By Bob Gaydos

    You know how sometimes there are things that happen, things people do, situations that occur that just stick in your craw?  Not just annoy or disturb or irritate, but really just stick there and bug the hell out of you? Well, I’ve got three of those right now. Didn’t realize it until I checked my notes looking for something to write about.

    — The top craw-sticker, not surprisingly, comes from Donald Trump.I’ve been trying to cough him up for eight years now. It has to do with his crudeness. The man is devoid of decency. He’s also a bully.

    The most recent examples of this are his insulting, illegal campaign photo op at Arlington National Cemetery and his public comments about his surprise opponent for the presidency, Kamala Harris.

      As has been well- documented, Trump’s staff not only bullied a female employee of the cemetery who tried to tell them that the national shrine to members of the armed forces was off-limits to political campaigning, Trump actually posed, smiling, next to graves with his stupid thumbs-up sign.

      Then he insulted the Army for calling him out and said the woman had mental problems. Then he said everyone lied about the whole thing, despite the photos. And he added insult to insult by blaming Joe Biden for the deaths being commemorated on that day, even though Trump created the conditions for their deaths when he was commander-in-chief.

    The other Trump craw sticker is his resort to personal insult, name-calling and just plain nastiness with regard to his opponent because he is too damn stupid to discuss any legitimate issue that might concern voters. 

     From The New York Times (surprisingly): “In a little over five weeks, in speeches, social media posts and interviews, Mr. Trump has called Ms. Harris a ‘wack job’; a ‘communist’; ‘dumb as a rock’; ‘real garbage’; ‘a bum’; and, employing a phrase he applies almost exclusively to women, ‘nasty.’ In early August, he reposted an image depicting Ms. Harris as a dung beetle with her face covered in what appears to be blackface while astride a coconut. And he has made or amplified innuendo-laden references to his opponent’s long-ago relationship with the former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, suggesting she traded sexual favors to accelerate her political career.”

   The real craw sticker, of course, is not Trump. He can be spit out like all those phony schoolyard bullies. Full of fear and never read a book. No, the real problem is that so many Americans accept this kind of behavior as appropriate, not just for anyone, but to someone they want to see in the Oval Office. We are a nation crawling with dumb, racist bullies. I’m never going to get rid of this one.

    — This relatively new craw-stick comes courtesy of the Boeing Corporation and NASA. The space agency, when it put the extraterrestrial travel responsibility out to bid, chose Boeing as one of the contractors. Boeing, of course, has had a morbid history of just regular jet planes crashing and killing hundreds of people on Earth. It still has doors falling off planes in flight. 

     Yet NASA OK’d a Boeing Starliner to take two astronauts to the International Space Station, even after delays on the ground because of helium leaks. Well, they eventually got there. But NASA says it doesn’t trust Boeing to get the astronauts back to Earth on the Starliner because of, yes, leaks. And thruster problems.

   Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore were supposed to spend eight days in space, but have been there three months now. Apparently, there’s plenty of work to do. But Williams is a cause for concern. In space, red blood cells are destroyed faster than on Earth. Hers are apparently being destroyed at a troubling rate. But not to worry, NASA says. (See above: Boeing leaks.)

   The astronauts are now scheduled to return to Earth in February, 2025, aboard Elon Musk’s Space X spacecraft. Two astronauts got bumped from that mission to make room for the stranded astronauts.

    Meanwhile, the Boeing Starliner capsule is scheduled to return, empty, on September 6. Fingers crossed at NASA on the landing.

      No word on when Boeing figures out its flying problems or what NASA has in mind for the company’s future space missions. Hello, Congress?

      — And finally, for lowdown abuse of trust and profiting off people in dire need of help, there’s this: Matthew Perry’s personal assistant, two doctors and two others, including a woman known as “the Ketamine queen” of North Hollywood, were indicted last month and charged with providing the ketamine that caused the death of the star of the popular television show, “Friends.” 

Personal assistant. Two damn doctors! Tens of thousands of dollars of overpriced ketamine for Perry, who had a long history with substance abuse and addiction. 

  Perry, who was 54, was discovered floating face down in a hot tub at his home in Los Angeles last October. The Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office said he died of “acute effects of ketamine.”

