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. 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.

Addiction and Recovery

By Bob Gaydos

“I’m a single mom. I work hard. I deserve it.”

   Perhaps lost to the public in the daily onslaught of massive cuts to the workforces of federal agencies is the 10 percent reduction, with the threat of possibly another 50 percent to come in one of the smaller, but not unimportant, agencies: SAMHSA.

    SAMHSA stands for Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. It is part of the federal government’s health network. Its mission:  “To lead public health and service delivery efforts that promote mental health, prevent substance misuse, and provide treatment and support to foster recovery while ensuring equitable access and better outcomes.” It used to say for all.

     Like other federal agencies, SAMHSA employees say they can’t effectively deliver on their mission without sufficient resources.  Among the services provided to local mental health agencies and local governments are the 24-hour suicide hotline and information and resources to deal with drug addiction and alcoholism.

      Seeing as the new health commissioner, Bobby Kennedy Jr., has a history of drug addiction, and tea-totaler Donald Trump has an oft-stated fear of alcohol and alcoholism, having watched his brother Fred die in his 40s of the disease, it’s surprising to me that they would want to weaken this particular agency. 

   Then again, maybe Elon Musk didn’t tell them about these cuts and resents Kennedy reviving studies to try to tie the use of vaccines to autism, a theory long disproved.

    In any event, one of the useful services provided by SAMHSA is a self-test to determine if you have a problem with alcohol. I’ve run the test a number of times in this column and it seems to be an appropriate time to do it again. It’s called AUDIT.

       AUDIT stands for alcohol use disorders identification test. It’s the most widely used test in the world and is compiled by the World Health Organization. Shhh. Don’t tell Trump.

       And be honest.

The AUDIT

Please circle the answer that is correct for you

1. How often do you have a drink containing alcohol?

• Never
• Monthly or less
• 2-4 times a month
• 2-3 times a week
• 4 or more times a week

2. How many standard drinks containing alcohol do you have on a typical day when drinking?

• 1or2
• 3or4
• 5or6
• 7to9
• 10 or more

3. How often do you have six or more drinks on one occasion?

• Never
• Less than monthly
• Monthly
• Weekly
• Daily or almost daily

4. During the past year, how often have you found that you were not able to stop drinking once you had started?

• Never
• Less than monthly
• Monthly
• Weekly
• Daily or almost daily

5. During the past year, how often have you failed to do what was normally expected of you because of drinking?

• Never
• Less than monthly
• Monthly
• Weekly
• Daily or almost daily

6. During the past year, how often have you needed a drink in the morning to get yourself going after a heavy drinking session?

• Never
• Less than monthly
• Monthly
• Weekly
• Daily or almost daily

7. During the past year, how often have you had a feeling of guilt or remorse after drinking?

• Never
• Less than monthly
• Monthly
• Weekly
• Daily or almost daily

8. During the past year, have you been unable to remember what happened the night before because you had been drinking?

• Never
• Less than monthly
• Monthly
• Weekly
• Daily or almost daily

9. Have you or someone else been injured as a result of your drinking?

• No
• Yes, but not in the past year
• Yes, during the past year

10. Has a relative or friend, doctor or other health worker been concerned about your drinking or suggested you cut down?

• No
• Yes, but not in the past year
• Yes, during the past year

Scoring the AUDIT

Scores for each question range from 0 to 4, with the first response for each question (eg never) scoring 0, the second (eg less than monthly) scoring 1, the third (eg monthly) scoring 2, the fourth (eg weekly) scoring 3, and the last response (eg. daily or almost daily) scoring 4. For questions 9 and 10, which only have three responses, the scoring is 0, 2 and 4.

The range of possible scores is from 0 to 40, with 0 indicating an abstainer who has never had any problems from alcohol. A score of 1 to 7 suggests low-risk consumptions, according to World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. Scores from 8 to 14 suggest hazardous or harmful alcohol consumption and a score of 15 or more indicates the likelihood of alcohol dependence (moderate-severe alcohol use disorder).

