Tossing and Turning When Gilda's Away

My wife left me last Tuesday. 

Oh, it is not what you think. 

With Donny staying in New York for business, Gilda accompanied Ellie, CJ and Leo back to Omaha. She will be coming home today.  

Being able to help care for our grandchildren is one of the benefits she is reaping in retirement, the freedom to travel on her own schedule, for pleasure or to help out. 

I’m not embarrassed to admit I have had a hard time sleeping when she’s not lying next to me. During my career I often traveled days at a time. Frequently five days a month away from home. 

As publisher and editor I could assign others to travel with me. Ostensibly to help train or support a staffer, it camouflaged a perq of my office to keep me from being alone on the road. It worked during the daytime and through a good dinner but when my hotel room door closed behind me I could not escape the loneliness of being away from home, from Gilda. 

Her trip to Omaha brought the experience back, but in reverse. In my hotel room after dinner I would turn on the TV. I’d be exhausted but unable to fall into deep sleep. I’d set the TV timer only to be awakened from light slumber when it clicked off around 12:30. I couldn’t control the air quality in the room. The room would be stuffy. The pillows were not to my liking. I’d stumble across to the bathroom once or twice. I’d turn the TV back on and for hours watch a bad movie or some silly sitcoms. 

My TV options are better now. I can scroll through hundreds of cable stations with scores of movies. The first night Gilda was gone I watched a West Coast Yankees game and two episodes of Veep before finally closing my eyes for several hours. 

When Gilda’s home we usually go to sleep around 11:30. I wake up around 8. This past week sleep has not come till nearly 2 and has not lasted past 7:30. This blog, for example, was written about 1:30 am, a half hour after I woke up from sleep initiated at the start of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. I woke up at 7:07.

For all my complaints, the truth is I believe a partner’s independent short-term travel is healthy for any relationship. Time away allows both partners to more fully appreciate each other. To recharge the excitement of being together. 

I could never have sustained the life of a traveling salesman or similar profession that required extended overnight travel most weeks of the year. 

As much as I “suffered” through this past week, my experience is not comparable to what Gilda went through when I traveled. She was left to care for our children, to feed and, when they were younger, clothe them. To make sure they went off safely to school and back. For most of those years she also had a full-time job. And if it snowed—it always seemed to snow when I was away during the winter—she had to shovel the driveway. No, my seven nights tossing and turning cannot be compared to her years of underappreciated dedication.

There’s no guarantee my sleep tonight will be better with Gilda lying next to me. But hearing her breathing, being able to reach out and touch her arm in the middle of the night, relying on her body heat instead of the heated mattress pad to warm our bed, signals a return to normalcy. To a contentment appreciated for sure by anyone in a lifetime partner relationship. 

Her plane is scheduled to land at Newark airport at 4:30 pm. I’ll be there. 

A Remedy for Fake News, Parsing Opinions on Media Bias, Racism, Oppression in America, and Recognizing the Departed

Long time between posts so here’s a long (-winded) one touching on several news events since we last engaged (trust me, there’s lots here to reflect on, so please read it all):

One of my mother’s favorite sayings to expose the hypocrisy between politicians, and even her children, engaged in arguments was to liken the debate to “the pot calling the kettle black.” I am reminded of that idiom when I hear Donald Trump decry media outlets, mostly NBC lately, for what he claims are false news stories. 

School Ties I: Arthur, a classmate from elementary school through college, began a dialogue with me about the 24/7 information cycle following a CNN report that “Google and Facebook help spread bad information after Las Vegas attack.”  I agreed with the premise, adding, “Misinformation coupled with insufficient time to ponder, consider, properly analyze, digest, interpret and just plain fact check have transformed the meaning of news and the legitimacy of many news organizations.”

To which Arthur asked, “Is there a solution in a 24/7 global communication environment with rogue and non-state actors?” “Doubtful,” I replied, “though it would help if Twitter and Google and Facebook employed vetters to make sure as much as possible that misinformation is weeded out.”

“Is it realistic to expect IT Geeks to understand the professional responsibilities of the 4th estate?,” asked Arthur.

“I do not expect IT geeks to be doing the vetting. As many true journalists have lost their jobs in true media companies, perhaps Facebook et al would hire these proven fact checkers and truth tellers,” I concluded. (By coincidence, retired CBS newscaster Bob Schieffer told Stephen Colbert this week that over the last 12 years 126 newspapers have closed down. That leaves a lot of journalists out there looking for “legitimate” work.)

Meanwhile, fake news abounds.

A Bully Presidency: Teddy Roosevelt defined the term “bully pulpit,” the use of his position as president of the United States to advocate a personal agenda. Subsequent presidents have refined the practice through fireside chats broadcast on radio, press conferences, televised addresses to the nation and, currently, Twitter. The latter is not my personal preference for conducting matters of state, but I cannot fault Donald Trump for using any tool in his kit to reach his audience. 

It is the way he uses Twitter that upsets me and any other person who has reverence for the office of the presidency and how America’s stature is projected throughout the world. 

No one is going to be able to stop him from tweeting, no matter how reckless his missives are about North Korea, or how disruptive to party unity by criticizing fellow Republicans not hewing to his line, or by inciting racial divide through his embrace of white supremacists. 

It is in his full-throated tweets about professional football players kneeling during the national anthem that Trump has exposed how serious the danger is to anyone who offends his sensibilities. Tuesday morning Trump tweeted, “Why is the NFL getting massive tax breaks while at the same time disrespecting our Anthem, Flag and Country? Change tax law!”

Forget for now that Trump misrepresents why the players are not standing (for those not aware, or equally misguided, they are protesting racial inequality and excessive force by police against people of color). By suggesting tax law and, by extension the Internal Revenue Service, should be used to punish those he disfavors, Trump is entertaining an abuse of executive power à la Richard Nixon who developed an enemies list and sought to have the IRS harass his detractors through audits. 

Trump further displayed his arrogance and compounded his ignorance and contempt for the law and a free press by suggesting earlier this week, during a photo opportunity with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, “It is frankly disgusting the press is able to write whatever it wants to write.” He also proposed a review of NBC’s broadcasting license because it aired stories he didn’t like. 

Ditka Is Offensive: And dumb. NFL Hall of Fame player and coach Mike Ditka said Monday he was unaware of any racial oppression in America during the last 100 years. After mounds of criticism of his ignorance of Jim Crow laws to segregate schools, housing, water fountains, seats on Southern buses, along with major league baseball’s racial exclusion policy, he apologized Tuesday. He tried to ameliorate his remarks by saying they applied to the NFL, not society as a whole. 

