By Bob Gaydos

Ghee.

  Stick with me here. I’m not sure where I’m going, but I hope it’ll be worth the trip when we get there.

    I typically start my day (assuming the stars are aligned and the usual very considerate dog-feeder has fed the dogs) by tackling a New York Times word game called Spelling Bee. You get points based on how many words you can make from seven letters. It’s one of several word games I play each day so that, among other things, I can continue to write columns that I hope readers find (a) informative, (b) provocative, (c ) entertaining or (d) all of the above. The people who know about keeping brains vital recommend such games. And I enjoy them.

   So, this particular morning I advance to the point in the game where I am “amazing,” but one point short of “Genius.” I hate when that happens because it means all the obvious and most of the non-obvious words have been found, leaving words no one ever heard of and the odds of picking up a single point is slim.

    Finally, after going away and coming back several times, I see it. The word that will give me one point: Ghee.

   Yes! Genius once again and, gee, isn’t it interesting that I got there on a word I didn’t even know a few years ago. 

   For those who aren’t familiar with the word, ghee is a form of highly-clarified butter that is traditionally used in Indian cooking. Like butter, ghee is typically made from cow’s milk. It is made by melting regular butter, which separates into liquid fats and milk solids. The solids are removed, leaving a liquid with less lactose. Ghee is thus considered to be vegetarian because there is no animal product in it, but not vegan, because it is derived from animal product. (See, we’re already learning something.)

   Since I am neither vegan nor vegetarian, the technicalities don’t bother me. I became acquainted with ghee several years ago by adopting a diet with less meat and more plants. A quick scan of the internet on its health benefits or risks quickly pointed out the problem of our unfettered information glut, with ghee being declared either good or bad for weight loss, digestion, cholesterol or the heart. There was even a report the FDA had banned it, which should be a surprise to the thousands of Indian restaurants in this country, as well as the USDA, which regulates ghee and other products derived from cows. Consult your doctor on this, please.

     For me, ghee has been no issue and we only have it when we treat ourselves to a meal at a wonderful nearby vegetarian restaurant, The Red Dot, in Wurtsboro, N.Y, which is the entrance to the Catskills region if you’re planning a trip.

   If instead you’re planning a trip to Paris this year, be aware that the Summer Olympics will be in town and by “in town” the Parisians mean it literally, with urban games at Le Place de la Concorde, beach volleyball at the Eiffel Tower and Equestrians at the Palace of Versailles.

   I know all this only because when I got my genius score on Queen Bee, I put up water for tea, doled out a truckload of vitamins and then checked my Facebook feed, which promptly informed me that Snoop Dogg was going to be a special commentator for NBC on this year‘s Olympics in Paris.

    Oh. I thought. Why? I further thought.

     It seems Mr. Dogg, or Snoop to his friends, was such a hit four years ago with his colorful, occasionally profane, comments on the dressage competition at the Tokyo Olympics, NBC figured the rapper/business mogul would be a good bet to raise ratings for this year’s event.  

Snoop Dogg

   For the record, the 2020 Olympics recorded the lowest average primetime viewership for the network since it began presenting the Olympics in 1988. In fact, viewership fell by 42 percent from the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

   But we’re now in the world of streaming and watching anything, anywhere, anytime. If he was so popular on NBC’s streaming coverage on Peacock in 2020, NBC figured, why not bring on the Dogg and his irreverence, if not expertise, to the whole network? It’s entertainment, isn’t it?

    Yes, and the size and, now, diversity of the audience also sets the price of the advertising, doesn’t it? 

    Snoop will apparently be free to roam around Paris and all the Olympic venues and “add his unique perspective to our re-imagined Olympic primetime show,” according to Molly Solomon, executive producer and president of NBC Olympics Production.

    Gee.

    Before I turned to tea and breakfast on this particular morning, one last look at Facebook informed me that the National Football League had fined Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper $300,000 for throwing a drink toward Jacksonville Jaguars fans from his luxury box. Classy.

 The Panthers were in the midst of losing to the hometown Jaguars, 26-0, leaving Tepper’s team with the worst record in the NFL. In fact, the team hasn’t had a winning record since Tepper bought it five years ago after a sex scandal under the previous owner.

   Tepper accepted the fine and expressed “regret” for the incident, but didn’t apologize. Apparently, he’s still feeling a bit agitated. Panthers fans can identify.

    Well, thanks to Queen Bee, the Internet and Red Dot, I have a suggestion for Mr. Tepper: Clarified butter. Ghee. More of it.

    Ghee is a staple of Ayurvedic medicine, the traditional medicine of India, which is rooted in Hinduism. The philosophy of Ayurvedic medicine contends that the body, mind and soul are connected to the outer world and when the relationship among these elements is out of balance, health problems arise. 

    Ghee is often suggested to improve gut health and they say a healthy gut is a healthy body. It helps in cleansing the body of harmful stuff. In fact, it is regarded by some as one of the most sattvic foods. In Hinduism, sattva (a Sanskrit word) is having a serene, harmonious state of mind.  