If your score concerns you, there is help available. Talk with your primary care doctor. Call an Alcoholics Anonymous hotline in your area. Call a mental health crisis hotline if one is available.

   Excessive alcohol use is now classified as a mental disorder by health officials, somewhat in response to the stigma attached to the word “alcoholic.”  However, most recovering members of Alcoholics Anonymous have no problem with identifying as such. In any case, it is not a moral failing. It can be treated. First, it has to be acknowledged.

    Again, be honest.

By Bob Gaydos

Gene Hackman roles.

Keeping up with the news is challenging, but it’s a lot more secure than a job with the federal government these days. That said, some thoughts on some recent events, with a deep bow to the late, great Jimmy Cannon.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: Chuck Schumer was right when he called the decision to vote in favor of a terrible Republican budget bill to keep the government open or to vote against it and give Trump even more power over government spending than he has already exercised “no choice at all.” Still, the Senate Minority leader had to choose and decided to vote against a shutdown and for the bill. He convinced enough Democrats to join him for the bill to proceed. In an op ed piece in The New York Times, Schumer said, “A shutdown would give Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk permission to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now. Under a shutdown, the Trump administration would have wide-ranging authority to deem whole agencies, programs and personnel nonessential, furloughing staff members with no promise they would ever be rehired.” Voting against the bill would’ve shut down the government for who knows how long and Republicans would have forever blamed the Democrats, even though, as the party in control, it was Republicans’ responsibility to make something happen. Tough call. House Democrats could safely vote against the bill unanimously, knowing it still had to pass the Senate. Schumer knew he’d get heat, but chose what he saw as the lesser of two evils. Hard to argue with that.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: If Jeff Bezos is going to run a documentary autobiography of Kay Graham on Prime Video, the least he can do is watch it so he knows what the publisher of the Washington Post is supposed to act like. Graham led the paper through the Watergate and Pentagon Papers scandals in Washington, helping forge the newspaper’s reputation as a staunch defender of the truth and a fearless foe of political corruption. Bezos folded to Trump like a cheap tent you could probably get delivered overnight from Amazon Prime. Gutless.

  — Maybe it’s just me, but: It was sad to hear of the death of Gene Hackman at 94, especially considering the details of his demise. In honor of his memory, we held a mini-marathon of the two-time Oscar winner’s films. None of the really big ones. We watched “Enemy of the State,” also starring Will Smith and Jon Voight; “Get Shorty,” also starring John Travolta and Danny DeVito; and “Crimson Tide,” also starring Denzel Washington. All enjoyable. Gene hung out in good company. I got voted down on “The French Connection.”

   — Maybe it’s just me, but: I still call it the Gulf of Mexico.

   — Maybe it’s just me, but: The Yankees decision to no longer play Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” after a home game when the team loses was the right thing to do. A suggestion for what to play instead on those losing occasions might be Sinatra‘s “That’s Life.” They could also apply that philosophy to all the injuries the team has suffered in spring training.

  — Maybe it’s just me, but: Hawking Teslas on the lawn of the White House like some cheesy used car salesman is not only demeaning to the office of the president, but it’s probably illegal, no?

By Bob Gaydos

Fighting measles, the RFK Jr. way.
RJPhotography

   I got sidetracked from following the all-Trump-all-the-time news cycle recently because I was doing less exciting things like filling the bird feeders, cleaning the fish tank, walking the dogs, picking up a book, so I had to do a real quick catching up on the big stuff.

   For starters, I’m proud to report that, as per advice from our new Health Secretary, Bobby Worm Brain Kennedy Jr., I have been taking my cod liver oil capsule daily so that I do not catch measles … again. If that’s possible. Had it when I was a kid.

  I understand a lot of children in Texas have recently contracted the disease for some reason and that one child has died. That’s surprising in this day and age. Reports said the children’s parents, as with most of the others affected,  agreed with the new health czar’s philosophy of not vaccinating their children, but maybe they forgot about the cod liver oil. Sad.