  Ketamine is an anesthetic used to induce and maintain anesthesia and is also used as a treatment for depression and to manage pain. Lots of reasons for people prone to addiction to want it and to abuse it. Perry’s assistant knew, the doctors knew and the others knew, too.

   The case against them is apparently so strong that the assistant (who injected the fatal dose) and a drug dealer who helped him procure the drug have already pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death. One of the doctors has reportedly also agreed to plead guilty to distribution of ketamine resulting in death and to surrender his medical license. He faces up to 10 years in prison.

  The other two have pleaded not guilty. Jasveen Sangha, who prosecutors said was known as “the Ketamine Queen,” and Dr. Salvador Plasencia, known as “Dr. P.” both saw Perry as a payday. She hobnobbed for years with Hollywood types who apparently knew her well. Plasencia sent a text to the other doctor saying, “Let’s see how much this moron will pay.”

      If there’s a Hell, I hope it has a special place for these people.

            *****

    There, glad I got that off my chest if not out of my craw.

By Bob Gaydos

Snoop Dogg, Olympics ambassador extraordinaire.

    Tim Walz may be on to something. The newly anointed Democratic candidate for vice president went viral a few days ago when he labeled an entire political party — the other one, the Republicans — as “weird.” No sooner had he said it, everyone else seemed to notice and started doing the same thing.

   Well, not the Republicans. They didn’t like it, although it’s difficult to figure out why since they haven’t really objected to being called mindless cult followers of a racist con man for several years now.

     But that’s not the point here. Walz’s weird proclamation suddenly seems to be manifesting all over the news:

      — Bobby Kennedy Jr., the crown prince of weird, went for the gold medal right off the bat, confessing to leaving a dead bear cub in Central Park 10 years ago. Yes, that news does make one pause and say, “Why?”

      Well, it seems Junior  came across a dead bear cub that had been hit by a car in front of him and collected it to take home and skin it because “it was in very good condition. I was going to put the meat in my refrigerator — and you can do that in New York State.” Kennedy was explaining that in a social media video to, umm, Roseanne Barr (remember her?), for whatever reason.

     He said he had dinner with friends later who said it would be funny to leave the bear in the park, next to a bicycle, suggesting a cyclist had hit and killed the bear. Yuk yuk. (Alcohol was included with dinner.) The story of the dead bear in Central Park was big for a while and a mystery that remained unsolved until now. Also, this man wants your votes to be president of the United States.

   — Snoop Dog was “reportedly” being paid $500,000 a day by NBC to be a roving commentator and ambassador of goodwill at the Paris Olympics. Reportedly is in quotes because I couldn’t find any story with Mr. Dogg or NBC confirming that outrageous amount, other than a secondhand account of an overheard conversation. That’s weird, but it passes for journalism these days.

    For his reported half mill a day, the rapper has hit all the venues, dressed appropriately, swam, ran, talked about gymnasts, horses and skateboarders and has had a grand old time in Paris on NBC’s dime. 

  He was also clever enough to avoid swimming in the Seine. A bunch of athletes were taken ill after participating in races in the storied river. E. coli was said to be the culprit. Seems Paris has a combined sewer system, so wastewater and stormwater use the same pipes, meaning heavy rain can cause untreated wastewater to overflow into the river. Dunno. Seems weird to me to have Olympic athletes swimming with this risk, even in la belle Paris.

   — Beyond weird, to me at least, is NASA’s insistence on depending on Boeing as one of its two providers of ferry services to the International Space Station.

   Two astronauts were carried to the Space Station aboard Boeing’s Starliner in June, but only after a delayed maiden launch due to leaky valves and stuff like that, which you don’t really want on your super expensive spaceship. It’s all too reminiscent of Boeing’s 747 jumbo jets crashing in the past (64 planes, more than 3,000 deaths) and doors falling off their planes in flight in the present. 

   Anyway, the astronauts got to the Space Station, but now it seems the Starliner, which was supposed to bring them back after an eight-day visit, is having some, uh, leaky problems. Also thrusters not thrusting. So the astronauts have to hang out a bit longer than expected. About six months longer.

