“Who does that?” Barack Obama asked a very good question while discussing Donald Trump with an audience in Pittsburgh the other day. What kind of candidate for president sells merchandise at his rallies — special sneakers, nonexistent trading cards, hundred-thousand dollar watches and Christian Bibles with his name on them? Trump was already a unique …
From Bibles to talking trout, Trump grifting away Read More »
Is anyone with a fighting chance at a three-digit IQ surprised by how outrageous the quotes being spewed by Donald Trump and his Trumpanzees are getting? After all, Trump probably said the most ridiculous thing ever in a presidential debate when he slandered the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, by accusing them of poor dietary …
A great lady died yesterday. Ethel Kennedy was 96 years old and outlived her husband by 58 years. She outlived some of her children and some of her grandchildren and lived to be the matriarch of a great political family. She should have been a First Lady, and indeed she might have been if her …
This is the time of year when voters start worrying about the Electoral College. In two of the six previous presidential elections in this century, the candidate who received the most votes did not win. In 2000, Al Gore got half a million more votes than George W. Bush and in 2016 Hillary Clinton got …
In the early 1920s, famous pundit/critic H.L. Mencken wrote that the American republic would fall within a hundred years. The two reasons, Mencken wrote, would be ignorance and greed. This prediction might not have come true yet, but I for one think its lifespan might have been extended for a few years beyond Mencken’s 100 …
From the mid 1960s to the mid 1980s, Pete Rose was my favorite baseball player. I never thought he was the best player in the game and I rarely thought he was even the best player on his team. But I loved the way he played the game and I loved it when he said …
There are many dates we find significant. July 4th, 1776. December 7th, 1941. November 22nd, 1963. July 20th, 1969. September 11th, 2001. I doubt more than one in a hundred would remember the significance of November 9th, 1935. I didn’t know it myself — except for the year — until I looked it up. It …
Adolf, er, Donald wants to turn the police loose Read More »
If there is one reason I would purely love to be 39 years old again, it’s that I found it so easy to work. I’m not talking about my job. I was the college basketball writer for the Reno Gazette-Journal in northern Nevada and I traveled all over the country, from Chapel Hill, N.C., to …
I seem to spend so much time thinking about death lately. I was absolutely gobsmacked yesterday when I IMed an old friend to get an update on her health — she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer less than two months ago — and the reply came from her sister that she had died Saturday. Apparently …
Two stories in memory of my good friend Christine Read More »
Once in a while, news comes out of nowhere to shock you. That happened to me just 15 minutes or so. It isn’t that the news itself was so shocking, but the timing sure was. Less than two months ago, an old friend who I hadn’t seen in person for 50 years, messaged me on …