But Ditka ignores the fact the NFL had no black players from 1934 until 1946 (there were a handful before 1934). Only when the Cleveland Rams sought to relocate to Los Angeles did the team integrate as a legal requirement to play in the publicly funded Los Angeles Coliseum. The rest of the league was slow to integrate, the Washington Redskins being the last to do so in 1962, the year after Ditka began his NFL career.

School Ties II: Dennis Prager is another of my elementary school through college classmates. A conservative blogger (https://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager), author and radio talk show host, Dennis has lately been chiding liberals for dominating the news media and drowning America “in an ocean of lies.” Among those lies are that “America is racist” and that “America oppresses its minorities.”

Let’s parse these opinions: Painting the media as leftist is a right wing canard, part of a campaign of disinformation. It might be true that CBS, NBC and ABC along with PBS lean to the left but Fox News and its affiliates are solidly right. And most local newscasts, especially those of the Sinclair Broadcast Group, lean right. 

One also cannot dispute that talk radio is dominated by conservative hosts. As for major newspapers, they lean left though The Wall Street Journal is a stalwart conservative voice in print. And for every Politico and HuffPost there is a Drudge Report and Breitbart News. 

As for entertainers, yes, many are liberal, but then there are the country western folks and some heavyweights in Hollywood like Clint Eastwood who are conservative. 

Most sports team owners are Republicans, as are many high profile white players. As for academia, most top rated liberal arts universities do espouse more progressive thought. They are countered by the many colleges founded and run by Christian groups. 

The suggestion that Americans are drowning in an ocean of lies because of the left ignores our liar-in-chief who repeatedly tells lies and repeats them even after they’ve been shown to be false. Moreover, Trump’s press secretaries steadfastly refuse to acknowledge their falsehood, preferring instead to explain away his exact words by implying he meant something else. 

As for whether America is racist, keep in mind that from its inception as a white European offshoot, America treated its native population as an inferior race. It imported blacks to be slaves as they too were considered to be inferior and sub human. 

The Civil War ended slavery but not the attitude toward blacks. Perhaps Dennis forgot about the high school book we read at Yeshivah of Flatbush about Jim Crow laws. Could he really believe blacks have been raised with equal opportunity in this country even after Supreme Court decisions forced an end to segregation? 

The law might require integrated schools but whites have chosen to mostly segregate their children in private schools throughout not just the South but the North as well. Study after study have shown that blacks with equal or better qualifications than whites are rejected for jobs in favor of white candidates. 

Let’s be clear. Racism also exists within minority communities. Light skinned blacks and hispanics are favored not just by whites but often by the minority communities. 

And let’s not forget that Native Americans have been systematically treated as lesser peoples. Treaty after treaty have been violated by whites. President Andrew Jackson even ignored a Supreme Court decision so he could forcibly evict the Cherokee Nation from its land in Tennessee and Georgia. (Is it any wonder Trump reveres Jackson? He placed a bust of Jackson in the Oval Office.) 

Do we also want to forget how America treated the Chinese in the 1800s and 20th century? And the Japanese during WWII? Or how southern Italians, eastern Europeans and Jews were discriminated against in immigration quotas? Oh, and so were the Irish when they first came here. America has a history of discrimination that continues to the present with Trump’s selective ban on Moslem entry to our shores.

As for Dennis’ blind eye toward current oppression of minorities, when was the last time a white person was stopped for a broken tail light and wound up shot dead by a policeman? When even black members of Congress are routinely stopped and questioned by capitol police, there is a problem. Is Dennis not aware of the talk black parents must have with their teenage kids about how they must behave around police, a talk few white parents need to have? 

Oppression does not just mean physical beatings. Minority schools receive fewer assets than white schools. Minorities do not get hired as often even when they are more qualified. Drug laws, especially marijuana arrests, and prison terms are disproportionally enforced against minorities. 

The only area where minorities are favored is sports  (except hockey), but even there inherent prejudice prevented minority representation for decades. 

Yes, we do not have concentration camps, but we have slumlords and prisons where we warehouse minorities.

Trust Me (Again) on This: Back on June 14, I started to write a blog with the following sentence: “It is again fun to watch the NY Yankees.” 

I abandoned writing anything more about the Yankees as I was mindful of past criticism of my preoccupation with the team. But events, including Wednesday night’s dramatic win over the Cleveland Indians, have proven me prescient. 

So it’s on to Houston amid hopes the magical post-season for the Yanks will continue.

Statues of Limitations: In a variation on what Jesus said, let he who is without sin be memorialized with a statue.

We would have pretty empty public squares and parks if we adhered to that bromide.

George Washington was a slave holder. So was Thomas Jefferson. Teddy Roosevelt’s ego prompted him to try to unseat his hand-picked successor, William Howard Taft. He split the Republican Party in 1912, assuring Woodrow Wilson’s election as president. Wilson was racist and less than enthusiastic about granting women the right to vote. Franklin Delano Roosevelt had to be pushed by wife Eleanor on civil rights while failing to enable immigration by Jews fleeing Europe terrorized by Nazi Germany. John F. Kennedy led us down the Vietnam rabbit hole. 

Okay, politicians are easy targets. A few weeks ago I suggested that “for every Confederate statue taken down, how about replacing it with a statue of a true hero, such as a doctor whose breakthrough discovery or surgical procedure has saved thousands if not millions of lives. Jonas Salk. Michael DeBakey. Albert Sabin. Denton Cooley.”

But what about the doctor credited with being the father of modern gynecology, J. Marion Sims? Seems he operated on black slaves without anesthesia or informed consent. In New York City and Columbia, SC, protestors want statues of Sims removed (https://nyti.ms/2vLDZfD).

In other words, it is difficult to find unimpeachably deserving humans (even statues dedicated to animals are not immune to criticism, as Gail Collins of The New York Times noted: https://nyti.ms/2yOv3ok).

Which brings us to the man of the moment past, Christopher Columbus. By many accounts Columbus was vain. A self-aggrandizer out to make his fortune.

Columbus was a product of his times. Which means he acquiesced to religious authorities and did not think it barbaric to invade settled land and forcibly impose Catholicism on the inhabitants. He was a tyrant as a governor. 

But should his statue be removed from public display? I think not. Columbus opened up the Age of Discovery, though there is little doubt, if not Columbus, someone else would have crossed the Atlantic to more fanfare than Leif Erickson did hundreds of years before. 

I am not unsympathetic to the desire to recognize Indigenous People of the Americas and Caribbean. They should be memorialized while statues of Columbus should include information about the impact he had on their cultures and lives. 

Robert E. Lee, on the other hand, is not a comparable figure to Columbus. Lee, and other Southern military figures and politicians, had a clear choice—fight for preservation of the Union, or lead an army of insurrection against the Union, the keystone purpose of which was to extend the brutally cruel and inhumane practice of slavery. Nothing Lee did before or after his fateful decision to choose the latter course of action can justify treason, much less his being honored by statues, the purpose of which is clearly meant to glorify the South.  

