplanes from a Mideastern country that supports terrorists. Or, actually, I shouldn’t take gifts from anyone. Emoluments, y’know? Beautiful word.

Stuff like that. Someone should tell him if he really doesn’t know because it’s infuriating and, frankly, embarrassing to have someone holding the office of president to be so, umm, ill-informed.

On the other hand, there’s such a thing as knowing too much. Or rather, thinking you do.

Take the case of Bobby Junior, better known as RFK Jr., who is now in charge of the health needs, issues and concerns of every American, allegedly.

Kennedy clatters around the Health Department like a know-it-all who once had a worm in his brain. Like a guy who might pick up a dead bear cub off the road, stick it in his car trunk, drive to Central Park and dump it on a walking path. For kicks. That kind of health savant.

Kennedy “knows” that vaccines cause autism and has chosen to ignore the research that dismissed that theory. He wants a new study to figure out why there are so many new cases, aside from the fact that we know so much more about identifying the behavioral disorder today. Gotta be vaccines.

He also “knows” that vaccines do not protect against measles, even though the MMR vaccine has done an excellent job of that for decades. So he’s cut off a lot of congressionally approved spending for vaccines and is promoting  more “natural” protections. Meanwhile, measles cases are multiplying nationwide because some people are following his advice not to use the vaccine. Because he “knows,” right?

Oh, and the man who  took his grandchildren for a Mother’s Day dip in a D.C. watering hole condemned because of the presence of a whole lot of bacteria, including E. coli, now wants to eliminate fluoride in water supplies so that kids and adults can once again get lots of cavities.

I have a local rooting interest in this one. The study that established fluoride as a safe cavity preventive when used in tiny amounts was conducted in 1945 in Newburgh and Kingston, two Hudson River cities in New York. My stomping grounds.

Newburgh got the fluoride. Kids got fewer cavities and their parents got lower dental bills. Kingston was the control group. No fluoride. Kids there got the usual amount of cavities. Since that groundbreaking study 80 years ago, thousands of communities around the country, including New York City, have added EPA-prescribed small doses of fluoride to their water supply to help residents avoid dental problems. It’s worked.

But Kennedy, also a one-time Hudson River denizen, is a longtime opponent of fluoride. He says it is a dangerous chemical with potentially harmful effects (which no one denies, but in much higher doses) and shouldn’t be added to drinking water.

How does he know? Well, he doesn’t, really, but he’s ordered the CDC to stop recommending fluoride as a dental decay preventive and to conduct new studies on the subject. Because, what does science know?

By the way, Utah was the first state to follow Junior’s advice and ban fluoride in its drinking water, under a decree by Gov. Spencer Cox, who happens to be a Mormon. Cause and effect has not yet been determined.

By Bob Gaydos

Anne Sokol Gaydos

I generally didn’t post something on Facebook on Mothers Day because my mom has been gone a while now and I always have trouble finding old photos. But as I read posts a few years ago, and looked at photos of other mothers, I started thinking about what Anne Sokol Gaydos, a typical, post-war, stay-at-home mom in Bayonne, N.J., gave me that had a significant influence on my life.

As I scrolled, nothing unusual came to mind until, suddenly, there it was, staring me in the face and sitting in a neat pile on the end chair of the kitchen table back in Bayonne. Each and every morning: The Bayonne Times, The Jersey Journal, The Newark Star-Ledger, The Daily News, The Mirror. The routine morning reading.

As I got older, I added to the pile: The Herald Tribune, The New York Post, The Journal-American.

With this constant immersion in the news of the day, I naturally went to college to study electrical engineering. For one semester. Then mom’s influence came into play.

A wise counselor suggested that I major in English. At another college. Something about grades and attendance.

Long story short, I did. I went to Adelphi College (now a university) and majored in English. Specifically, writing. After college, I got a job at The Bayonne Facts, a weekly, then worked as a journalist for daily newspapers in Binghamton, Annapolis and Middletown for more than 50 years. Obviously, I still write and I still identify as a journalist.

So, in brief, that’s it. Basically, that stay-at-home mom who taught me how to play 500 rummy also gave me my entire career, which I have thoroughly enjoyed and still do.

Thanks, Mom, happy Mothers Day and happy birthday coming up May 17.

Love, Bob

By Bob Gaydos

History.

Synchronicity thy name is Robert Francis Prevost, native son of Chicago. Bob to his friends. Otherwise known as Pope Leo XIV, Bishop of Rome, leader of the Roman Catholic Church, the first U.S.-born citizen to hold that position.

A missionary and longtime advocate for migrants and “ordinary people,” his elevation to the Holy See comes at a time when an American president has waged war on migrants, created unnecessary pain for ordinary people and mused about being pope, even posting an image of himself on a throne in such a role only days after the death of Pope Francis and bragging that he not only “runs America,” but runs the world.