   I also learned that Trump, after taking back his threat to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico, China and I can’t remember who else when those countries said they’d do the same, then reinstated the threat only to change his mind again when The Wall Street Journal said it was a stupid idea and the Stock Market tanked. I think that’s what happened. 

   You know, if I had a suspicious mind, I might suspect the felon was manipulating the market for those in the know — like friendly billionaires — who could buy lots of shares when his tariff threat drove prices down, then sell them when his, um, surprise change of mind, sent the ever-reactive market up again. But that wouldn’t be legal, would it? Guess we’ll have to stay tuned on this one.

      I also read that all is not so lovey-dovey in MAGA world regarding some things Trump’s prime minister, Elon Musk, has done. The Supreme Court, of all things, acted as the, well, supreme, decider and said Musk/Trump could not just cancel payment of funds approved by Congress and owed under contracts for USAID programs. That’s the country’s soft foreign aid program, helping countless people around the globe.

     A federal judge had already ruled that the funds could not be canceled and Trump appealed to his presumed buddies in robes so he could stiff the contractors, per usual, and got a surprise when Chief Justice John Roberts and Trump-appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the three liberal justices in agreeing with the judge in Rhode Island.

    The 5-4 ruling included instructions for the judge to figure out who should get paid, when, etc. I understand that this ruling may have had something to do with Trump snubbing Barrett at his State of the Union ramble. But that would be really petty, no?

    That USAID flap apparently also came up at a Cabinet meeting (and wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall for that), when Marco Rubio, the actual Secretary of State, complained that Musk, was firing people at State who did actual work and that it was supposed to be Rubio’s job to decide. A couple of other Cabinet members also apparently had their Wheaties that day and said the same thing and Trump apparently said play nice, children. According to reports leaked to The New York Times, Trump actually said that Musk, who still has no actual federal job and reportedly wore a suit to the meeting, wouldn’t fire anybody anymore and that Rubio, Kennedy et al could run their departments.

  There’s also apparently no truth to the rumor that Kennedy blamed Musk’s autism spectrum disorder and his sometimes out-of-sync social behavior on a vaccine. Yet.

      There, I think that catches me up as much as I really want to right now.

By Bob Gaydos

Survey answer: Protect the Constitution
RJ Photography

    Got my now-weekly letter from the Democratic National Committee urging me to make my 2025 Membership Contribution and fill out a survey to help the DNC “stop Donald Trump’s dangerous agenda.”

     Couple of problems here:

1. I am not now and never have been a member of the Democratic Party, or any political party for that matter. I am a registered voter and have been since I was eligible to vote more than 60 years ago. I’m not sure today, but it used to be the common practice among journalists not to register in any political party to avoid obvious complaints of bias. My opinions and leanings as an editorial writer may have been clear, but there was no way to claim favoritism to a particular party. Same with my work as a reporter or editor. So I’m not sure where the DNC got the idea that I’m a Democrat and decided to make me a pen pal, but I’m officially a registered Independent voter in Sullivan County, N.Y., and I like it that way.
2. The first question on the survey is: “Which of President Trump’s priorities do you find most troubling? (Please choose up to three.) The list includes eight of Trump’s more publicized and nasty talking points, from mass deportations to cutting taxes for the rich, gutting abortion access, limiting voting access, reversing environmental regulations, targeting the rights of LGBTQ+, dismantling federal agencies and stocking the Supreme Court with unqualified MAGA puppets.

    Umm, I’m troubled by all of them, folks, as I’ve written. But what troubles me the most about Trump is that he clearly has no grasp of separation of power and in fact shows no interest in sharing it with Congress or the courts.

   He has somehow, at least for the moment, been usurped as president by Elon Musk, who is running amok through any agency he sees as a threat to his lust for more power and money. And he seems to know even less than Trump about how government (at least ours) is supposed to function.

     And Democrats are being way too polite about it. Yes, the lawyers and civil liberties groups are doing their job, taking Trump to court and winning rulings from judges, at least temporarily stopping Trump. 