Romo Time: It’s a measure of how old I am and how young or unknowing some sports reporters and many fans are that I am befuddled by the football world going ga-ga over Tony Romo’s debut as a game analyst. As reported in The New York Times, the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback in his first year as a CBS commentator is being hailed as a “play-calling whisperer” for his ability to prognosticate the next offensive play (https://nyti.ms/2fGPu2D). 

By far the best seer of the next play was Al DeRogatis. A former All-Pro defensive tackle for the New York Giants, DeRo would mesmerize listeners of WNEW-AM radio with his knowledge of the game and ability to predict the offense Charlie Conerly, Y.A. Tittle and their successors would run. Paired with play-by-play announcer Marty Glickman, DeRogatis enticed fans like me to muffle the sound of the television game broadcasts so we could simulcast their radio transmission.   

This less than fulfilling Giants season aside, one of the worst losses in team history was the day in 1966 NBC tapped DeRogatis as the color analyst for its national broadcasts. Giants games have never been the same.

As if Giants fans currently did not have enough team anguish, we were saddened this week by the death of Y.A. Tittle. To me, he was a seminal figure, perhaps because with his balding head he resembled my father, though Dad hardly possessed his athletic skills. 

To football fans he is most remembered by an iconic photo taken during one of his last games in 1964, when he was 38. Having been crushed by a 280-lb. Pittsburgh Steeler lineman, Tittle is pictured on his haunches, his shoulders drooped forward, his face in a daze as blood drips down his helmetless head. I remember seeing that play. 

For the prior three seasons Tittle had led the Giants to the NFL championship game, all losses. With our quarterback staring blankly at the grass before him, the future of the Giants was as bleak as it appears for this year’s 0-5 team (https://nyti.ms/2yT1pOU).  

Playboy of the Western World: I never met the recently departed Hugh Hefner but I did stay at one of Playboy’s resort hotels. Okay, I’m exaggerating, a little. By the time I stayed at the Grand Geneva Resort & Spa in Lake Geneva, Wis., the hotel had long passed its heyday as a pleasure spot. The only bunnies romping around and bopping their tails were the short, four-legged kind. 

My memory of the hotel is one of loss, specifically the loss of a business account that had yielded $100,000 each year. We lost that business because I am a lousy golfer.

My magazine in 1998 and 1999 co-produced a retail conference for Siemens Nixdorf (SN) in exchange for $100,000 annually in advertising. Each meeting ended with a golf tournament. I had successfully avoided playing in 1998 when the conference was at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs. 

Though I begged off playing in 1999, SN’s national sales manager insisted I join his foursome. We’d be playing a scramble format, requiring each player to be responsible for at least one shot per hole.

Golf is most definitely not my game. I could not hit a decent shot all afternoon. I was frustrated. Siemens’ national sales manager was infuriated he did not win his own tournament. My magazine lost an account it took us 10 years to recover, and then only after the sales manager left Siemens. 

Trivial Pursuits: Baseball, Playboy, Politics

I was scheduled to be spending Tuesday night contemplating a royal flush in diamonds, or maybe spades, as part of a monthly poker game. Instead, I will be looking at a diamond flush with Royals of the Kansas City variety. 

I’m a Yankees fan, so I really have no vested interest in the outcome of the World Series which began Tuesday night in Kansas City between the aforementioned Royals and the NY Mets, except that I harbor three eternal memories involving the Royals and Yankees—Chris Chambliss breaking the Royals’ hearts in 1976 by smacking a bottom-of-the-ninth-pennant-winning home run to launch the Yanks into their first World Series in 12 years. Chambliss’ attempt to run around the bases, barreling over jubilant fans, added humor to the excitement (http://m.mlb.com/video/v2685726); 

KC’s George Brett going ballistic after his home run in the old Yankee Stadium in 1983 was invalidated and he was declared out because there was too much pine tar on his bat, a ruling subsequently reversed (https://youtu.be/PrTYdlaqtxE); 

and Willie Randolph being thrown out at home plate by Brett during the 1980 American League Championship Series. Randolph was waved home by third base coach Mike Ferraro. Owner George Steinbrenner wanted to fire Ferraro, but manager Dick Howser refused, leading to his own firing or retirement (depending on your point of view) and his subsequent hiring by the Royals, the team he led five years later to its only World Series title (https://youtu.be/3uRX9Jwqx-I).

Well, enough of Yankee history. This is, after all, a time to celebrate that other New York baseball team, not the one that has won 27 championships to just two for the Mets. I haven’t followed who the oddsmakers have labeled the favorite, but it would be hard to bet against the Mets given their starting pitchers and closer. The four Mets starters are as dominant as the bunch the Atlanta Braves trotted out during the 1990s and early 2000s and the Baltimore Orioles fronted in 1971 when they had four starters win at least 20 games. But keep in mind, The O’s lost the Series that year, and Atlanta won just one championship despite making the playoffs 13 out of 14 years and being in the World Series five times. 

If you detect a slight edge to my analysis it’s because I’m bummed out that the Mets have pre-empted poker. I even volunteered to host as a TV is next to my game table. But nooooo, my Series-starved Mets-fans compatriots are too hepped up to play and watch at the same time. 

Okay, I get it. But I do hope they care more for the future of our country. I hope they place politics above baseball and tune into the Republican Party presidential debate Wednesday night. Is that asking too much?

Barber Shop Blue: When I turned 40 Gilda threw me a surprise birthday party. Among the presents I received that night were a few copies of Playboy. During the party I went upstairs and saw 10-year-old Dan’s bedroom door closed. Curious, I opened it to find him and two friends poring over the Playboys. I discreetly closed the door before rejoining the adults downstairs.

My first exposure to Playboy was at Paul’s Barber Shop on Avenue X between East 21st and 22nd Streets in Brooklyn, a short 5-7 minute walk from our home on Avenue W. Paul’s was an old-fashioned barber shop back in the 1950s and 1960s. During my single digit years I was content to read the comic books supplied (mostly Superman and Archie) and finish off my haircuts with a free wad of Bazooka Joe Bubble Gum. 

But in my teenage years, with Frank joining the barbering staff and doing razor cuts to control my naturally curly hair, Playboys started showing up on the magazine tables. I don’t think I have to tell you, I did not read Playboy for the articles. 

Really? Here’s what ticks me off about Conservative Republicans—a friend of mine emailed photos of George W. Bush interacting with injured servicemen during his presidency with the following caption: “Have you seen any photos like these in the last 6 years? Me neither.” 

“Surely you jest,” I responded. “Please don’t tell me you are extolling the man who put our brave soldiers in harm’s way under false pretenses, the man who is responsible for more American military deaths than any president since Richard Nixon, the man who is responsible for two wars that have mired us in trillions of dollars of debt? 