  Despite Boeing’s assurance that their spacecraft is safe to return the astronauts, NASA is saying it’s probably going to use Elon Musk’s more reliable Space X rocket for that task. That flight is scheduled for next February.

      The astronauts, Navy veterans, reportedly have plenty of company (the ISS has room for eight) and jobs to keep them busy until then. It also gives Congress enough time to get Boeing back to the Capitol to explain why its flying machines seem to still have so much trouble just flying and NASA to explain why it’s spending and depending on such an undependable company.

   — Finally, it seems Vladimir Putin has his own weird definition of what war is all about. The Russian president, who launched a full-scale invasion into neighboring Ukraine, which has resulted in widespread death and destruction in that country but little success in terms of achieving his goal of annexation, recently accused Ukraine of a “large-scale provocation” when Ukrainian forces reportedly raided an area in southwestern Russia causing some death and destruction. Weird, huh? Guess the Ukrainians didn’t read the ground rules.

   — And really finally, giving a gold medal for breaking, as in breakdancing, in the Olympics to me is, well, weird.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

Ham, the chimp … American hero

I started writing a column recently by likening what is happening in the White House these days to a chimpanzee jumping up and down on the furniture and throwing feces at the walls. A group of white men, I said, stood by with thin smiles as if approving of the actions. When the chimp left the room to watch television, the men went about rearranging the furniture and cleaning the walls the best they could. A thankless job, I wrote, but it pays well. That should tell you all you need to know about those men.

I didn’t get very far with the column because I soon realized it was terribly insulting to chimpanzees. They are, after all, our closest cousins, sharing 98 percent of our genes. They are intelligent creatures who enjoy people and know how to behave appropriately in their environment. In the jungle, act like a hunter. In the Oval Office, act presidential. In a space capsule, act like an astronaut.

As fate (and NASA) would have it, 56 years ago on Jan. 31st, a chimpanzee named Ham became the first “American” launched into space, sub-orbital. The historic event was captured nicely in the movie version of “The Right Stuff.’’ As the seven Mercury astronauts compete to be the first, the movie dramatizes the launch and splashdown and reveals America’s first astronaut to be … a chimp.

Ham’s flight from Cape Canaveral to splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean lasted 16 minutes and 39 seconds. Ham wasn’t just a passenger in the capsule. He pulled the appropriate levers at the appropriate times and performed perfectly. He suffered only a bruised nose for his efforts. His flight paved the way for Alan Shepard’s flight in May later that year. Second American in space. That makes Ham an American hero in my book.

I doubt the current occupant of the White House could be trusted with such a mission as Ham’s. For one thing, it required focus. Also, discipline. Spurred on by Ham’s story, I did a little more research on chimps. It turns out they share a lot of traits once supposedly reserved for humans. They enjoy friendships. They have strong family bonds. They can show empathy. They can make and use tools. They can remember distant events. They’ve been observed showing regret and exercising self-restraint and wouldn’t that be welcome in the White House today.

Some observers say chimps can even understand when other creatures know or don’t know something. That’s another way of saying they have a realistic assessment of whomever they are dealing with. No guesswork. And yes, being almost human, they can be violent. Usually it’s because there are too many alpha males in a group and not enough females. Most violence that occurs is between groups of chimps rather than within a group, although one group recently was said to have killed a  former leader who was described as a tyrant. Maybe a brutal form of justice?

Really, the only negative thing I learned about chimpanzees in my brief research is that they are endangered. Of course. Their population has been eliminated everywhere except central Africa where they are poached for food. Man apparently cannot bear to have other creatures alive on this planet without killing them for sport or commercial gain or, in this case, an exotic source of food. Unfortunately, respect for other living creatures is just one of many positive traits that seem to be lacking in the current White House occupant.

So I apologize humbly to chimpanzees for even considering such a comparison as mentioned at the top of this article in the first place. I further encourage all compassionate human beings to contribute to such organizations as the World Wildlife Federation in their efforts to save these wonderful apes.

As for those clowns in suits in the White House, he’s your wild creature. If you can’t make him behave, you’ve got to get rid of him. After all, the house belongs to the American people. The previous tenant left it in beautiful condition. Clean that crap off the walls and find someone who knows how to act in public.

rjgaydos@gmail.co