      But we need Democrats jumping up an down and getting people in the streets and on TV and social media with the same message, over and over. And I guess I’m actually answering the second question in the DNC survey: Which aspects of the Trump presidency do you find most disturbing?

      Easy. “His disregard for the U.S. Constitution.” All the other stuff stems from his ignorance, cowardice, greed, pettiness, narcissism, dishonesty and obviously failing mental faculties. They all carry a price for Americans. But the ultimate price is lack of freedom and an unchecked Trump beholden to an autistic billionaire with no loyalty to anything but himself is the ultimate threat to American democracy. And someone needs to make a lot of noise about that.

   Wall Street doesn’t care. So-called mainstream media no longer cares, or at least the one-time big names in credibility have put away their knives and First Amendment privileges out of fear and greed. What else could it be?

     The Constitution is under attack and Republicans don’t care. I’ve been writing that message for a long time now, having declared the death of the Republican Party in 2016 when it knelt meekly at the feet of Trump.

      Perhaps that’s why someone in the DNC mistakenly thought I was a registered member of the party. Sorry, no. I just want my Senators, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, and all the rest of the Democrats to take to the ramparts and use whatever weapons they have at their command to stop this dismantling of America. Go get Musk.

     Rally the people who were lied to by Trump and voted for him, the Republicans who may be hiding quietly, too embarrassed to come out and admit they were wrong, and the millions of Americans who didn’t bother to vote for president because “they’re all the same.“

     No, they’re not.

(Note to DNC: Thanks for the survey. The opinions expressed here are free for you to use, but in keeping with my tradition, I’ll be making my donations to the ACLU, SPLC and other apolitical organizations fighting to defend and preserve the Constitution.)

By Bob Gaydos

Steve Bannon and Elon Musk … not friends

    I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m rooting for Steve Bannon in his food fight with Elon Musk over who’s the bigger racist in the MAGA tent. Not because I agree with either man’s views on immigration or anything else, but rather because Musk’s money has the potential to do a lot more harm than Bannon’s pure bile and, frankly, anything that exposes the hypocrisy of the Trump cult is good for America, especially if it’s self-inflicted.

     Bannon has called Musk “pure  evil” and pledged to get gim out of the guest rooms in Mar-a-Lago and the White House. In fact, Bannon said, “I will have Elon Musk run out of here by Inauguration Day.” 

    That appears to be unlikely, but that’s what Bannon told the Italian newspaper Corrientes Della Serra last week. He also said the billionaire won’t have full access to the White House. Trump says he’s giving Musk the building next door to try to figure out how to steal from the poor to give to the rich.

      The crux of the fight between Trump’s old sidekick/strategist and his new, much richer one, is which immigrants are acceptable to MAGA and which are not. Old school Bannon took Trump at his word when he said he’s going to round up millions of undocumented immigrants, (mostly brown or black) and ship them back wherever they came from. No more immigrants. More jobs for real Americans.

      But Musk and other big tech billionaires say real Americans are too dumb (they actually say untrained, but  that’s what they think) to fill the jobs in their companies. They say they need more better-trained immigrants, mostly from Asian countries, here on H-1B visas as “skilled workers,” to fill all those good jobs at the tech companies.

    Musk says they are vital and Trump agreed and Bannon blew up, basically saying an immigrant is an immigrant. He also wasn’t thrilled with Musk’s opinion of real Americans’ intelligence, which actually is the same as (“I love the uneducated”) Trump’s. 

   In response to Bannon’s comments, Musk said he would go to “war” to preserve and defend the program for foreign workers at tech companies. 

    Bannon replied, “He should go back to South Africa. Why do we have South Africans, the most racist people on earth, white South Africans … making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States?”

      Clearly, irony is lost on Bannon.

       Now, Musk may be right about that lack of skilled American workers for tech companies, but no one ever talks about more training programs for Americans. The real reason Musk and the other tech bigwigs want immigrants from Asian countries on their payrolls is that they are willing to work for less money and are happy just to be in America for all the advantages it provides. Just like all those immigrants Trump and Bannon want to round up and deport. Hypocrisy.