“Please don’t tell me you applaud him. And please don’t believe that Obama has not interfaced with our troops. And let’s not forget that Obama has comforted too many of our fellow citizens bereft by mass killers that the NRA and its acolytes, including your friend George, refuse to stand up to.” 

Hillary Time, A Correction and More Debate Thoughts

It’s almost time Tuesday night for the beginning of two weeks worth of Hillary Time. Here’s what I’d like to see from Hillary Rodham Clinton during the first Democratic Party presidential debate and as the key witness in the interminable Select House Benghazi Investigation committee hearing next week.

During the debate, Hillary—by the way, I am as guilty as other sexist commentators who refer to her by first name instead of her surname as opposed to using her family name as is usually done for male candidates, except, of course, when referring to The Donald—anyway, Hillary needs to be assertive and engaging. She needs to clarify her differences with Bernie Sanders without antagonizing his supporters. She must explain how she would accomplish more than Barack Obama did when working (or should I say trying to work) with a Republican controlled Senate and House. 

I have nothing against Sanders except the belief that he is unelectable (as are the three other announced candidates: Lincoln Chafee, Martin O’Malley and Jim Webb—you’ll notice I did not provide any description of their past titles. If you don’t know what offices they held you can understand why I am skeptical about their chances. I’m not going to spend the time mulling over Joe Biden’s entry/non entry into the race. Back to Bernie—can you imagine what the Republicans would do with his self-confessed claim of being a Democratic Socialist? No amount of explaining the concept would mitigate the extreme slurs that would be imprinted on the electorate’s psyche. Shades of Willie Horton, for those old enough to know the reference.). 

That said, here are some questions I hope to see asked and answered during the debate: 

*Given the very real prospect that both houses of Congress will be controlled by Republicans in 2017-18, what specifically do you feel you can accomplish legislatively?

*How would you balance income inequality given the GOP congress?

*Will you run on the Obama record?

*What changes, if any, would you like to see in the Affordable Care Act?

*What specific piece of enacted legislation are you most proud of having been the primary sponsor?

*Specifically asked of Hillary—Given polling data, how will you build trust with the American people?

*Many of the questions I posed after the second Republican debate would be applicable, so here’s a link to that post: http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2015/09/questions-for-next-debate.html

Time to Testify: Next week Hillary cannot allow the select committee to manhandle her. She must not equivocate and must not allow committee members to interrupt her testimony. 

Recent news events have made it obvious the committee is political hackery to the extreme. Hillary should take a page from history and vigorously defend herself the same way Joseph Welch, chief counsel for the U.S. Army, rebutted Senator Joseph McCarthy’s assault on the integrity of the Army and the suspicion it, and his law office, had been infiltrated by Communists.

“Have you no sense of decency,” Welch’s acerbic rebuke of McCarthy, entered the lexicon of American politics. 

If the committee hearing devolves into a one-sided inquisition, Hillary should sternly state her unwillingness to participate any further and walk out, even if the committee threatens to hold her in contempt.  

How ironic that the congressman who exposed the political intent of the select committee, to undermine Hillary’s candidacy, shares the Wisconsin senator’s last name—McCarthy!

Correction Time: I was tripped up in my religious reporting. Pope Francis gave Kim Davis a rosary, not simply a crucifix. A rosary encompasses a cross which dangles at the end of beads.

More Debate Thoughts: And now more words about The Great Debate—was Chase Utley guilty of an illegal slide that broke the leg of NY Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada? 

First, a confession: I’m a NY Yankees fan. I don’t like the Mets. My bias notwithstanding, I believe Utley played old fashioned hardball, the type played by Pete Rose, Frank Robinson, Ty Cobb, Jackie Robinson. 

They played to win, not injure. It’s unfortunate Tejada sustained a season-ending injury. Let’s keep the play in perspective. The most often printed baseball picture for many years was a shortstop or second baseman leaping to avoid a baserunner’s slide meant to plant him in the left field bleachers if a double play relay throw could be averted. 

Utley did his job. Major League Baseball should let the players police themselves. Utley plays second base. He will have to watch out every time he cover the base, especially when it’s a Met barreling down on him. 

My Tom Hanks Moment and Other Odds and Ends

Did you see the article or hear about Tom Hanks finding in Central Park the lost student ID card of a Fordham University undergraduate and then tweeting his discovery, “Lauren! I found your Student ID in the park. If you still need it my office will get to you. Hanx.”? 

The tweet included a picture of Hanks holding the photo ID card (http://strib.mn/1Lh7Mhv) (http://www.today.com/popculture/tom-hanks-finds-fordham-students-lost-id-wants-give-it-t48601)

Though we live during a social network age largely populated by the young, believe it or not Lauren did not have a Twitter account. She was thus oblivious to her star-savior until one of her professors sent her a link to Twitter. Now she’s into her 15-minutes of fame and has appeared on television.

I bring this to your attention because of my own quest to return a picture of a comely looking college student I found as I walked across the quadrangle of Brooklyn College one day in the fall of 1969. She appeared attractive enough to ask out (this transpired just weeks before my Gilda Days began, so please don’t think I was two-timing my future wife). 

Back then not everyone could marshall the resources required to find the pictured coed, whose name was either Judy or Linda—both monikers were written on the back of the photo. I, however, was editor-in-chief of Calling Card, the newspaper of the House Plan Association. I had the means and the moxie to print the head shot on the front page of our next issue under the headline “Lost & Found.” 

Sure enough, my scheme produced the intended result. Judy-Linda showed up a few days later at the Calling Card office. Alas, I didn’t ask her out. Her picture did her more than justice. 

No word on what she thought of how I looked.

Time to catch up on some recent newsworthy events:

Our long (two years, a looooong time for Yankee fans!) national nightmare is over. We are back in the baseball playoffs. Well, by the time I got around to actually posting this brief, our time in the playoffs was mercilessly brief. We succumbed 3-zip to the Houston Astros. 

Our beloved Bronx Bombers were flawed in more ways than I care to recount. But we still won more games than 11 other teams in the American League and 10 in the National League and that is good enough for me. Twenty of those other teams failed to make the playoffs.

Did anyone else see a similarity between the head of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, when she testified before Congress recently and Claire Underwood, the wife of the fictitious Frank Underwood of House of Cards? Tall, with short blonde hair and a self assurance that refuses to fade when confronted by men of intolerance and ignorance.

As the saying goes, it is hard to put the cat back into the bag once it is out.

It doesn’t matter who arranged the meeting between Pope Francis and Kim Davis, the rogue Kentucky county clerk who has denied marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Plenty of ill-informed people will believe the pontiff endorsed Davis. Like corrections buried deep inside a newspaper, the story line too many people will remember is the pope greeting Davis and giving her a crucifix, not that he was duped into meeting her by his representative in Washington. 