    Some believers say that regular consumption of ghee leads to a reduction in stress and anxiety levels.

    It can’t play quarterback, Mr. Tepper, but ghee whiz, at least it’s more sattvic than listening to Snoop Dogg commenting on Olympic equestrian events in Paris.

       I told you we’d get there.

(PS: I have attained Queen Bee status just one time in more than a year of playing the game.)

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

     Who knew?

Sitting and watching the March blizzard do its thing outside the window — working, working, working to shut everything down — a memory from the 2016 presidential campaign snuck into my consciousness. The post kept popping up on my Facebook feed, but I honestly can’t remember the original source of the news. I’m also not in the mood to go researching for it because I didn’t think it was fake news then and today I am convinced it is the god’s honest truth.

In brief, one of DT’s former aides (of which there are many) wrote an article in which she claimed he never expected to win the Republican nomination and the election. Indeed, she said he did not want to win the election. Rather, she said, he just wanted to get his name out there for whatever profit he could gain from the publicity and maybe help launch a TV network he was planning. Branding.

Less than two months since his inauguration, it’s obvious: Donald Trump likes being president, but he is less than fond of doing president. The title and the glory are great — right up his alley. Put a big, gold “T” on the White House.

But the work? Daily intelligence briefings? Reading reports on the battle against ISIS? Getting up to speed on how complicated health care is? Learning the difference between the debt and the deficit, Medicaid and Medicare, China and Taiwan, Iran and Iraq, legal and unconstitutional? Isn’t that what we have Mike Pence for?

The man has no patience for details, for facts, for differing opinions, for the legal process, for diplomacy, for Cabinet meetings, for, at the very least, hiring people to fill the hundreds of federal government jobs unfilled since he took office. Who knew being president was such a big job?

Well, for one, his predecessor. And, with varying degrees of success, a long line of predecessors before Barack Obama.

Getting back to that aide’s story … Was there ever a campaign for president run with such obvious disregard for facts? WIth such disdain and outright rudeness aimed at other candidates? With such arrogant disregard for the bigotry and violence it encouraged in its followers? With such crudeness towards women, minorities, the physically handicapped? With such an ill-informed, self-obsessed liar as the candidate?

Rhetorical questions.

It was a campaign expressly designed for maximum press coverage, which it got. What went wrong for Trump is that he was up against the worst field of Republican candidates imaginable, few of whom had the guts to match him insult for insult (some of whom now kiss up to him since he’s the titular head of their party) and then ran into the most disliked Democrat in America as his opponent in the general campaign. Even encouraging the Russians to wiretap Hillary Clinton wasn’t enough to doom the Trump campaign.

Hard as he tried, most Republican leaders and elected officials couldn’t bring themselves to publicly call him a bully and a liar and a fraud and so their voters — the ones who weren’t outright racists or conspiracy theorists or rightwing extremists, all of whom loved him from the get-go — went for the celebrity candidate who promised them … well, whatever they wanted him to promise them.

I won’t be playing golf every week, he promised. Mexico will pay for the wall, he promised. Social Security and Medicare are safe, he promised, Everyone will have health care, he promised. How could he know that House Speaker Paul Ryan hated Social Security and Medicare and had no clue about how health insurance worked? That would have required understanding all that stuff himself and talking to Ryan about it. Work.

Trump’s bad luck followed him into November. Clinton beat him by three million votes and still lost, thanks to the Electoral College, which is a concept the new president surely still does not understand. Although he swears he had the widest winning margin there in decades. He couldn’t lose for winning, no matter how hard he tried. And now he has to try to convince a bunch of much smarter people who report to him every day that he knows what he’s doing.

Not that they believe him.

Which is our problem, America.

The golf? Jeez, I know I promised I’d be a working president, but this is ridiculous. Anything to get out of that depressing White House every weekend. ISIS this; ISIS that. Merkel this; Merkel that. Warren this; Warren that. What’s wrong with Flynn talking to Russians? Some of my best friends and creditors are Russians. How come nobody told me federal judges were appointed for life? Do I attack North Korea if they launch a missile at us? I can’t believe Ryan is going to try to find money for that stupid wall. Now they’re trying to pin my name on that ridiculous health care plan he came up with. Maybe I can feed that Maddow dame the only legit tax return I have this century to take the heat off the Russia thing. And what the heck is going on with Lindsay Graham and that loser McCain? Is Turkey an ally? Did La La Land win the Oscar or not? Bad dudes in Hollywood. I wonder if Rudy wants his old job back at Justice, or is he ticked I didn’t name him ambassador to Russia? Damn, why does the FBI want to talk to me? Melania!? Melania!? Help! They want me to organize the Easter egg roll! Stop hiding in New York!

Damn, where’d I leave my phone? Maybe I can get Snoop Dog to come down to Mar a Lago for golf this weekend. Hey, Bannon, it’s still Black History Month, isn’t it?

rjgaydos@gmail.com