      The good news in terms of reducing Musk’s influence is that Bannon has the voice and support of the hard-core far-right Trump base. The ones who vote for candidates he endorses. Musk, who seems to live in a high-rent area of the spectrum, basically is just in this for his own enrichment and gratification. Like Trump. But Trump is going to be president and his ego typically wins out over his affection for other people’s money and sycophancy. He has no real agenda other than enriching himself and staying out of prison, which he thus far has managed to accomplish.

      Bottom line is that promising all things to all supporters only works when all supporters are in it for the same reason. Bannon just wants to get rid of all non-white immigrants. Musk apparently just wants to be emperor of the world, with lots of non-tran children. Maybe they should check with the suddenly much poorer Rudy Giuliani to find out what went wrong with his love affair with Donald Trump.

 rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

The cap of a proud Notre Dame alumnus.
RJ Photography

   Ok, I’ve dithered long enough. The holidays came and went and he’s obviously not going to do the same. The first four presidents of my lifetime were FDR, HST, Ike and JFK. Dotard felon doesn’t have quite the same ring, so I guess I have to stick around until America realizes it needs a woman  president. Therefore, with a bow to the late, great Jimmy Cannon, I persist.

   — Maybe it’s just me, but: All that Canada, Greenland, Panama BS spewing out of his increasingly distracted “brain” is just that, a distraction out of the Putin playbook And an embarrassing one, at that. Only true MAGAS and the sold-out mainstream media treat it seriously. Which is, of course, sad.

    — Maybe it’s just me, but: Having his hands tied by the U.S. Supreme Court’s presidential immunity nonsense, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan made the best of it by making sure Trump gets sworn in as a convicted felon. The first ever, America. Be proud. Merchan made sure everyone knew that if it had been anyone else there would’ve been more serious consequences for the 34 felony convictions than a blow to the huge Trump ego.

   — Maybe it’s just me, but: The fact that the Supreme Court allowed the sentencing in New York to go on before the inauguration suggests that the court is not necessarily 100 percent in Trump’s pocket. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberal justices in rejecting Trump’s bid to avoid sentencing before the inauguration. The four stooges objected without any comment.

   — Maybe it’s just me, but: I hope Merrick Garland fades into the woodwork as quickly as did that other faux prosecutor, Robert Mueller. A major disappointment.

   — Maybe it’s just me, but: Watching the Dow, NASDAQ, etc. tank on the heels of yet another report showing a healthy increase in jobs on Joe Biden’s watch is a worthwhile reminder that Wall Street has little to do with Main Street. More like the Vegas Strip.

   — Maybe it’s just me, but: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg can all _______. Fill in the blank.

   — Maybe it’s just me, but: I’m still waiting for someone to tell me what all the New Jersey drone stuff was about. Remember newspapers?

   — Maybe it’s just me, but: Jimmy Carter was a wonderful human being and a better than average president. Not a bad epitaph.

  — Maybe it’s just me, but: Welcome back to nightly reports, Rachel Maddow; turn off the lights, Morning Joe.

   — Maybe it’s just me, but: Having given up following college football when they started mixing and moving colleges willy-nilly to conferences across the country based on big bucks and big ratings, it came as a pleasant surprise to me to see that the two schools who will be playing for the college football championship are Notre Dame and Ohio State. Of course. Who else? It was as if I had escaped from a time warp. Their names are synonymous with success and championships. Then I learned that Notre Dame, the university in South Bend, Indiana, had undergone a renaissance much like the other Notre Dame, the cathedral in Paris, France, which has been rebuilt and reborn and recently returned to its position of prominence after a devastating fire. No, I don’t believe in coincidences.    

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

    While I’ve been spending the holidays toning up my chopsticks skills (Tuesday-Korean; Wednesday-Japanese; Thursday-Chinese vegan), the rest of the world has apparently been going to hell in a handbasket.