The lesson we can all take away from this affair is that even the Vatican is not off limits to political machinations (of course we knew that already but this was a very public display of a subjective agenda meant to undermine and embarrass a popular pope while advancing rigid church dogma not sufficiently supported in public by the leader of the Catholic faith).  

Let ’em Go: Government officials have admitted it is hard to stop American zealots from traveling to ISIS-controlled regions to join the Islamic terrorists. I say, “Let ’em Go.”

But with a caveat—revoke their American citizenship so they can’t return easily to the United States, or, at the very least, incarcerate them if they show up on our shores. 

Let them go to get killed in the desert. If they find living in this country so terrible, let them discover what life in the caliphate will truly mean. Let them go inflict mayhem on other Muslims if they can, not as some sleeper terrorist on unsuspecting Americans inside the U.S. I am not anti-Muslim. It’s just that it is time for the vast majority of Muslims to stand up for their religion and exterminate the cancer from within. Outsiders cannot do it without fomenting anti-Western civilization hatred.  

Hard to Believe My Son's 35 Today

Hard to believe, our son Daniel turned 35 today. Gilda and I can’t believe we’re that old, er, I mean, he’s that old. Seems like just yesterday Gilda told me not to go to work one Friday morning as contractions had started and it was time to go to the hospital. Some 16 hours later Dan finally decided to slide down the chute and change our lives forever.

I did some fall cleanup today, clearing out the shed in our yard. Out went an old perambulator, one of those big baby carriages common before the umbrella stroller and other modern conveyances turned baby portage into a fast-paced affair. We hardly ever transported Dan in this baby carriage which Gilda’s sister Barbara had used for her children. Shortly after Dan was born we installed a woodburning stove in the fireplace in the living room of our first home. We heated most of our house with wood I would gather as I drove around in my Chevy Vega, a chain saw in the back ready to cut up any fallen branches I came across. I used the baby carriage to move firewood from the driveway to the yard to a temporary pile on the porch. With its big wheels the baby carriage plowed through winter snow, even when weighted down by seven or eight logs. 

We don’t use the woodburning stove in the den of our current home very much; it was time to sever ties with the baby carriage. I’m nostalgic about it, not because Dan rode in it, but rather because it evoked memories of when we were younger, a time when I played lumberjack and the cozy warmth of a fire made our home toasty.

Eddie Mathews: Do you know who he is? He is a Hall of Fame third basemen who played most of his 17-year career with the Boston/Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves in the 1950s-1960s. I wasn’t a Braves fan. Neither was my brother Bernie, but one of the earliest of his baseball gloves was an Eddie Mathews model. I found his old, four-fingered glove at the bottom of a pile of sporting goods I was cleaning out today in the garage. Old doesn’t begin to describe its condition. It needs new stringing to keep the fingers together. The leather is dirty and maybe even moldy, but surprisingly, not cracked. I’ll give it some tender loving care and oil it up, though I’m not promising to give it back to him, despite his B. Forseter still legible across the band at the top of the glove. 

Pressure Picks: Who do you like in Monday night’s football game, the NY Giants or the Minnesota Vikings? The Giants are 0-6, the Vikings 1-4, so it’s not as if this game is between two powerhouse teams. I ask the question because for the second year I have joined a football pool and before Sunday’s games I was tied for third place among the 26 players. I might have had more points had I not remained loyal to the Giants, and been disappointed, for most of their games (I actually picked against them one game). 

I don’t have any scientific method for choosing winners. I don’t study results or injury reports as other pickers do. Success, so far, does mean there’s more pressure to pick winners. This week I’m on track for my lowest weekly total of the season.

2013 has not been a good year for my sporting life. The Yankees succumbed. The Rangers floundered on ice. The Giants are on life support (a charitable assessment). The teams I don’t want to win are winning—I root against the Jets, yet they beat the New England Patriots in overtime today. I also don’t want the Washington Redskins to win, but they edged the Chicago Bears in the last minute today, an achievement the Giants failed to do last week. Aargh! I hate the Red Sox, but they triumphed over the Detroit Tigers to make it to the World Series. At least the Mets didn’t disappoint. 

Splat Goes Wrestling

Even as I profess liberal and progressive stances in politics and social issues, I’m a traditionalist when it comes to sports (that doesn’t mean the Yankees have to win the World Series every year, though that would be nice. A little tedious to anyone not a Yankees fan, but who cares about them, anyway?).

I’m not really a big Olympics follower, but I do lament the decision by the International Olympic Committee’s 15-member executive board to drop freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling from the 26 sports to be included in the 2020 Summer Games. Wrestling was part of the original competition in ancient Greece when the Helenists first gathered in 708 BCE to crown champions of the body. Wrestling has been part of the Modern Olympics since 1896. People of all sizes and shapes can participate, not just the humongous, gargantuan or muscular as in other sports, such as weight lifting, basketball or gymnastics.

I never wrestled, not counting, of course, the ‘rastling my brother Bernie and I did growing up. We’d roughhouse in our bedroom until one of us (guess who?) would wind up crying and the other would retreat to the bathroom, leaving the former to bear the brunt of parental admonishment.

The IOC, it is said, is trying to be more modern in its appeal. After all, how many movies can you name that included wrestling? The World According to Garp. That’s one. And Win Win, which, coincidentally, is being shown on various HBO stations this week. Can you name another? OK, let’s count Requiem for a Heavyweight even though Harlan "Mountain" McClintock was more of a washed-up boxer than a wrestler. And there’s the first Spider-Man movie where Peter Parker enters the wrestling ring to earn money for a car. And who can forget Man on the Moon, the biographical flick of comedian Andy Kaufman which included his wrestling women.  

So there’s some theatrical history with wrestling and, according to The NY Times, the sport has broad global appeal. At least 180 countries have governing bodies for wrestling. During the last Olympics in London, 29 countries won medals in wrestling. 

If the IOC can make wrestling say uncle, who knows which sport will be next on the target list? Perhaps the Winter Olympics will sweep curling away. Or maybe the biathlon that combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting, though it’s hard to imagine the National Rifle Association sitting still if such an eventuality were to come to pass. 

It’s possible wrestling can get a late reprieve when the Olympic Committee meets again during the summer to consider which sport will become the 26th part of the two week extravaganza. Wrestling will be competing with rock climbing, rollerblading and wakeboarding for that coveted spot. Let’s consider these sports. Only one—wrestling—has as its objective forcing your opponent to sustain a hard and unexpected landing from maybe two feet above ground. The three others have the “splat” effect of unintended falls. In this television age, where wipeouts are theater, wrestling doesn’t stand a chance. 