But an American pope now has a voice and a pulpit to challenge that of Donald Trump and an audience that is arguably farther reaching. Pope Leo, 69, also is fluent in five languages. Trump, 78, struggles through English. Trump sells Bibles. Pope Leo quotes from them. Furthermore, in a contest of character, the pontiff is the clear favorite.

And he’s black. Or not purely Caucasian. The pope’s mother was the daughter of a mixed-race landowner, Joseph Martinez, born in Haiti, and Louise Baquiet (also Baquiex) a mixed-race Black Creole from New Orleans. The couple were listed as Black in census records from 1900, a family historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection, shared on Facebook and with CNN.

There are no coincidences. The powers that guide such things clearly knew what they were doing when Bob, from Chicago by way of Peru, was elevated to pope quickly on the second ballot of the College of Cardinals. No time to waste. A speedy, much-needed puff of white smoke in a time of gathering darkness.

MAGA hates him already. They call him “woke.”

The president’s muse, Laura Loomer, the far-right loony who persuaded Trump to fire some of his aides for not being loyal enough, said on X of Pope Leo, “He is anti-Trump, anti-MAGA, pro-open Borders, and a total Marxist like Pope Francis.”

Well, hallelujah and amen.

By Bob Gaydos

Ruby-throated, hummingbird
RJ Photography

Back-burner, bozos!

The news of the day can wait.

Haven’t you heard?

They’re here. The birds.

The ones that hum.

They’re back.

The ones that flit and dart

and go and come.

They’re back in town

from hither and yon

and even farther.

On course again to delight

with their frantic flight.

A feathered tour de force.

***

‘Tis been a while,

half a year or more,

since they fled for warmer shore.

No notice.

No goodbye.

Just pack up, flit and fly.

Sad to see you go, said I.

Bye bye. Hope you enjoyed the hospitality.

See you next year.

***

And now they’re here.

‘Twould appear, to stay

At least for a while.

For the summer.

For the smile.

For the sugar.

For the nesting.

Though there’ll be precious little resting.

It’ll be mostly flitting

and flying and zigging

and zagging.

Some hovering, too.

Looking, ever, for the nectar. So Sweet.

All the while humming

to a frantic wingbeat.

***

Did you hear?

They’re here.

They’ve come.

The birds. You know, the tiny ones that hum. The greens and blues and purples and reds.

And our very own ruby-throated.

Dear Feathered Friends,

Welcome back.

Have a drink. Try to relax.

Your arrival

has been duly noted.

By Bob Gaydos

Trump as pope. SeriouslyPart of my morning routine, after tea and a friendly word game to get the brain cells active, is to scroll through my Facebook feed to get a handle on the news of the day.

Yeah, I check The Times, AP, etc. but for in-your-face-they-must-be-kidding stuff, Facebook gets it to me quicker and without the cautious prose of today’s major media. If You Know Who did something dumb, illegal or outright insane, I’ll know in a couple of minutes and from trusted sources.

Saturday was no exception. The hands down winner of the  “They-must-be-kidding, but-I-know-they’re-not” Award goes to the social media posting from the White House no less of Trump sitting on a throne dressed as the pope, crown and all. Seriously.

Disgusting. Crude. Callous. Ignorant. Egotistical. Obscene. Incredibly stupid. One hundred percent Trump. On the day Pope Francis was being laid to rest. After Trump having previously fallen asleep at the funeral service. An insult to every Catholic on the planet and a message to all Americans. Trump wants to be pope. Seriously.

The rest of the feed included what had to be the most obsequious cabinet meeting in history, as each member of the Trump team, seated around him with their red Maga hats on the table facing him, competed with each other to offer the most ingratiating, devoid of facts compliments to their leader, who was sitting self-satisfied in the middle. Pam Bondi and Marco Rubio duked it out for the coveted comfy knee cushion award. No one, apparently, was embarrassed, except for millions of Americans who saw this cult video and at first mistook it for a Monty Python movie.

There was also a post about, of course, Pete Hegseth installing a dressing room next to his office in the Pentagon, presumably so his eyeliner could be on straight when he has unprotected group chats on his phone with family and friends about U.S. military attacks in the Middle East. No Republican in Congress expressed any displeasure with the defense secretary spending taxpayer dollars in this manner. Because of course.

Then there was an item about RFK Junior, secretary of health, asking the Centers for Disease Control to look for some alternative treatments for measles because Kennedy believes the vaccine that has prevented the disease for  decades contains “aborted fetus debris” as well as “DNA particles” and doesn’t work. This, as the measles outbreak in the country reaches 900 cases as he bad mouths the vaccine. And, the man who says he once had a dead worm in his brain, also still insists that vaccines are causing autism and wants to conduct new testing on this theory even though it has been done and disproven.

Finally, one unrelated item on my feed informed me that May is mental health month.

Sign me up.