      Let’s see if I can catch up. Elon Musk, the president-non-elect, learned that even the richest man in the world can’t force a few hundred career politicians to shut down the United States government over the holidays. His sidekick and ceremonial president, Donald Trump, learned that those same politicians wouldn’t give him a free credit card by suspending the debt ceiling in order to keep the government open. Worthwhile lessons for all involved, including the American people who would have suffered the most.

     Not to be distracted by reality, Trump also fantasized about annexing Canada as the 51st state, seizing the Panama Canal from China and buying Greenland from Denmark. Canada, Panama, China and Denmark were not amused. The Danes, in fact, wondered what the going price might be on a somewhat worn U.S. democracy. The Mexican president had already told Trump to cool it on the tariff talk.

    Meanwhile, Russian president, Vladimir Putin ignored Trump’s election campaign claim that he’d end the war in Ukraine as soon as he was elected, never mind got sworn in. Didn’t happen. In fact, North Korea sent in some troops to help Russia fight its increasingly costly war and Putin, struggling with losses in Ukraine, abandoned his buddy Assad in Syria and let rebel forces take over the government there virtually overnight.

    Meanwhile, the other Korea, the supposedly Democratic one, saw its president declare martial law, then back down swiftly after massive demonstrations, broke out in the streets, only to eventually be impeached. But wait, there’s more. The acting president appointed to bring order from the chaos refused to appoint judges to overhear the impeachment proceedings against the martial law president. So the acting president was impeached. I have no idea where this is going, and I’m not sure the Koreans do either.

     Meanwhile, Russia’s not-nearly-as-efficient-as -everyone-thought military machine was suspected in the downing of an Azerbaijan  passenger jet that crashed in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people on board. Analysts suggested a missile from Russia’s air defense system struck the plane.

     Those Russian missiles had been used to shoot down drones flown from Ukraine. There was no word on whether the Russians were suspected in the sudden disappearance of all those hundreds of drones that were mysteriously flying over New Jersey for the past couple of weeks. And our government still wasn’t saying anything at all about them — the drones, not the Russians — except that we shouldn’t worry.

     So I’m going to try not to.        

     At least I don’t live in Mozambique where more than 6,000 prisoners, including Isis terrorists, escaped from prison as part of nationwide civil unrest over widespread voting irregularities in the country’s recent presidential election. And boy doesn’t that sound familiar?

       France avoided the bloodshed, but after a vote of no confidence removed the prime minister, a new prime minister has named a new government, fate as yet to be determined.

     So these are apparently the times that try our souls, people. But I wonder, where are the songs of protest? We Shall Overcome! Never mind where all the flowers have gone, where are the Woody Guthries, Pete Seegers, the Bob Dylans for Pete’s sake! 

     Tik-tok and Beyoncé and Taylor Swift don’t cover all the disharmony.

      President Joe Biden just formally recognized the bald eagle as the official national bird. Long overdue, I’d say,  and fitting. But that proud, beautiful bird needs a new “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” one for the 21st-century. Please!

       Meanwhile, I’m going to keep working out with my chopsticks.

By Bob Gaydos

Here’s another stream of consciousness report on the news because, well, we seem to be living in a stream of consciousness world:

     The week began in what has become a normal pattern these days with (1.) Donald Trump asking a judge to postpone his trial for stealing and refusing to return classified government documents until the 12th of Never or he gets elected president again, whichever comes first, which was a disturbing development because said judge is believed to have a crush on the twice-impeached former president and might rule in his favor, which isn’t what happened to (2.) some of Aretha Franklin’s offspring, who went to court four years after her death to decide which one of her wills was the real one — the notarized, signed one found in a locked cabinet or the scribbled, unsigned one found stuffed in a couch cushion, which also contained comments about the singer’s ex-boyfriends, which may have convinced the jury in Pontiac, Mich., that it was the legit will because that’s how they decided after only an hour of discussion, a ruling some found as curious as (3.) the World Health Organization’s determination that the artificial sweetener, aspartame could cause cancer while a special panel appointed by the same UN organization simultaneously said the sweetener was still safe for regular use, which is pretty much what (4.) the NRA said about the widespread availability of all types of guns in response to a report that the U.S. in 2023 had experienced the deadliest six months of mass killings since 2006, or 140 killings in 180 days, not that anyone noticed, (5.) what with record numbers of tourists flocking to Death Valley hoping to experience record high temperatures as the thermometer hovered near 130°F, (6.) which wasn’t far from the heat generated on picket lines in Los Angeles by striking actors and writers, led by The Nanny, Fran Drescher, president of the Screen Actors Guild, who roasted film and streaming companies executives for, among other things, wanting to use artificial intelligence- generated images of background actors instead of real people in order to save money, which is the opposite of (7.) what India had in mind when it launched a rocket to the Moon, hoping for a soft landing for a lunar rover to explore the surface of the moon and bolster India’s emerging space program as a major source of revenue, rather than, as some cynics speculated, as an exploration for a future home for some of the nearly 1.5 billion people living in a country whose trains keep running into each other and (8.) whose neighbor, China, is being difficult over some disputed borders between the ancient countries, who have maintained a careful relationship with (9.) Russia as it slogs through a misbegotten war against Ukraine, who has (10.) been promised NATO membership in the future, whether or not (11.) Russian President Vladimir Putin figures out which of his generals knew about the attempted coup before it unraveled almost as quickly as (12.) Twitter when Elon Musk bought it to show us again how smart he is.

    Whew. … Oh yeah, (13.) The New York Times announced it was eliminating its sports desk and pretty much nobody noticed.

     There.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

The world in 500 words or less

By Bob Gaydos

Maybe it’s just me, but:

Alyssa Nakken

— Major League Baseball had a red letter day recently when Alyssa Nakken became the first female coach on the field, for the San Francisco Giants. Well-played.

— On the other hand, there was yet another sign that the people running the game have lost all sense of what once made baseball America’s pastime. With Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw six outs away from pitching a perfect game and having thrown all of 80 pitches, LA manager Dave Roberts pulled Kershaw from the game. Kershaw later said he was OK with the move. I doubt it. Imagine yanking Gibson or Ryan or Spahn or Seaver or Koufax or even David Cone, for Pete’s sake, in that situation. Baseball used to be a game of historic efforts and legends. Kershaw had a shot at history and deserved the opportunity. Moneyball isn’t necessarily baseball.

— Part two of what used to be baseball. Say that Kershaw stayed in the game and pitched two more perfect innings, but the score was tied at zero after nine innings. Kershaw gets to keep trying to be perfect and goes out to pitch the 10th inning. There’s a runner on second base. Kershaw didn’t put him there; baseball did. Is it still a perfect game? What if someone actually sacrifice bunts the runner over to third and the next better hits a long sacrifice fly that allows the runner to score? Do you yank Kershaw now because he’s actually losing a perfect game? Or maybe he’s on the road and just lost a perfect game. I guess with pitch counts we’ll never know.

— Confirmation of the eminently qualified Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s historic appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court was a red-letter day for America. Less celebratory is the fact that 47 Republican senators had to tie themselves in knots trying to come up with reasons to vote against her that did not include “she’s a woman and she’s black.” Another shameful moment for the former party of Lincoln.

— The only nasty thing Attorney General Merrick Garland has caught recently is COVID-19.

— In another effort to bolster his base by lowering the average IQ score of Republicans in the House of Representatives, Donald Trump endorsed Sarah Palin for Alaska’s lone congressional seat. Well, for what it’s worth, she can spy on Russia from where she lives.

— The Taliban forbidding females to get schooled beyond grade six didn’t surprise me. But banning the growing of poppies, Afghanistan’s traditional crop? What the heck do they do for cash?

— Didn’t see this coming: There’s apparently a fertilizer shortage created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. should be OK as long as Lindsay Graham and Ted Cruz still get to give speeches in the Senate.

— I just don’t trust Elon Musk on buying Twitter. Buy Texas. It needs fixing a lot more.

rjgaydos@gmail.com