Tigers Lose; Yanks, Mets Win

The Detroit Tigers did more than just lose the World Series to the San Francisco Giants Sunday night. They purged New York baseball of two forgettable, embarrassing memories.

Detroit reached the series this year by emasculating the Yankees. They swept the Yankees four straight, limiting New York’s scoring to just three innings over four games (39 innings). Their chief nemesis was a former Yankee, left-handed relief pitcher Phil Coke. He completely shut down the Bronx Bombers in all four games. Miguel Cabrera, this years triple crown winner and certain most valuable player, catapulted the Tigers into the World Series by smacking a home run in the final win over the Yankees. Detroit’s starting pitchers—Doug Fister, Anibel Sanchez, Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer—manhandled the Yankees. Yankee fans were depressed.

Oh how emotions can change in a week. Detroit’s bats went as silent as  the Yankees’. San Francisco’s pitchers shut them out in two games. Detroit scored runs in just four out of 37 innings. They were as inept as the Yanks had been when hitting with runners in scoring position. Fister, Sanchez, and Verlander lost games. In perfect payback, Coke lost the final game.

The Yankees and their fans could feel a little less frazzled by the team’s failure in the playoffs.

And for good added measure, the NY Mets, their former all-star outfielder Carlos Beltran and their fans may sleep a little easier after watching Cabrera take a called third strike to end the Series when all of Detroit was hoping for a home run to tie the game, or at the very least a hit to prolong the contest. Shades of Beltran standing immobile at the plate, his bat on his shoulder, to end the seventh game against the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2006 National League Championship Series.

Vindication?  No. Absolution? No. Just recognition that hitting a baseball, especially at a critical time, is among the most difficult sporting feats. New York baseball, once the home of the Giants, salutes the world champions for giving us back some measure of sanity and acceptance that every season cannot end with a salute down the Canyon of Heroes in Lower Manhattan.

Prophecy Fulfilled

After complaining all season long about the inability of the NY Yankees to hit with men in scoring position, to score runs other than by hitting the ball out of the park, am I justified in being depressed about their futile performance in the post season? I meant to post this entry two days ago but was too depressed to write it. Imagine how bad I’d feel if I had not anticipated the result.

Making it past the Baltimore Orioles in the first playoff round did not camouflage their flaws as a team. Nobody wants to lose but what's galling to Yankee fans is the way the team went down. They batted like Little Leaguers swinging at balls way inside, outside, in the dirt or at eye level. Pitches down the middle they took for strikes. They tried to hit an impossible five-run home run each at bat. They don't employ situational hitting. No sacrifice flies. No hitting to the opposite field to advance a runner. The few times they worked a full count they usually wound up striking out. It was painful to watch, especially when the graphic displayed by TBS showed them swinging at balls and taking strikes. It was painful because most of the pitchers who dominated them were just mediocre. They've made them into giant killers. The Yanks turned journeymen Phil Coke and rookie Drew Smyly into a latter day Sparky Lyle and John Franco. At the same time Yankee hurlers pitched their hearts out most of the time but received little support at bat or in the field. 

It was a total team loss. They couldn't hit, hit with power or with men in scoring position, they couldn't pitch perfectly and their fielding lapses—not always errors—led to decisive runs. The only things they didn't do wrong was run the bases poorly or hit into double plays. But for those you have to have men on base and the Yankees had depressingly few such opportunities.

Total domination. Don't fool yourself into believing the outcome would have been different had the Yankees won the first game. They'd have lost the series 4-1. Their only moral victory was knocking out the Tigers’ closer in game one. It didn't matter.  Years ago the NY Football Giants routed the San Francisco 49'ers 49-3. SF wide receiver Jerry Rice was asked if the game would have turned out differently if he hadn't fumbled without being touched on his way to an easy touchdown on his team’s first possession. Yes, he conceded, the final score would have been different. It would have been 49-10. Rice comprehended the total annihilation his team had sustained. No Yankee or fan should delude themselves into thinking any differently even had Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera been upright and active.

So what should the Yankees do? It begins by first recognizing that the first order of baseball business is making the playoffs. They succeeded this year, and most other recent years, but it will be harder to win their division given a resurgent Baltimore team and what should be an improved Toronto squad once all the injured Blue Jays heal. The Yankees keep getting older while the opposition gets younger and hungrier. 

What can be done? The Yanks are set at first, second and shortstop. Alex Rodriguez at third is a high-priced singles hitter. But he's still good defensively and as long as you only expect 20 or so home runs a year from him you won't be disappointed. He won't be able to carry the team for games at a time. Singles hitters aren't expected to.

Should they resign Ichiro Suzuki? Only if they commit to a more Punch and Judy National League style of play. Scrap the home run strategy. Scratch out runs by stealing bases. Hitting behind the runner. Hitting to the opposite field. Sacrifice bunt. Sacrifice fly. Turn the Bronx Bombers into the Bronx Bunters or Bronx Afterburners. Turn Eduardo Nunez into a left fielder to keep his bat in the game. Shift Ichiro to right. Commit to Brett Gardner as your center fielder. Trade Curtis Granderson for a starting pitcher and an outfield or infield prospect. Let Nick Swisher go, or sign him and then trade him for another starting pitcher. Resign catcher Russell Martin. For the bench resign Raul Ibanez, Jayson Nix, and Chris Stewart. Find a right-handed batting replacement for Andruw Jones. Perhaps young Melky Mesa. Overall, instead of the 245 home runs the Yankees hit in 2012, they’ll be fortunate to hit 150, but total run production might not drop too much because of more rallies.

The go-go strategy works only if pitching is tight. Yankee starters next year could include C.C. Sabathia, Hiroki Kuroda, Andy Pettitte (if he chooses to return), Michael Pineda and Ivan Nova. Plus anone they might get for Granderson or Swisher. It's a good, not great, starting rotation, but competent enough to keep them in games provided the bullpen is solid again. So I’d keep Boone Logan, David Robertson, Joba Chamberlain, Clay Rapada, Cody Eppley and Raphael Soriano, along with a returning Mariano. The pitching should be good enough to get them back into the playoffs. After that it’s a crap shoot. Remember, the team has lost when trying to bomb its way to a championship. It would be exciting to watch them slap some hits, run, and hit and run their way to a title. 

Some final baseball thoughts: The Detroit Tigers deserved to beat the Yankees. Their star players came through in the clutch, as did their role players and rookies. A total team effort. At least Jeter didn’t have to be part of his team’s debacle, though he might always remember his inability to drive in the winning run in the 10th inning of the first game prolonged the game in which he was injured in the 12th inning. Second, at least A-Rod didn’t make the last out of the season. That “honor” went to Jayson Nix. Third, in the words of Mike Lupica, The Daily News sports columnist and ESPN radio host, today marks the official start of the football season in New York (though it might have unofficially started with Jeter’s ankle injury which has been described as more common to football players than baseball players).

Losing It

I’m losing stuff around the house, and I’m not talking about the normal things one can’t find, such as a single sock in the laundry. I actually solved that problem several years ago by safety pinning pairs of socks together. My current laundry loss is one of those plastic dryer balls that replace the chemical dryer sheets like Bounce we used to put in with the laundry. The spiked dryer balls tend to hide in the folds of fitted sheets, but I searched all my bed linens to no avail. Weird.

Also strange are the nearly empty water jugs I kept in the basement following last year’s storms that cut power in many areas. Survival experts suggested you keep several gallons of water on hand, so I dutifully bought a couple of two-gallon plastic containers of water to store in the basement. Last week I noticed they were almost empty. No telltale puddles or water marks around them. So much for disaster preparedness. 

If Mitt Romney wins the election he’s expressed a commitment to eliminate funding for Public Broadcasting Service, including Sesame Street and its signature character, Big Bird. Putting aside the left-wing mind-control argument Republicans have postulated about Sesame Street, the now 43-year-old children’s educational program has been a fount of early learning.

When one of our nephews was a toddler, his mother sat him in front of the television to watch the then new show. Some months later, he stunned her by reading the label of a cereal box. As she and her husband had not practiced reading with him, the only explanation was Sesame Street. 

Gilda and I employed Sesame Street when our kids were young. Saturday mornings we’d let Dan and Ellie watch Sesame Street and Electric Company as we lounged in bed. We, along with tens of thousands of other parents, protested when PBS changed its Saturday morning programming from kid-friendly to politics and business shows. I think we might have stopped sending money to PBS for a while.

Over the Columbus Day weekend Gilda and I visited Dan, Allison, Finley and Dagny in their new home in Acton, Mass. They live in the Fifth Congressional District represented by Niki Tsongas, widow of Paul Tsongas, the former U.S. Senator and one-time Democratic presidential hopeful. I met both of them during a business trip to New Hampshire in early 1992.

Before boarding the shuttle flight to Boston from LaGuardia, I recognized Tsongas. As luck would have it, I sat across the aisle from him. But he never looked my way during our time waiting for takeoff. His body was shifted toward his wife’s window seat. I’m notorious for falling asleep on airplanes even before getting airborne, so I fretted about missing an opportunity to talk with him.

I tried to stay awake by reading The NY Times. I was midway through the first section of the paper when I saw my opportunity. After finishing an article on Tsongas’ chances in the upcoming New Hampshire primary, I tapped him on the shoulder and said I couldn’t resist talking to the man profiled in the article I had just read. He was most gracious. We chatted for several minutes. When I told him I was headed to New Hampshire, he joked he had spent some time there himself. 

Last night while watching the Yankees-Orioles playoff baseball game, I believe I heard John Smoltz, one of the announcers, say he wanted to get a ride on one of the blimps providing overhead shots of the game and surroundings. I can empathize with him.

Back in 1972, as part of a graduate journalism program at the Newhouse School of Public Communications of Syracuse University, my class covered the Florida presidential primary. We were stationed in Miami. I was assigned to follow the campaign of John Ashbrook, a conservative Republican congressman from Ohio. He had little chance of winning, especially in the Miami area, so I had lots of free time. Two of my classmates and I came upon the Goodyear blimp moored at a field. The blimp was there for coverage of a sporting event some days later. We talked up the crew who promised us a free ride the next day. When we arrived Tuesday morning at the mooring site, the blimp was not there. Seems Walter Cronkite’s crew had been ordered to film Miami vistas for that evening’s election coverage. I never forgave Cronkite for pre-empting my chance to float in air.

There’s a truism in sports—never let a weaker opponent stick around. Score points early and often, so they’ll be discouraged and give up. If you let them hang around, they could surprise you and win. What’s true of sports is also true of politics. Barack Obama, an avid sports fan, has just learned the truth of that aphorism with his lackadaisical performance during last week’s debate with Romney. 

What possessed him to breathe new life into his opponent’s chances is beyond anyone’s analytic powers. Perhaps he himself can’t explain why he played the debate the way he did. I can’t explain it any more than I can explain where my dryer ball disappeared to or why there was no telltale sign of my stored water. I can replace the dryer ball and the water. The question is, can Obama replace the lost affection and momentum among his supporters and undecided voters? 

Chick-fil-A and Other Food for Thought

Lots of news and views to review from the last week or so ...

So liberal-minded cities and universities have rallied against Chick-fil-A because its president voiced religious opposition to same-sex marriage. Not a position I would endorse but probably not one solely held by Dan T. Cathy, son of the founder, S. Truett Cathy, a deeply religious man whose beliefs are underscored by keeping all 1,600 of his restaurants closed on Sundays.

The liberal elite wants to make an example of Chick-fil-A, denying it permission to open new units or by revoking existing permits. I wonder, though, would these same liberals denounce one of their store favorites if they knew it harbored similar anti-gay biases? As Matt Bai reported in the July 22 NY Times Sunday magazine, Target in 2010 contributed $150,000 to a Minnesota group backing a conservative candidate opposing gay marriage. 

During Sunday night’s telecast of the NY Yankees-Boston Red Sox game, the camera lingered on Paul Simon in the box seats at Yankee Stadium. Yes, he’s worth pointing out to the audience. But what about the mustachioed gentleman sitting to his left? He probably wields as much influence, if not more, than Simon, though not as an entertainer. He does it with the weight of his ideas, the scope of his vision, the power of his reasoning. That man was Thomas L. Friedman, foreign affairs columnist for The NY Times. Sadly, neither the broadcasters on ESPN nor the people in the control booth had any idea who he was.

Sticking with foreign affairs, Mitt Romney continued his gaffe-prone world tour, this time praising Poland’s vibrant economy while ignoring its 12% unemployment rate (50% higher than U.S. jobless rate), and lauding Solidarity for its part in overturning Communist rule. Solidarity, however, reacted coolly to Romney’s visit because of his anti-union positions in America. Former Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, on the other hand, who invited Romney to Poland, praised him.

On a topic that can be classified as “nothing new here,” an article suggesting Barack Obama’s mother might have had African ancestry has caused quite a stir, with conservative commentators suggesting it’s merely a ploy to make the president’s life story appear more appealing while liberals are fascinated by the possibility. 

Regardless of its veracity, the research by Ancestry.com demonstrated that just as happens today, in the distant past blacks received unequal, more severe punishment for identical crimes committed by whites. According to Ancestry.com, a geneology company based in Provo, Utah, an African indentured servant named John Punch escaped from Virginia in 1640. After his capture in Maryland along with two white escapees, Punch received a life sentence of servitude, a punishment “harsher than what the white servants received,” The Times reported. The two white men received just four additional years of servitude.

Klimt-o-maniac and Other Faux Pas

Do you like to be reminded of your embarrassing moments? Obviously I do, otherwise this blog site would be much leaner. Being able to take a joke, be at the receiving end of repartee, is a trait to be cherished, so much so that the company I worked for included an analysis of one’s sense of humor, defined as not taking oneself too seriously, as part of its mandatory psychological test for all new hires.  

All that by way of reporting to you that this morning’s Weekend Arts section of The NY Times carried a 6-1/4” x 5” photo of Gustav Klimt’s “The Black Feather Hat (Lady with Feather Hat)” that is part of the Neue Galerie’s 150th anniversary celebration of the birth of the artist. The Vienna-born Klimt is remembered most for his stunning and somewhat haunting portraits of Adele Bloch-Bauer, the most memorable of which hangs in the Neue Galerie on Fifth Avenue at 86th Street.

How this tidbit of art news relates to my embarrassing moment centers on other Klimt paintings that hang in the Belvedere Palace in Vienna, which our family visited back in the summer of 2007. Enchanted by Klimt’s The Kiss, I wanted to point out a detail to Gilda. As a bifocal wearer, I’ve always had difficulty at museums gauging distances to paintings, no more so than when I extended my right index finger toward The Kiss. I accidentally, repeat, accidentally, touched the painting’s protective glass shield. Alarm bells blared. I jumped back, waving my hands like an umpire signaling “safe.” My family, especially Ellie who works for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was mortified. I beat a hasty retreat from The Kiss. 

My manual dexterity, like my eyesight, leaves much to be desired, so whenever I manage to fix anything around the house I consider that more than a minor miracle. So does Gilda. Currently, I’m on a hot streak. Within the last two weeks I fixed mirrored bi-folding doors of Gilda’s main closet (careful readers would deduce she has more than one closet) and replaced the electric timer for our outdoor lights. The last time I tried to stretch my winning streak to three, I flooded the basement of our first house. If you care to read about that sad enterprise, here’s a link: http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2010/06/water-water-everywhere.html

Olympic Moment: Are you primed for the Olympics, beginning tonight? I can’t say I am. Not being a swimmer, I don’t relate to human fish knifing through the water, or doing somersaults on their way down from 12 meters above the surface. Nor do I get too excited about basketball. Or soccer. Or Greco-Roman wrestling. Or weightlifting. Definitely not weightlifting. 

The last sprinter that captivated me was Wilma Rudolph in the 1960 Olympics in Rome. I’m not a total snob when it comes to the Olympics. I do thrill to individual accomplishments, like that of Usain Bolt. But for the most part, over the next two weeks I suspect I will watch more Yankees games than Olympic moments. Tough choice tonight—opening ceremonies or Yanks vs. the hated Red Sox. Picture-in-a-picture, anyone?

Obamacare for Corn, Ichiro, Banking, Neo-Cons

(Editor’s note: Slight delay in posting today’s blog as I was constrained by holding Dagny during a quick trip to Boston to visit the new granddaughter and her brother Finley.)

As news reports of the drought across much of the nation, particularly in the breadbasket corn belt states of Iowa, Illinois and Indiana, kept spreading in the media, I turned to Gilda last week to sarcastically suggest it wouldn’t be too long before President Obama would be blamed for this catastrophe. Sure enough, on Tuesday night’s Colbert Report, host Stephen Colbert reacted to information that 90% of Iowa farmers had federal crop insurance by declaring it “Obamacare for our corn.”

It’s not too far fetched to think Obama would be blamed. After all, many of the water-parched states are electorally red, meaning they lean toward Republican and conservative candidates. Conservatives keep calling him a socialist, and in case you haven’t heard, Russia has been suffering from drought conditions for years longer than the U.S. It’s only natural, then, that God is exacting punishment on America because of its “anti-religion” leader just as He (for sure, not a She) is doing to the godless Rooskies. 

On the other hand, perhaps God is punishing those red states for being so intolerant to those who don’t match their DNA and beliefs, such as gays, Mormons, abortion rights advocates and immigrants (legal and illegal).

Ichiro to the Rescue? Now that Ichiro Suzuki is a NY Yankee, there is speculation he may finally make it to the World Series. If their play come October in any way resembles their last seven games, however, the Yankees once again will go home before the championship contest. 

Though they have the best record to date in baseball, they are vulnerable to good pitching that limits their home run output, as the games against the Oakland A’s and the Seattle Mariners showed this week. They won just two of seven games, repeatedly failing to score runs without the aid of a home run. Teams they would face in October would have better than average pitching, so a short playoff run is not inconceivable. 

Meanwhile, Alex Rodriguez’s broken hand injury, suffered in Tuesday’s loss to Seattle, is further validation he is a schlemazel. Three Yankees were hit by pitches during the game—Derek Jeter, Ichiro and A-Rod. Only A-Rod sustained an injury. He may be out six to eight weeks. As I wrote back in February 2011, A-Rod is more schlemazel than a schlemiel. 

“For those not familiar with the Yiddish terms, a schlemiel is a person who, despite the best of intentions, always fouls up. A schlemazel is an unfortunate soul, a person to whom misadventure always falls. To gain a deeper understanding of the distinction between the two, think of a schlemiel as a bumbling waiter who spills hot soup on a patron; the person drenched by the soup is a schlemazel. Active or passive, schlemiel or schlemazel, A-Rod can’t catch a break.”

Financial Misadventures: James “Jamie” Dimon, chairman, president and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, has predicted there will be no more surprises similar to the $6 billion-and-mounting loss from speculative trading. He believes we need less, not more, regulatory oversight of the banking industry. Does anyone truly believe him?

Does anyone else find it ironic that the new basketball home of the Nets in Brooklyn will be called the Barclay Center, named for the same bank that is a key player in the Libor-fixing scandal? Barclay, along with other banks, reportedly shaved points in setting the interest rate banks charged each other to borrow funds. Hmmm...shaving points...basketball. Sports fans will immediately get the connection. All others, google “point shaving”.

Neo-Con Comeback? Mitt Romney, currently on a trip to England, Poland and Israel, leveled a broadside against President Obama’s foreign policy earlier this week. Nothing new here, it being the season of politics. Similarly, there’s nothing new about Romney’s foreign policy advisors. They’re mostly neo-conservatives, the same sad sack lot who brought us wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Does the country really want to go back to a world view based on belligerency rather than diplomacy? 

While on the subject of politics, have you noticed the terms POTUS and SCOTUS creeping into coverage and TV fare? For the uninitiated, POTUS is President of the United States; SCOTUS is Supreme Court of the United States.